A while back someone was looking for pics of a Pink Spitfire. Forgot who and couldn’t find the old post. Dunno why I remembered this, but I found one.
This was a photo recon plane, a Spitfire PR X to be precise, operated by Nos 541 and 542 sqdns, Benson, Oxon, 1945. The pink finish was sometimes used for PR planes.
This plane can be made with the Hasegawa Spitfire Mk. IX Kit #09079 plus Airwaves Conversion Kit #SC48-100.
I’ll be making the USAAF Spitfire PR XI below come winter sometime with the aforementioned kit configuration.
Don’t know but one things for sure: wouldn’t want to go into combat with a pink spit! The germans would laugh at me and target me too much!
no, they would laugh so hard they could not shoot
Imagine asking your ground crew to paint your spit pink. That wouldn’t fly {no pun intended}
Quagmyre:
now that would make a great companion piece 2 my pink Panther tank !
i love weird paint schemes…
thanx 4 posting the pic !
frosty[:)]
or my pink Dusenburg with dark purple fenders!!!
Just when you think you’ve seen it all…
If ya’ll want the lowdown as to why pink…
The color was a very light pink, almost off-white, and was only applied to aircraft that were used for low-level recce work.
When there was too much cloud to take photos from high up, or when a closer look was desired for a certain target, the low-level birds were sent in. These missions were referred to as ‘dicing’ because of the hazards involved.
Anyhoo, many, if not most, of these low-level recce aircraft were painted this pale pink color which was found to provide the least contrast when viewed from the ground against a cloudy sky.
If viewed against a clear sky, however, the pink Spits were quite obvious, and pilots had orders to abort if conditions turned out to be unsuitable.
That’s the basic gist of it.
The whole story of the photo-recon Spits (whether they be Pink, Blue or ‘Camotint’) as well as the units which operated them is an interesting one. Here’s some links to scans of an article which deals with the Mk.I PR Spits. These are large enough to print out.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
If anyone has an interest, I can scan Part 2 which deals with all the subsequent variants.
For some shots of a restored PR.XI, go HERE.
Fade to Black…
While we are “In the Pink” a US sub, SAS Landrovers and B24 Liberators can be added to the list.
There was also an RN colour called Mountbaten Pink used on some Flowers. (Make what you will of that!)
Dai
Great reference link as always from the human aircraft search engine - Thanks Wolf
As for those B-24s Dai those things has some outrageous paint scheme toward the end of WWII.
Hmm, I think I’ve got an idea for a new string![:D]
