MacStingy Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Good afternoon Lately I've been building DeHaviland aircraft. I just pulled a Gipsy Moth out of the stash and I'm thinking of adding it to my production line. I have the old Frog kit and it looks pretty close to the pictures that I have. A few modifications and I should be good. I've seen photos with wing roundels and a fin flash. These of course are all B&W so I'm unable to tell the colours. does anybody have an educated guess about what might have been used? Cheers Paul Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RCAFFAN Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 (edited) There is a colour profile in Milberry's "Sixty Years" on page 61 that shows the plane as trainer yellow overall with the metal engine cowling panels in black and the entire back part(not part over the fixed vertical tail) of the rudder covered in the blue/white/red rudder stripes. The number is "164" on the fuselage side (about 3/4 of the fuselage side in height) in black just forward of the tail. The wing struts and landing gear struts are also in black. The most noticeable mod would be the long exhaust pipe running down the port side dipping down below the cockpit then up again after the cockpit and continuing about halfway down the length of the fuselage between the cockpit and the tail surfaces. The roundels are standard bright pre-war on the fuselage sides to the rear of the cockpit (below the long tailpipe) and below the lower wing (almost full span including the aileron) and I would assume the same on the upper top wing. The hardest thing to recreate would be the De Havilland Canada Moth logo on a large green mapleleaf on the (both)fuselage side before the wings to the rear of the black cowling panels. On the top of page 43 of the same book is a picture of a lineup of 15+ moths in the same scheme from the starboard side showing that the Moth emblem is on both sides. The picture has the planes on wheels while the profile is on skis for something different. I too have a few of the Frog/Novo kits but so far the logo is what has stopped me but my son is now taking commercial printing and graphics at SAIT so I hope he will be able to help me with making my own decals soon but that is just one of hundreds of projects and right now I seem to be on a Photo recon Spitfire kick so who knows. HTH Cheers Bruce P.S. There are 3 pictures of Gypsy Moths in Kostenuk and Griffin's "RCAF Squadrons and Markings" including one(page 45) of 164 from the Starboard side while serving with 112 Squadron (Auxiliary)in Winnipeg where they had Moths from April 1934 to February 1940 and this confirms the above scheme although the main colour looks much darker than yellow but I think this is probably "Ortho" type film which is known to do this with yellow. There is a photo (page 41) of Moth 158 with 110 "City of Toronto" Squadron (Auxiliary) where they served from Oct.34 to Dec.38 (photo is said to be summer 38) and this one (based on colour tonal differences) looks like it has a new replacement rudder without the blue/white/red stripes but with the number 158 repeated about the same size as fuselage (smaller than 164) in the middle of the rudder. Hope you have access to one of these sources. Edited April 3, 2014 by RCAFFAN Quote Link to post Share on other sites
HOLMES Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 interesting info... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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