"Early War Brit A/C" Topic

After the Brits dumped the Black/White underside color scheme, did they go to pale blue or light grey? I've seen both depicted and not sure which is correct.

Also Early War Sunderland color scheme. I believe it would have been brown/green upper, like land based planes, and grey underside, but just wanted verification.

It was a mixed bag; Sky Blue was the most common, but several options were used around '39 – '40.

Eau-de-nil – actually quite a bright looking pale green….
Sky Blue – a pale blue.
Sky Blue – an even paler blue; yes, they had two different shades with the same official name. The second shade was created by the RAE and quite common for spinners as well.
Sky Grey – official colour for fleet air arm aircraft, although some RAF aircraft appear to have either Sky Grey or a similar shade simply mixed from black and white…. There's some great info here:

link

(Bookmarked long ago as an essential thread….)

For Sunderlands, nope, never seen one in brown and green – they were delivered in natural metal finish, with some boats still having that finish through to mid 1940. Initial repaints were simply Sky grey overall initially, then going to a variety of camo schemes, typically grey and green over the full hull, before settling later on the white hull with camo just on top. If you're talking '39 to mid '40, silver or grey is most likely.

Dom.

Update – the Osprey title on Sunderlands has preview on Google books:
link
The first few pages have photos of several early war machines, while the back page drawing is pretty typical camo for mid '40 to '41. Page 106 has general notes on camouflage – even more variety than I thought, but still no definite brown and green – the odd report of it, but not a single supporting photo.

Thanks, Dom. I've seen many artists depictions showing the Sunderlands in brown/green but must have actually been medium grey/green and they did no research to verify.

Would the pale blue be similar to the German pale blue or brighter?

Pretty similar – I use Vallejo 64/906 pale blue and am pretty happy with that for the lighter of the two Sky Blue colours. The earlier sky blue was deeper – closer to Vallejo's 67 sky blue, actually….

On the Sunderlands it's possible that there were a few in brown and green camo, but there's a definite shortage of proof….

Dom.

I have a pic (photo) of a Sunderland in brown and green. When I can I'll post the serial number of the aircraft if that helps.

Would be very interested, thanks.