In the near future I am going to be building a P-40E in the 49th Fighter Group, late 1942. I am a soldier deployed overseas and all my references are 10,000 miles away in my workroom. I have been unabl to narrow down the lower surface color beyond either a Sky Blue as reccomended in the instructions, or a Sky Gray as some of my online research has shown. Does anyone here know something close to a definitive answer, and what acrylic colors best match both of these shades.
Thank you for any help here.[banghead]
Most, if not all of the P-40s were painted pale gray. A few photos appear to be light blue, but that is due to a combination of lighting and/or color inaccuracies in the film and photo.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
For an American P-40, Flat Gull Gray closely matches the underside color. For a British P-40 or an export scheme P-40, Camouflage Gray closely matches the color. For a more definite answer, I will recommend you visit www.hyperscale.com. Some color experts visit there often and will answer your question.
It would depend upon which specific aircraft you’re modeling.
Roughly half of the P-40Es used by the group were built for the RAF and taken over by the USA. These had the Dark Earth/Dark Green/Sky scheme applied.
However, the colors used were not exact matches for those specified by the RAF. In the case of the undersides there was a bit of confusion at Curtiss as to what color the Brits had specified. Without going into the details, the color they used was a light gray, possibly Aircraft Gray or Non-Specular Light Gray. Rough equivalents for these two colors are FS 16473 and 36440, respectively.
Here’s a shot of a Kittyhawk originally built for the RAF…
The other half of the P-40Es used by the 49th would have had the standard OD over Neutral Gray.
Light blue would not have been applied to the undersides of these aircraft at the factory and although it is possible that it could have been used at some point during repaints, I don’t know that there is any evidence of this. With the information I have I’d say that it’s probably not very likely. But then I don’t have all the info I’d like to have… [;)]
Fade to Black…
The most reliable references I’ve seen show the undersides on the Cutiss Aircraft built for the RAF were in Aircraft Grey FS 16473. As noted by Steve, the rest were OD over Neutral Grey.
Regards, Rick
Thank you for all the replies folks. I truly appreciate the info here.Yes, it is going to be one of the repo’d aircraft originally painted in RAF colors. The Sky gray listed by rjk sounds like the same color as used by ADC interceptors of the 60’s and 70’s.[tup]
Thanks again!