Excellent RNZAF Model gallery

[Dave Homewood]

There are some very gorgeous RNZAF models here at Peter Mossong's excellent website

rnzaf.hobbyvista.com/rnzafmod.html

[turboNZ]

Wow !!!!!

That F4U is awesome alright.

Is it me or are those decals on the P-51 very light ?

(Don't mean to pick holes at all, these are truly wonderfully made !!!)

TNZ

[Dave Homewood]

There are many references to the light blue being used on the Auckland P51D's. I don't know if there are coloured photos proving that this is correct, but several decal sheets have been produced with them in those colours.

I do know that when the Mustangs were first reassembled for the TAF, after a period of postwar storage, they had no paint on them. My friend Bill Fitzharding-Jones, who works at the RNZAF Museum, was Saftery and Surface trade. He said he had the task of painting on roundels and fin flashes, etc, for service. He said as it was still hard to get the correct paint types even after the war due to shortages, one of the roundel colours (and I'm sure it was the blue colour) he had to source from other paint stocks, and used house paint enamel.

Maybe, just maybe, this is where the different colour came from - maybe it faded more quickly.

However I am not sure about the checkerboards and at what point they were added - I don't think they were added immediately as you do see several photos of Mustangs with just straight roundels and no checks.

One suggestion was tehy used the blue and white of Auckland's colours, but I'm unsure of this because Auckland's rugby jerseys are dark blue and white.

I'd like to know for sure if it is accurate to use this Cambridge blue colour.

(Bill said also that between the bare metal test flight and a coat of silver paint, the Mustangfs increased in top speed due to wind resistance by 30mph!!! Amaing what a lick of paint can do.)

[turboNZ]

Wow, that much speed increase ?
That's heaps !!
Why then did the USAAF not paint their aircraft in the latter stages of WW2 if this was the case ?

TNZ

[Dave Homewood]

Maybe they polished the aluminium in the factory?? I'm not sure.

Maybe the US wanted to save money or something. I remember Bill telling me this as if it were yesterday because he reckoned even the pilots were surprised.

[Craig Sargent]

Actually, the Americans did to an extent. P-51 wings had all the panel lines puttied and the wings were painted with a silver lacquer in the factory.

When modelling a P-51, except for gun bay panels and control surfaces, all panel lines should be theoretically filled and sanded, though I have to admit, it makes for a very boring model.

[Dave Homewood]

That is interesting Talon. I hadn't heard that before.

Getting back to the paint colours, over the years a lot of RNZAF paint colours have been misinterpretted by decal makers and historians.

Check out the roundels on this aircraft
modelingmadness.com/reviews/allies/us/cleaverp40m.htm

I don't think it is right to model a pristine aircraft with roundels that colour. The thing was, the blue started off looking dark, and faded to that colour because the locally made paint wasn't as good as British or US stuff. But surely in the time it took to fade, the rest of the plane would become weathered too?