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Mini Series Pt. 1 - British WW2 Aircraft

Peter, stunning, I love 'em more, much more please. Mal

Hi again Antoni: Many thanks for your help, it's truly appreciated. As soon as I can gather all the necessary I'll update the Polish Spit. And Rowan's kindly offered to wave his magic wand and correct the set when I complete the 2 plates in question. Ross and Mal There are a few more profile sets in the pipeline but yes I do intend at least an additional set of British WW2 planes. As long as I can get the right refs I'll do a profile. Antoni's points have proved what I was worried about when I embarked on this new project direction. The point being; finding good clear refs especially for the graphic elements is crucial for actual aircraft. The problem in searching the net from here in Saudi is that so many sites are banned, even innocent ones, so its not always as easy as the "real" world. You may think searching for something like Polish Spitfire would seem innocent enough...but not here...lol......So... Bye for now Cheers Peter :-)

I'm not an expert on codes, but I do know Art.... excellent job on the drawings/paintings. Looking forward to seeing more.

Hi again.. Many thanks Dave.... the cheque's in the post I have re-done the Polish Spit thanks to Antoni and his excellent refs. I hope I got it right this time... :-) To be honest the Polish Spit was the only one I didn't have at least reasonable refs for, plus me and my dislexia getting the P's and K's mixed up... So I'll fire the new version off to Merlin's Tower tomorrow. mANY THANKS AGAIN cHEERS Peter :-)

Hi Peter, Great artwork, especially the colours. Unfortunately, for Whirlwind P6978, HE-Z you've fallen into the trap that many have fallen into before. There was no way that P6974 took part in the Dieppe operation! According to Victor Bingham 'Whirlwind - The Westland Whirwind Fighter' (Airlife 1987) P6974 had been damaged in May 1941 and, after being listed with two MUs finally returned to 263 Sqn. 27/2/43 (21 months!). The possibility is the special markings applied to an exercise called Operation Starkey, September 1943. (in the listings for 'Operation Spartan', March 1943, 263 Sqn. aren't listed as being involved.) There were no special markings used for the aircraft involved in the Dieppe operations. Keep up the great work! Jeff W.

In early July 1942 white bands on top the cowlings and tailplane were applied to aircraft involved in Operation ‘Rutter’. These can be seen very clearly in a photograph taken of Spitfire BM579 FN.B of 331 (Norwegian) Sqn. This operation was abandoned but the markings are often erroneously associated with Operation ‘Jubilee’ (the notorious raid on Dieppe on 19th August) which took place at a similar time and had the same objective, Dieppe. The Polish No 1 Wing took part in Operation ‘Jubilee’ and moved to Croydon and Redhill at the beginning of July for a week while waiting for ‘Jubilee’ to start. Apart from one Roadstead by 12 Spitfires they spent their time with formation exercises. While at Croydon the Poles began to look for ways to facilitate the instant identification of ‘friendly’ aircraft and came up with the idea of painting the noses of their Spitfires with white stripes. I don’t know if this idea came from Operation ‘Rutter ‘ but as the markings are similar it could well have given them the idea. These white markings were experimentally applied to W/Cdr Witorzeńc’s Spitfire Vb AA853 WX.C. A few other aircraft were marked with chalk in preparation for painting but the scheme was abandoned apparently because of lack official approval from the RAF. Several photographs of AA853 were taken on 6th July with the white stripes. I think it is these photographs that are the real cause of the mistaken belief that special markings were used on Operation ‘Jubilee’ aircraft. I don’t know when the white stripes were removed but I think it unlikely that they were still there in the middle of August so there is only a very faint possibility that this was the one and only aircraft in the operation that bore special markings. In early 1943 for Exercise ‘Spartan’ wide white bands along the forward fuselage and black undersides of port wings were used as special markings. In September 1943 Operation ‘Starkey’ markings were black-and-white bands applied to outer wings on the top and bottom, similar to those used for the Normandy landings.

Hi and thanks for the info Jeff and Antoni. Very interesting stuff. Which I will certainly take into consideration the next time. But, no I didn't fall into the trap. The trap fell on me :-) . However, even if I had had this information before I did the proile I probably would have done it anyway, as it, to me at least, looks great on the more unusual side of things. So let it be an example of how it might have looked IF it had done the Dieppe. :-) Plus where were you when I asked for info on various aircraft :-) :-) :-) :-) ... In the meantime the corrected Polish Spit is on its way.... Cheers and thanks again Peter :-)

Hi all The new Spitfire profiles are safely added - and the old ones are burned, slashed, trodden-on and otherwise hideously mutilated... i.e. I deleted them. :-) All the best Rowan

:-) :-) Where was I? On the other side of the world :-) . My excuse is I only joined Aeroscale/Armorama a few weeks ago and I probably didn't see your help request... Never mind, P6978 wore those striking markings at some time in it's life, so, should I lay my hands on a Classic Airframes example again, I'll be building HE-Z. (These days I'm mostly building wheeled and tracked ground vehicles so i'm over at A...a - still be glad to help the aeronauts over here though :-) ) Cheers again Jeff W.

Many thanks Jeff, I may well take up your kind offer in the future. I do kind of try to look for the more unusual or lesser known examples of aircraft, which in itself reduces the chances of finding accurate refs. Going for a more well known plane usually means its been profiled to the max anyway. Cheers and thanks again, its appreciated. Peter :-)