Hi guys,

This is for you hard-core camo experts.

I am about to start painting a Windrider Hurricane. Thought about the BoB scheme of dark green and dark earth. But if I mount the cannons, it will be a mark IIC, and the desert scheme would look cool (and be more visible where I fly). I have read a gazillion threads in various scale modeling and re-enactor threads, and so I know that the "day fighter tropical" scheme is supposed to be dark earth and midstone over azure blue, and I have diagrams of the "A" and "B" schemes. Here is my question:

I would have thought from the manufacturer's standpoint that it would be logical to just keep painting the dark earth as usual and substitute the midstone for the green. What my diagram of the A and B schemes show, and what some (but not all) paintings of Hurricane tropical color schemes show, is that the in the desert scheme, the dark earth replaces the dark green of the temperate scheme, and the midstone replaces the dark earth of the temperate scheme. Anyone know if the diagrams or my ease-of-manufacture idea is right?

Yes, I know it is not far from "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" kind of thing, and not even 1 out of 100 people would know the difference, but I would know and that's who I need to satisfy. For some reason, I have gotten a tad obsessive about color schemes in my old age.

Thanks,

- - Dave

(P.S., for an EPO model, the Windrider Hurri appears to be extremely accurate and has an amazing amount of detail molded in. See thread in Electric Warbirds.)

ooops

Ray

"I would have thought from the manufacturer's standpoint that it would be logical to just keep painting the dark earth"

I don't think the manufacturers had anything to do with the color. They just crank out an airplane; it goes wherever it goes, and when it arrives, "they" dress it out however they want.

Les

I can't speak for the English, but American planes had camo applied at the factory. sometimes they would be altered in the field.

From what I have read, RAF fighters were masked at the factory with big rubber mats and painted so they all had the same camo pattern. US fighters (at least USAAF) were just OD, not camo in the usual sense.

- - Dave

Originally Posted by DaveA

I would have thought from the manufacturer's standpoint that it would be logical to just keep painting the dark earth as usual and substitute the midstone for the green.

If the manufacturer was modifying one color on an already applied camouflage scheme it would make more sense to overpaint only the color that was being modified rather than shifting the unmodified color to the other half of the camouflage pattern. However, on a new, unpainted airplane, once the camouflage pattern is marked out on the unpainted fuselage what difference does it make what color goes where? Since they were all hand painted I can't see where it would make any difference in the manufacturing process or efficiency. The only difference in the manufacturing process would be the color of paint the painter put in his spraygun. How about pink and yellow?

Larry

I don't care if it's scale or not, I really like this one and it's on my short list to buy.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...50mm_PNF_.html

Originally Posted by Lnagel

If the manufacturer was modifying one color on an already applied camouflage scheme it would make more sense to overpaint only the color that was being modified rather than shifting the unmodified color to the other half of the camouflage pattern. However, on a new, unpainted airplane, once the camouflage pattern is marked out on the unpainted fuselage what difference does it make what color goes where? Since they were all hand painted I can't see where it would make any difference in the manufacturing process or efficiency. The only difference in the manufacturing process would be the color of paint the painter put in his spraygun. How about pink and yellow?

Larry

I think the desert hurricanes were essentially 'tropcalised' which involved more than just a repaint. Id guess - its ONLY a guess - that they went back to the factory (or emerged from it) and got a complete spec change and a new paint job.

By the time the desert campaign took off, the hurricane was already obsolescent over Europe. They were adapted for ground attack thereafter as the 'hurribomber' and equipped with cannon to do tank busting.

This extract from wiki gives the flavour

The Hurricane Mk II was hastily tropicalised following Italy's entry into the war in June 1940. These aircraft were initially ferried through France by air to 80 Squadron in Egypt to replace Gladiators. The Hurricane claimed its first kill in the Mediterranean on 19 June 1940, when F/O P.G. Wykeham-Barnes reported shooting down two Fiat CR.42s. Hurricanes served with several British Commonwealth squadrons in the Desert Air Force. They suffered heavy losses over North Africa after the arrival of Bf 109E and F-variants and were progressively replaced in the air superiority role from June 1941 by Curtiss Tomahawks/Kittyhawks. However, fighter-bomber variants ("Hurribombers") retained an edge in the ground attack role, due to their impressive armament of four 20 mm (.79 in) cannon and a 500 lb (230 kg) bombload. From November 1941, beginning in the Libyan desert, it had to face a new formidable opponent: the new Regia Aeronautica Macchi C.202 Folgore. The Italian aircraft proved superior to the Hawker fighter.[62] The C.202, thanks to its excellent agility and a new, more powerful inline engine license-built by Alfa Romeo, could outperform it in a dogfight.[63]

During and following the five-day El Alamein artillery barrage that commenced on the night of 23 October 1942, six squadrons of Hurricanes, including the 40 mm cannon-armed Hurricane Mk.IID version, claimed to have destroyed 39 tanks, 212 lorries and armoured troop-carriers, 26 bowsers, 42 guns, 200 various other vehicles and four small fuel and ammunition dumps, flying 842 sorties with the loss of 11 pilots. Whilst performing in a ground support role, Hurricanes based at RAF Castel Benito, Tripoli, knocked out six tanks, 13 armoured vehicles, 10 lorries, five half-tracks, a gun and trailer, and a wireless van on 10 March 1943, with no losses to themselves

Hawker never developed the hurricane the way that vickers/Supermarine developed the spitfire: they had the typhoon, and then the tempest as real superiority fighters and ground attack aircraft in the wings, and these two were the mainstay of British fighters and fighter bombers in the European theatre.

US developed Mustangs and lightnings did the long range bomber escorts. Night fighting went to the radar equipped Beaufighters.

Another thing to consider is that the British camo schemes were "mirrored" , i.e one aircraft would have the patches going from port to starboard, and the next off the line had them from starboard to port. In other words, the masks were turned over.

Welsh Dave,

Yup, I learned about that, the A and B schemes. The early war Hurricanes clearly had both A and B schemes applied, supposedly according to even or odd serial numbers. Apparently someone eventually decided it was not worth the effort because later war Hurricanes just used the A scheme.

- - Dave

I once wanted to do a Spitfire in desert colors, but the only thing I could find about them, was that they all had an ungodly ugly "chin" added on for filtering out the sand, and providing appropriate cooling.

Les

Yup, that would be the Vokes air filter. Knocked a fair bit of performance off too. The Germans seemed to get by with a much smaller filter extension to their Bf-109s.

Steve

That's the one. Looks just as ugly now as it did then:-))))))))))))))

Les