De Havilland Mosquito

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Hey, ajMac, I have the same brand of Mossie in 1/72. But your interior is waaay better than mine. So I bought another one. Here are some pics of the build I did back in 2003.

Pete
 

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Very nice indeed. Try not to go too heavy on the panel shading, as the Mosquito entire airframe was fabric covered, except the elevators and forward engine nacelles and radiator covers. They tended to get fairly dirty, but didn't tend to show panel lines too much.
 
Very nice job. One point though - if this is going to be non- Coastal Command, that is, a Fighter, Intruder, Fighter Bomber or Night Fighter, then the grey should be Medium Sea Grey overall, with Dark Green disruptive pattern on the upper surfaces. The Ocean Grey was used on Bomber variants.
 
Very nice job. One point though - if this is going to be non- Coastal Command, that is, a Fighter, Intruder, Fighter Bomber or Night Fighter, then the grey should be Medium Sea Grey overall, with Dark Green disruptive pattern on the upper surfaces. The Ocean Grey was used on Bomber variants.

I am building FB MK VI 487 Squadron. This aircraft used two-tone camouflage of Dark Green and Ocean Grey on the upper surface and the under surface was painted in Medium Sea Grey.

Mosquito50.gif

This is the model that i am building "MM417/EG-T" with three tone camouflage.
 
Sorry to disagree. That particular aircraft was unusual in that the green was painted lower on the fuselage, instead of the normal demarcation along the center of the fuselage, as with other aircraft oif this, and other squadrons. But the colours were overall Medium Sea Grey, with Dark Green. The Ocean Grey was used briefly, only for around three months, if that, in early 1943, before this particular aircraft came on strength. The photos of this aircraft make it appear to have a darker tone of grey extending down the fuselage sides, but it is Medium Sea Grey. Close examination of the single colour on the fin and rudder bear this out, and the colour was confirmed to me by a former member of the Squadron, in 1995, at the 50th anniversary of the Shell House raid.
EDIT: Forgot to add, the Dark Green/Ocean Grey/ Medium Sea Grey scheme was the 'Day Fighter' scheme, used in conjunction with the 'Sky' tail band and, for a very short period, yellow ID stripes on the leading edges of the main wings. The latter were soon removed, and the scheme was only in use in late 1942 to early 1943, retained on training aircraft, such as the TIII.
The Dark Green/Medium Sea Grey scheme was first applied to night fighter Mossies, and subsequently day fighter bombers and intruders. Virtually every caption to pictures of MM417 state, incorrectly, that the grey was Ocean Grey, and this has proliferated over the years, probably due to the tonal reproduction, from fair to poor, in most published pictures of this short-served airframe. A careful examination of the overall tones of the aircraft will reveal that the colour was, indeed, as confirmed to me, Medium Sea Grey.
 
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Airframes
I belive you (I have a few books and none about De havilland) but maybe this particular aircraft was unusual. I know that some aircrafts do not followed the rules. The model of Tamiya is a replic of this aircraft and the instructions also show three colours.
I found another foto with the identical demarcation of the three colours and also is a FB VI.
de Havilland Mosquito FB.VI - Charles Brown Colour Photographs - Media Storehouse
 
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143 Sqn mosquitos were two tone grey not a 3 colour scheme at all no green involved indeed 1 of the options for the tamiya kit is a 143 sqn bird NE+D and clearly shows the two tone grey scheeme something to do with coastal command i think
 
Yep, Jamie is correct. The two-tone grey scheme shown was used by the Banff Strike Wing, operating in Norwegian waters, and was chosen specifically for that role, in order to blend into the surroundings of the coast land and waters around Norway. The general Coastal Command scheme was an overall Ocean Grey upper surface, with a Medium Sea Grey, or Sea Grey undersurface, again for operations over water.
The subject chosen by Tamiya for their model was first 'modelled' by Airfix, in 1/72nd scale, back in the 1950's, and at one time, photographs of MM417 were almost the only ones shown of the FBVI variant. These were all taken on the same sortie, IIRC the day after the aircraft arrived on Squadron. Some of the other shots of this aircraft clearly show that the colours were Dark Green and Medium Sea Grey, where the tonal separation is more apparent. I can't remember the details of hand, but this aircraft did not stay with, or operate with the Sqaudron, moving on within a few days, possibly less, of the photo sortie.
It would seem that Tamiya have fallen into the trap of believing the captions to old published photos, which is not the first time.
This Squadron were originally a bomber squadron, formed in August 1942 with Venturas. They converted to Mosquitos a year later, and, with the other Mossie squadrons of the Group, commenced night intruder operations for the remainder of the war, although some daylight operations were undertaken. The most notable of these were the famous low-level attacks on Amiens prison, and the Gestapo Headquarters at Aarhus and Copenhagen (Shell House).
I have had the great pleasure, and honour, of meeting a number of the crews who took part in these raids, some of them well-known and highly decorated personalities, and still keep in touch with those of them who are still with us. Having spent seven years researching every possible detail concerning the aircraft and events, for a particular painting I was commissioned to produce, I can assure you that the colour scheme was as I have described, regardless of what Tamiya might have published, and, if it will help, I can provide a copy of the official Air Ministry painting grid for the Mosquito.
Cheers,
Terry.
 
Terry, you seem to have a wealth of aircraft knowledge right at your fingertips. Did you acquire this over a lifetime of study? I'm trying to build up my reference library, but sadly, many of the better resources are out of print. It's good that we novice modelers can rely on knowlegeable resources such as you, Wojtek, et. al. Thanks for the clarification on the FB VIs. Now I know what I can use to paint my next Mossie build.
 

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