Malta's Hurricanes camo scheme (1941)

[CJE]

Well, Voy you get the point.
Let's sum up my concern.
If I publish a profile of a Hurricane Mk. I in Malta (Feb/March 41) with ETO camo scheme, including black and white undersurfaces (reintroduced on 27.11.40), shall I be shot down in flames or have I a reasonnable chance to be right?
Thanks.

[Graham Boak]

Point 1: The Temperate Land scheme certainly was used on some Malta-based Hurricanes. Sorry, I thought that had been made clear earlier, and I don't think VoyTech and I disagree on that.

Point 2: the black and white underside was not reintroduced in November 1940: the black wing was but the white was not. The scheme called for a black wing with the rest of the aircraft remaining in the normal underside colour. There are several clear photos of Hurricanes over Cyprus carrying this scheme.

However: there is a colour photo in "Hurricanes Over Malta", believed to be dated to end 1940/early 1941. (N2633 crashed on 11/1/41, so it would have to be very early. It is in Dark Green/Dark Earth, with a red spinner and red under the nose to about half distance. It appears to have a black port wing , and white on at least the leading edge of the starboard wing, extending up to meet the red under the nose. Looking at the photo, it is not clear to me whether or not the white extends to the whole of the starboard wing underside. This may be N2622/B of 261 Sq. The aircraft is illustrated as such on the front cover - so if you were do show this you would at least have the company of Chris Thomas. N2622 is an aircraft that would have been painted with black/white undersides on delivery to the RAF, so the presumption is that it simply was never overpainted before loss.

Other photos in the book are not particularly helpful, although at least one appear to show a very dark underside to the port wing.

[VoyTech]

Originally Posted by CJE

If I publish a profile of a Hurricane Mk. I in Malta (Feb/March 41) with ETO camo scheme, including black and white undersurfaces (reintroduced on 27.11.40), shall I be shot down in flames or have I a reasonnable chance to be right?

Chris, I think it is all a question of choosing your Hurricane(s) carefully.

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

Diverging slightly, am I to assume that you believe Sky to be the light colour seen wrapped around the leading edges and nose of Hurricanes in the "spaghetti" scheme?

Graham, in the few photos that I have seen of such Hurricanes I was always puzzled about the actual "spaghetti" colours, but there seemed little doubt that the colour wrapped around the nose and leading edges was Aluminium (silver). I am certainly no expert on these, however.

[CJE]

Thanks to all.
We'll do our best, trying to avoid "flak" shells...

Chris