"1940 British Black & White" Topic

I saw a picture of a Hurricane with half the bottom painted white and the other half black. Was this the standard Battle of France 'bottom' color for British aircraft?

Dan

The black and white pattern was standard for any 1940 british fighters. Also used was the duck egg blue for the undersides. You would see mixed underside camo colors.

Phil

It was standard for fighter aircraft, I've never seen it on bombers. It was phased out very quickly and had disappeared by the end of the Battle of France.

The Night (it's actually an off-black, very dark blue-grey like Revell's Anthracite paint) and White undersides were introduced before the war as a recognition feature for RAF fighters. It was decided that camouflaging the aircraft was more important, and the order that fighter undersides would be repainted in Sky ("duck-egg blue") was made on 6th June 1940.

On 27th November 1940, the underside of the port wings of RAFC fighters were ordered to be painted in Night, with the rest of the underside remaining Sky. This order was in force until 22nd April 1941.

Many thanks. I'm painting up some 1/200 aircraft for the BoB and wanted to do them right.

Dan

I would look out for any articles or books by a man called Lucas – it's a right nightmare.

I'm painting up France 40/BoB do you think Yeah or Nay on the Black and White? I'm not sure what date they phased out the black and white, the reintroduction is too late, for my period.

Looking at it, I have to assume black and white was history by mid-summer 40.

White Ensign Models ( WhiteEnsignModels.com ) do RAF Night in their Colourcoats enamels.

Black and white was still in use during the BoB as the new `Sky` paint was in short supply at first.
There are a number of `Unofficial` underside schemes dating from this period as individual squadrons used whatever was available, Sky blue, grey or bare metal have been noted on older aircraft but new factory fresh planes had the official sky scheme.