I've looked at several photos of actual aircraft and models...I cant seem to pin down the exact color of the wheel wells/ gun bays, etc. The instructions for my Mk. Vb Trop Spit. say to paint these surfaces the same as the under side of the aircraft...a skyish blue-light purple. Any suggestion?...thanks, N

Hi Nigel.
I cant say for certain on the exact version your building,but every Spit I have seen and inspected close up has the wheel wells etc painted in interior green.
Hope this helps.
Nige

The instructions may be correct, the undersurface colour, of British aircraft in the tropical scheme, was either Azure blue or light Mediterranean blue. From your description it sounds like Azure blue. However they could equally have been in interior green, which is the colour used in the cockpit and gun bays. I haven't been able to pin this down myself but my theory is that the wheel wells would have been painted interior green at the factory, as would the interior of the gear doors. The gear legs seem to be in interior green, aluminium or the undersurface colour and the wheels similar. I think that if the aircraft is repainted the wheel wells receive the undersurface colour, because the wheels would be down and that would be the easiest and quickest way to paint the undersurfaces (this is only a theory though).
So based on my theory the wheel wells, interior of the gear doors and possibly the gear legs and wheels would be interior green if the trop scheme was applied at the factory (remembering that the gear legs and wheel may have been aluminium, or just the wheels). If the aircraft that you are modelling received it's paint scheme in theatre then the all of the above may have been the underside colour.
My Spitfire Mk Vb Trop has interior green undercarriage.

Mal

Thanks Nigel & Mal, I'm glad I wasn't the only one a little bit confused by the tropical paint scheme...N

Trust mal to get a Spitfire picture in there....all together now..."You can't have too many Spitfires!" :-)

Here you have them... all together now :-)

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2003/11/stuff_eng_hrubisko_spitfire.htm

Like I said, "you just can't have too many Spitfires"
Mal