RAF (SEAC) Harvard, very odd paintscheme

[HBPencil]

Hi all,

Whilst looking at the IWM site for photos of Keith Park I came across this one which, as the title of this thread suggests, has a rather odd paint scheme. I ask purely out of curiosity but if anyone knows more about this aircraft and what colours it was painted in I'd be very interested to find out.

ROYAL AIR FORCE OPERATIONS IN THE FAR EAST, 1941-1945. (CI 1144)

Cheers,

HB

 

[Wurger]

Here is another shot ... of a such painted Harvard .. perhaps the same plane. I would say these main colours should be the Dark Green and the Dark Earth.

 

[buffnut453]

The problem is there are at least 3 colours on that airframe. Perhaps Light Earth as the 3rd colour?

 

[HBPencil]

Thanks for your replies and my apologies for taking this long to get back.
As buffnut points out there seems to be three colours so as a bit of an experimentation I've roughly coloured part of the fuselage in photoshop with two versions. The colours I've approximated are:

version 1: Dark Green for the darkest colour, Dark Earth for the intermediate colour and Light Earth for the lightest.
version 2: Dark Green again but with Dark Sea Grey and a light/faded tone of Dark Earth.

It seemed to me that v1 was a closer match although I thought (and I could be way off base here) that Light Earth was a pre/early war colour?

Harvard SEAC IWM (CI 1144) V1

• HBPencil
• Nov 3, 2017

Harvard SEAC IWM (CI 1144) V2

• HBPencil
• Nov 3, 2017

HB

 

[vikingBerserker]

You don't see Argyle Camo pattern very often, really interesting.

 

[fubar57]

Just my ¢.08CAN worth, wouldn't these be Australian colors? Dark Earth/K3 178 Foliage Green/Light Green

There is also another light green, this time the colors are Dark Green/K3 178 Foliage Green/K5 Light Green

 

[Wurger]

It's very possible, Geo.

 

[buffnut453]

They might be Australian colours if the Harvard was used as a hack by an Aussie squadron. However, this was probably a headquarters communication airframe so I suspect RAF colours would be more likely.