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Re: German Prop Colour?
Of course Graham, you're right. A lot of thought did go into the paint job - and I wouldn't want to give the impression it was in any way 'willy nilly'. Performance was indeed very important for both sides - here's a taped passage (below) that illustrates your point. In this case the paint job was stripped off altogether in an attempt to get that extra edge over the intruder:.
'The E/A were coming from Crete, at an altitude of about 26,000 feet, but equipped as we were, we could only reach about 24,000 with our fully armed Beaufighter VIs. So, to surprise our high-flying visitors we decided to lighten up. Everything that might have added weight was stripped from Slippery Ship II, including the drag-inducing camouflage paint, all the armament and ammunition, and three of the four cannon from the Beaufighter IV. We decided to hang onto the radar too, as it could usefully assist our navigation and guide us back to base in bad weather. We even flew on a reduced load of fuel to increase our ceiling. And it very nearly succeeded. When we eventually got airborne the aeroplane felt noticeably quicker, and soon we were within two miles range of our German friends, at exactly the same altitude - but frustratingly, we found we still could not reduce the range further. How infuriating.'
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