Michał Sindera looks at two sets of decals for an early Hawker Typhoon Ib "car door", in 1:72 scale. Decals were released by popular producer from Poland - the Techmod Decals.

Link to Item



If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Too late to write much tonight, but I can see there is one mistake with Beamont's R7752. I'll explain tomorrow.

On 2 November 1942 all 11 Group Typhoons engaged on patrol over the South Coast of England were ordered to adopt following markings:-"Under surface port and starboard wings are to be painted with black stripes 12 inches wide fore and aft from root of wing to inboard end of aileron. Spinner and remainder of nose as far as rear of radiator to top of cowling behind spinner white for head-on recognition”.

Apparently the black stripes were not effective enough as 11 Group soon ordered the addition of white stripes to fill the spaces between the existing black stripes under the wings. The white nose may have been effective in alerting coastal gunners but the Typhoon squadrons were also undertaking sorties across the Channel and the new markings compromised their camouflage - in fact they stood out like sore thumbs. Accordingly the white noses were painted out in line with an order dated 5 December 1942 and the rest of the Typhoons outside 11 Group were ordered to have white stripes between the black ones under the wings.

When I was at school we were taught that 1 inch was 2.54 cm, so (12 * 2.54)/72 = .423333 cm or or approx 4.2 mm. Width of the white stripes can only be determined by measuring the length from root of wing to inboard end of aileron and placing the centres of the black stripes
an equal distance apart along that line.

Beamont's Typhoon, R7255, was inherited from S Ldr Richey and bore a number of schemes under both of them as well as a number of the modifications.

The scheme with the yellow spinner and cannon fairings dates from early 1943. On the 13th February Beamont collected R7255 from Hawker Aircraft at Langley, where it had been sent for the fitting of 'Mod 286'. Mod 286 involved fitting internal strengtheners and external fish plates around the rear fuselage joint immediately in front of the tailplane that were intended to stop the tail falling off. It is possible that it was while at Langley it was repainted. A photograph of R7255 at this time shows without doubt that the yellow stripes on the upper wing surfaces had been removed.

There were some other, small modifications. The external rudder balance (visible in earlier photographs just below the fin flash), was replaced with an internal balance. The cannon barrels were now completely faired-in. These were not the standard fairings introduced on the production line at the end of December 1942, but locally produced items modified from Spitfire cannon fairings. The gun camera was moved from the starboard wing to the nose, just behind the spinner.