"Faith, Hope and Charity markings" Topic

Hi all

Well I am about to build and paint some 1/300th Gladiators and want to paint them to represent Faith Hope and Charity.

I need to know what markings they carried. I know the serial numbers of the A/C but not the Letter on the fuselage apart from

Charity – "R"

Any help gratefully received

Cheers
MH

Anything you like they never existed. There were up to nine different Gladiators operating on the island. Logistics and maintenance meant that there were only rarely three in the air at one time. A journalist's vivid imagination did the rest. Close examination of the "Survivor" shows that it is probably one of the two airframes which never flew and were kept for spares.

Fatman

OK just dug out Alex Crawfords "Gloster Gladiator" in the Mushroom Magazine series, a definite must buy for the Gladiator fan. He shows the Malta Glds as having the RN grey green camo scheme and no squadron codes just a individual letter R being the example he uses. The Osprey Aces on the Gladiator show two Malta examples, both in the naval scheme. One is the same aircraft N5519 and another N5520 with no letters. A third source, On Target Special No 2 "Britain Alone." Shows N5519 again. I would suggest going with a couple with letters R and one other and a third with no codes.

Fatman

And on reading the section on the Faith Hope and Charity myth Crawford believes that previous examinations of the airframe were wrong and the Malta Gladiator is a survivor of combat, although which airframe it is is open to question. I would say that he is among the leading expert on the Glad' today so have no reason to doubt him.

Well said Fatman.

The only thing I'll add is that the Wings Palette site has several profiles interpreting the planes you've described:

wp.scn.ru/en/ww15/f/46/9/3