Warbird Information Exchange

Here's for my good friend Olie ! Enjoy...

Mk.IX at the Canadian Aviation Museum:

Mk.IX (N-LR) from the ex-Champolin Fighter Museum:

Mk.XVI (D-DE) Carolyn at the Evergreen's Museum:

Mk.IX (Z-MR) at the Museu do Ar north of Lisbon, Portugal:

Mk.IX (Z-5J) at the Museum of Flight:

Mk.IX Replica at Hendon RAF Museum:

Mk. ? in the museum's entrance:

F-24 at Hendon:

Mk.Vb at Hendon:

Mk.1A at Hendon:

Mk.XVI at San Diego's Air & Space Museum:

Mr. Potter's Mk. XVI at Carp:

TR-9C at Oshkosh 2004:

Mk.IXc at Oshkosh 2006:

Mk.XVIIIe at Oshkosh 2006:

Mk.TR9 at Oshkosh 2006:
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More pics anyone ?[/url]

_________________
Michel C
Thousands of a/c pics at Passion-Aviation

Just Bill's plane.






and one in the Museum of Flight...Seattle




Bluedharma

(in my best Monte Python voice)
Do have anything with not so much Spitfires in them?

Great views. Love that display on the vertical wall!!

_________________
Charles Neely

Bob's Spitfire in Vancouver, BC.

Spits Spits, Spits Spits

Spits Spits, Spits Spits

Spittedy Spiiiiiits, Spittedy Spiiiiiiiiiiits!!!!


PR Mk XI at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (it'll always be the "Air Force Museum" to me..)




Mk Vc, also at NMUSAF




A question about the Mk IX at the Canada Aviation Museum..I was looking at the plane last month, and wondering: Is that camo accurate? I thought by the time the Mk IX came along, the RAF had switched from Dark Earth/Dark Green/Sky to Ocean Gray/Dark Green/Light Gray.

SN

Steve N--

Do not touch the red button...Oh crud, now you've done it.

Your eyes are not telling you fibs; you're very, very correct about the paintwork on CAvM's otherwise-nice Spitfire IX NH188. There isn't, sadly, a colour on the exterior of that Spit that's right, excepting the black serial numbers. As a IX, she should be in dark green/ocean grey camo on top with a pale grey underside; the insignia should be in dull colours (brick red, etc); and the codes and day-fighter band should be Sky. Essentially in overall livery NH188 should be a close match to Bill Greenwood's T.9...or to Mike Potter's XVIe, which actually depicts an aircraft from the same unit, 421 Sqn, as CAvM's.

Instead, we see a scheme in some ways more applicable to a BoB-period Mk.I, but even then the colours are wrong. What it appears to be is medium brown and USAAF OD green on top, with USAAF neutral gray underneath; "home front" colours in the insignia; and chalk-white codes and band. The 421 Sqn sponsorship mascot (the McColl-Frontenac Oil Company's Indian head logo) is correct though.

The brown/green camo was applied to NH188 (over a previous blue civilian scheme) by the donor, Dr John Paterson, in the early sixties, and has been retained on NH188 in tribute. However, old photos of NH188 show the underside in what appears to be Sky (which would match the brown/green as seen on Spits in 1940)...yet now the undersides wear the much darker USAAF gray or somthing close to it, meaning at least that part of the airframe has been refinished differently.

How I wish NH188 could spend a little while in, say, Goderich...

Sorry for the rant...but ya did ask for it...

S.

speaking off color....
Lone Star's mk XVI (I think)TE392 ZX-Z is painted in green and gray camo. A couple of years ago it was featured on one page of a prominent warbird calendar and the color saturation was out of whack and it turned into a brown and blue airplane. whoops! didn't catch it before publication....
It's in the ETO colors and markings of Lance Wade, a Texan who aced with the RAF.

Canso42

Daveymac,
What Mark is Bob's Spit in Vancouver? Bubble top, clipped tips, a Griffon with a Rotol...

Doug

Here is the Spitfire owned by Kermit Weeks

Thanks for the info, Steve T...and believe me, it could be worse. This thing is hanging in the Kalamazoo Air Zoo, just up the road from me. I used to volunteer there, but just don't have the time anymore.

SN

It's a fibreglass Mk.IX 'full scale model', I believe.

Back to the start -



The Full Scale Model of the Prototype, at a Duxford show. Looks good to go...

The Temora Aviation Museum's Mk.VIII with a young fan.



The 'Master' with MH434.



Not very many.

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Mk I(?) at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

SN

Canso42--

Bob Jens' Spit is TZ138, a XIVe with a significant Canadian history: cold-weather testing at the Winter Experimental Establishment in northern Alberta in the late 40s, then civilianised and raced by F/L J.H.G. MacArthur at the 1949 Cleveland National Air Races (CF-GMZ, race 80, sponsored by Imperial Oil). She had a multitude of owners afterward. Eventually she returned to airworthy status with Reno P-51 team owner Bill DeStefani, who sold her to Bob a number of years back. Now registered C-GSPT, she has for company at Vancouver Bob's Mosquito B.35 project...

Steve N--

Ah, the pink P-40. I really miss that airplane. I genuinely liked the pink scheme (though some of the custom-van-style markings were a bit much); I rather wish KAHM would replace N222SU with a fullsize GRP replica in the lobby, and reactivate the genuine Kittyhawk. She'd sure be welcome at the suggested Geneseo P-40 gathering...

And as to the Chicago Spitfire Ia, that's moving from the ridiculous to the sublime as far as Spitfire paintwork goes. P9306 wears her 1944 livery from her last assignment to a training unit in the UK...not only has she not been repainted incorrectly...she hasn't been repainted at all! (Same goes for Chicago's Ju87R Stuka. I have a 1944-or-so photo of that Stuka when she was in Canada as a warprize, and the paint is identical to what she wears now. Full marks to the Chicago curator circa 1946 who had the foresight to keep these two incredible time-capsules for posterity.)

James--

Love the "sweet sixteen" of Spits. This side of the big lake I've actually had to wait until this past month to see even two Spits in the air at the same time!

S.

Steve T,

Unfortunately, the Air Zoo grounded ALL thier warbirds at the end of the 2000 season..primarily due to skyrocketing insurance costs. The P-40N actually hasn't flown since '92..I understand Ms. Parish decided to quit flying it because it was getting too much for her to handle. Even though the museum owns it, it's more or less "her" airplane.

Not surprisingly, it's my girlfreind's favorite plane. She's been wanting to build a model of it..I even made a set of decals, creating the artwork in photoshop (although I felt kind of dirty afterwards. )

As for the Spit and Stuka in Chicago, I agree it's fantastic that they've been preserved in original condition. I do wish they'd be displayed a little better..the Stuka is way up in the rafters, covered with about an inch of dust.


SN

Ah, it passed the time. Y'know it was really noisy too


As to original hanging early war Spitfires, it's interesting that there's one in the USA, Canada, Australia and Britain, all for relatively similar reasons. - Donation as 'historic' machines.

This is the Australian War Memorial's Spitfire, also in its original W.W.II paint - late war rather than combat operational, but genuine. Likewise the IWM in Lambeth, London, has it's original paint (late war) on the historic Mk.I they have on show. Sadly the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa have jammed theirs in the roof, and given it a poor modern paint scheme. (IMHO)

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com