Spitfire XVI colour scheme

Here's my ICM Mk XVI with kit decals. The kit decals are very bad, but do work with a very good Future undercoat Don't even try to use the black wing walk markings.

I have the Watermark late war RCAF sheet that has a couple of Mk XVIs on it. I've done the ones I want so it's going begging. Send your address and it's yours: jessie_c_2athotmaildotcom

How 'bout the Mk. XVI in the San Diego Aerospace Museum?

MD-T, SL574. It has "B" style upper surface roundels but seems to meet your criteria in other respects.

Cheers

Squadron/Signal Aircraft in Action 39 - Spifire has two pages of Mk XVI pics. TE471 is a bubbletop with clipped wings, has a black spinner but also a light fuselage band - grey? Marked KR-F for 61 OTU, ths pic shows it on display just after the war. A side view, I can't see the wing surfaces, but the camouflage looks to be the normal Day Fighter scheme, Dark Green/Ocean Grey over Medium Sea Grey. Type C1 fuselage roundel, Type C fin flash.

Of the other pics, one is a 349 squadron aircraft in Belgian markings after the war, one is TE330, the BBMF Mk.XVI (bubbletop, full-span wings, and many times repainted) and the others are pre-delivery photos from Vickers, showing no squadron codes, and with light spinners and fuselage bands.

No other references have any useful photos that I can find. Hope this is some use.

I think I've found a good fit. I'm looking at Scale Aircraft Modelling Vol. 27 No. 5, July 2005 which has an illustration of a plain bubbletop LF XVIe, TB675 4D-V of 74 Squadron in April 1945. Dark Green/Ocean Grey, Medium Sea Grey, overpainted Sky band (camouflage reinstated, but you can see where it has been), Black spinner. Sky codes, C1 , C1, C roundels (it says). It is in the Occasional Colours series of "World War II - The final year" side-views that SAM has been publishing for about a year now.

I think the roundel description is backwards, as the illo shows a C1 roundel on the fuselage and C underwing. C1 overwing seems unlikely. The illo also shows yellow leading edge strips and a whip aerial, not a wire.

Of course, this is an illustration not a photo, so not a primary source.

IT was quite common in early 1945 for C1 roundels to be used overwing. The camoflage effect of the type C was no longer required.

Ah, thanks, the few references I have for that period mostly don't show the upper wing. Just to confirm, we are talking about C1, which is red, narrow white, blue, narrow yellow outline, on the top of the wing?

My apologies for not replying earlier.

Many thanks to all who responded. You've all been very helpful. I very much appreciate Jessie C's offer of a decal sheet. It is that sort of attitude that turns this from a newsgroup into a community!

However, I've decided to go with Alan's suggestion of TB675 4D-V. It seems to be just the right amount of plain and I have all the codes and serials available from standard sheets.

Thanks again everyone!

From what I can work out, during the latter stages of the war the threat of German air attacks had diminished effectively to zero and so camouflage on the ground was no longer much of a priority. However, the skies were full of USAAF pilots looking for a kill. A large number of RAF fighters were engaged in ground attack duties and it was more likely that they would be mistakenly engaged by friendly pilots than by enemy. Therefore, a white ring was added to the uppersurface Type B roundel to convert them into a Type C. The white ring was very visible from above and as it was circular, rather than cross shaped, it provided a useful identification feature. This also explains why the Sky fuselage band was removed. German home defence aircraft were using coloured fuselage bands as recognition markings and so the band on RAF aircraft was removed to prevent confusion.

The upperwing Type C roundel was of the same dimensions as the original Type B roundel - i.e. very large. It seems that in the closing month of the war, on some aircraft it was painted out and replaced with a smaller Type C1 roundel (red, white, blue, yellow) that was identical in size to the fuselage roundel. The small C1 roundel became more widespread after the end of hostilities and appears in many pictures of Spitfire FR.XIVs of the period.

I believe that the C1 roundel on the upper surfaces of the wings was introduced by 2nd TAF as a recognition measure. It may have been adopted by home-based squadrons as they moved to NW Europe after D-Day.

Gord>> >>