Post by oldmick on Oct 21, 2013 21:22:59 GMT
Attacking the recent re-mould by Airfix of the Spitfire Mx IXc, I decided to finish it in the desert scheme ... and duly checked my paint box to see if I had the right colours as specified. The underside blue was Humbrol no 157 which is described as Azure Blue. Applying the paint, this looked decidedly darker than the colour I'd mixed for the P-40 Kittyhawk of long ago and far away, when I were a lad! I then pulled up the pix I took in 2010 of the Mk IX restored by Maltese and now displayed at the Taq'ali aviation museum there ... which was the lighter Azure Blue I remembered.
So to the bookshelf I went - Mike Bowyer's Fighting Colours did not seem to help and then I looked within British Aviation Colours of WW2, published by Arms & Armour Press in 1976 - it was one of a series they did with the RAF Museum and reproduced all the old Air Ministry Orders relating to camouflage and markings ... but the real value was the set of colour chips on a pull-out addition at the back, taken from the Colour Standards of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. And there I found not only the lighter shade - Azure Blue (of fond memory) - but also the darker blue of Humbrol no 157, which was described as Light Mediterranean Blue.
So here's the conundrum ... I now need to discover which blue to use on the model. The aircraft depicted in the kit is EN315/ZX-6 of 145 Sqn in Tunisia in May 1943. I shall, of course, be searching the interweb for corroboration, one way or t'other but in the meantime, perhaps there's someone out there that has already resolved the puzzle.
In specifying Humbrol no 157, did the researcher at Airfix really mean Azure Blue or did he mean Light Mediterranean Blue? Old Mick would like to have the model completed for Telford.
So to the bookshelf I went - Mike Bowyer's Fighting Colours did not seem to help and then I looked within British Aviation Colours of WW2, published by Arms & Armour Press in 1976 - it was one of a series they did with the RAF Museum and reproduced all the old Air Ministry Orders relating to camouflage and markings ... but the real value was the set of colour chips on a pull-out addition at the back, taken from the Colour Standards of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. And there I found not only the lighter shade - Azure Blue (of fond memory) - but also the darker blue of Humbrol no 157, which was described as Light Mediterranean Blue.
So here's the conundrum ... I now need to discover which blue to use on the model. The aircraft depicted in the kit is EN315/ZX-6 of 145 Sqn in Tunisia in May 1943. I shall, of course, be searching the interweb for corroboration, one way or t'other but in the meantime, perhaps there's someone out there that has already resolved the puzzle.
In specifying Humbrol no 157, did the researcher at Airfix really mean Azure Blue or did he mean Light Mediterranean Blue? Old Mick would like to have the model completed for Telford.