Spitfire PRIV Lend lease to Russia

[Kevin Barclay-Jay]

Im about to embark on a VB conversion to a PRIV in Russian markings for Russsia coded O1

The actual conversion itself is straight forward and I've done one previously,,,but have a problem with the colour.

Several places have pictures and vectors of this plane, some say it was PRU Blue, others seem to show it a lot darker

My surmmize is that when PR versions were sent to the western desert, the Blue was found to be to light and they were painted a dark royal blue. Planes bound for Russian were prpared in Abadan, Iran before delivery. I wonder if they were painted in Royal Blue....or just the imagination of computer generation

 

[fubar57]

I have a profile from the On Target - Profiles 8 - Photo Reconnaissance Spitfires in Worldwide Service and it shows "01" in standard day fighter colors: DG/OG/MSG. The fuselage band RAF roundels and fin flash over painted with green paint, s/n unknow. The profile caption says..."Voenno Vozdushnyye, 1943. It referenced "Wings of Fame" Vol. 9, pg 81 as its source.

Geo

 

[fubar57]

Found two photos of an "01" in "Classic Warbirds" No.10 Merlin PR Spitfires. The profile photo, while of poor quality, definitely shows two different colors on the fuselage. If you want them, PM me your email and I'll blast off the pages containing the Russian PRs and Middle East colors.


Geo

 

[Wurger]

I have found the image on the casimage.com site. I enlarged the shot... Judging by this one I would say she didn't wear the DG/OG/MSG camo. It looks to me like the solid colour applied overall on tops. Also I uploaded the other shot of a PRU.IV kite. The shade of both paints seem to be the same although the Russian one seems to be a little bit more worn.

 

[fubar57]

That's one of the photos I have Wojtek. Under the left exhaust stack is a smaller star. Starting from the rear of the stack and running diagonal to the front of the aircraft is a color that is darker than the surrounding area. A large area on the tail, running through the star is much lighter than the rear of the aircraft. If you like, I can send you the photo and you can use your great B&W interpretative skill to shed some light

 

[Wurger]

Looking at them would say the the lighter area on the plane tail could be the effect of overpainting the fin flash.The same result you may see on wing tops where the RAF roundels were applied. Also the port side pic and the one taken from the front didn't show the camo spots at the nose and fuselage that should be noticed there too. In my opinion all these darker and lighter areas are the result of poor scanning of pictures that were printed using the photographic "gloss paper". Additionally you may notice damaged camo coat on the left aileron and in front of the windscreen. Generally the plane "uniform" seems to be quite very worn and the entire kite seems to be quite dirty. What is more I noticed of an area at the port horizontal stabilizer that seems to be an oil spill. But it can be just some of water because the snow looks like getting melted.

But please send the image.

 

[fubar57]

The photo I have is in full profile from the left side, taken from about the same distance as your bottom photo in Post #4. I'll need your email as I can't seem to ever send a photo through the PM system here. I'll also send you the pages describing the initial batch of PR Spitfires sent to Russia which mentions a bit about one that was recovered in the '70s

 

[Wurger]

OK.

 

[fubar57]

Photos on the way

 

[Wurger]

Going there...

 

[Wurger]

Still nothing..

 

[fubar57]

How about now??????????????????????

 

[Wurger]

Nothing... I would say there is something wrong going on there. Maybe you can try again.

 

[fubar57]

PM sent

 

[Wurger]

OK. Answered.

 

[fubar57]

Just found this link showing the wrecked PR.IV...

PRU-Spitfire Vaddasgaisa

 

[Wurger]

Yep..

If you may notice the B&W variant of the shot shows a similar appearance of the Blue and the red colours ( the remnants of the star ) like you can see in the pic of the starboard and port view we talked about.

 

[fubar57]

So Kevin could go PRU Blue with locally mixed blue for touch-ups and no yellow tips on the prop

 

[Wurger]

Yep.. also the spinner should be either of the white or the Sky-S type. The white is more likely I would say.

 

[fubar57]

Sounds good to me. If you wish, you could send him the profile photo I sent you as a reference. You know my luck at trying to send things