Hi
I saw different profiles of the Hurricane, in some the wing underside was half-black & half-sky, and in other all was sky. what are the differences and which scheme is correct (for building douglas bader’s aircraft).Thanks
Yossi
Around the time of the Battle of Britain, British day fighters had half or close to half of their undersides painted black and the other half sky to help friendly gunners on the ground to distinguish them from enemy fighters. I looked up the profile for Bader’s Hurricane LE*D, and it looks like the entire underside of that machine was painted sky.
The original underside scheme was 1/2 Black & 1/2 White. All Sky undersides were introduced in June, 1940. The 1/2 Black with 1/2 Sky was introduced in November, 1940. The return to all Sky undersides was in April, 1941. In August, 1941, the high altitude scheme was introduced with unersides in all Medium Sea Grey. My references show Bader’s A/C in all Sky undersides.
Regards, Rick
Thanks A Lot for your help. you’ve really made it clear.
Yossi [#toast]
The 50:50 black & white scheme was introduced before the start of WWII because of the limitations of the first radar stations which could only see forwards. Once enemy aircraft had crossed the coast they could no longer be tracked. It was hoped that observers on the ground would be able to distinguish between friendly and enemy formations and so both could be tracked visually. For this reason it was considered very important that the undersides of the aircraft were painted exactly as intended, each side painted completely black or white with dividing line down the centre of the fuselage. Any aircraft that did not conform were sent back to the factory for rework.
After the Battle of Britain RAF fighters began to increase the number of forays across The Channel into enemy territory. As there was a strong tendency for AAA to shoot at anything coming from the direction of France the black & Sky scheme was introduced as a recognition aid. However, in this case the instructions were obviously not clear enough as there are several ways that the scheme was applied, from the strict 50:50 rule through the wing and forward fuselage painted black with the rear left Sky to just the port wing black.
Or even in some cases only the outer part of the wing painted black.