Warbird Information Exchange

As the originator of that thread and a student of Luftwaffe aircraft, pilots, colors and operations for well over 30 years, I will say this for your benefit: the colors *as displayed in the photo of the finished product* bear little resemblance to anything I've ever seen in any of the hundreds of books I own or tens of thousands of photos I've seen, so you'll forgive my rather substantial doubt as to how accurate the paint colors are on the restoration. Perhaps some amazing level of spectral analysis has brought forth this result, and all of us who've spent so long digging into the Luftwaffe will have a new set of benchmarks to work from... or maybe someone made a guess based on their interpretation of the remaining colors, and this is what we got. It wouldn't be the first time a museum demanded absolute accuracy and did not quite receive it; witness the F3F-2 at the Naval Aviation Museum finished in grey, or the Fw 190D-13 in Mr. Allen's own collection (which spawned an entirely different conversation in that thread).

Whatever the case, and whatever the origin of the original paints used on the aircraft operationally, as I stated in my posts the mere fact that we have a genuine German Fw 190 airworthy is cause for celebration.

Lynn Ritger
Author, SAM Datafiles 9 and 10, The Modellers Guide to the Messerschmitt Bf 109 (part 1 and 2)

You forgot "The fabric effect is overdone" and some comment about the rivets.

Lynn

I don't know, but something about the new paint scheme just doesn't look right, IMO. It looks too clean, too "plastic-y", too pure. Maybe it's because it's not soiled and weathered? It almost looks like a fake fiberglass replica.

If we compare the finished product to both an authentic wartime photo of the same paint scheme and an artist's profile rendering, we get some interesting contrasts:

Do not mean to be rude but :
- what do you expect a plane just out of the paintshop to look like ?
- on the period pictures, how do you relate *real* color (that of the apint inits can, before spraying) to the type of film used for taking the picture (which inevitably enhance some colors, sometime give a slightly different tinge, and no so some others), to the type of chemistry used to process the film then, to the way the type of film and type of chemistry ages, to the fact that operational plane where always covered at least with dust and oil, when not with mud ?
Just food for thought...

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I think one of the problems these days is that too much paint is used in wartime Luftwaffe restorations.
The demarcation lines are pritty much spot on, however the 'factory fresh' look is never going to be what is found in the field. With some operational 'wear and tear' the 190 will start to work its way into the appropriate 'look.'
As Xavier mentions, wartime photos can also be deceiving-here is a shot from my collection which seems to show the same aircraft as above.....quite a bit different!

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I should say that the colour of the sky in that picture tells you all yu need to know about the accuracy of the colour in old photos!

Fly it 6-8 hours every day, never put it in a hangar, drag dusty covers, tarps and pine branches over it whenever it isn't flying and it will look 'authentic' in no time.

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

I like the cut of your jib.

About 95% of the time, modelers are better informed than restorers when it comes to aircraft colors and markings. Although the stuff about not being able to see the panel lines is hilarious, as if life should imitate art.

Under the circumstances of this particular case, I'd suspect that it falls within the other 5%. I am not impressed with the apparent color fidelity of either the photos or the profile drawing, and FHC has the resources to do this right.

It sometimes happens that paint matched even from original samples goes astray. Back in the 90s I listened to a docent at the MOF in Santa Monica tell me that Dave Price's (now Russell's) Hurricane was perfectly matched to period colors, when it was obvious they were too garish. Maybe something of the kind happened here. Maybe. Maybe not.

Most of the issue probably has to do with the freshness of the paint on this bird. On the original, new paint was daubed over old faded paint so there was never a moment when all the paints looked fresh at the same time. This plane will not be rode hard and put away wet so we will never see much weathering on it. But there is an understandable negative reaction in the restoration biz to simulating worn paint, stains, etc., except in temporary paint jobs for movies.

Offhand I'd say it looks magnificent.

August

Well, as one of the people closely involved with the aircraft over six years, I can say that we never worried about modellers opinions. We could teach tem a thing or to, based on what we learnt from this one aircraft.

Some examples - Firstly, there was no rigid standard for specific colours. The cockpit, predominantly RLM66, had a number of different shades in it - which we reproduced. Different electrical boxes were different colours. We found RLM 66 ranging from a fairly close match to black, to some seven shades lighter, with all points in between. No book will show that - I know, I read them all. We saw various different shades of many other colours too... Too many modellers search for absolutes - I'm not sure there ever were any!

One wheel has a red ring around it - No idea why, but thats what it had in the field, so thats what it has now.

One cannot look at old pictures and make any firm statement; there are too many variables. We had an original piece of history, and reproduced that the best way we could.

I confess, I had nothing to do with the final scheme, and was quite surprised at what came out. BUT - we only ever had seriously faded colour samples to compare with. I would also say that the Arizona sun is rather different to the Russian Tundra - one cant compare even modern pictures of similar items on that basis.

Wait til its in rainy Seattle, with some good exhaust staining (come on, its a round engine, it'll never be completely clean!), and then we'll see.

Nice to see it finally finished.

Beer time!

Bruce, thank you very much for your post! I would love it if there was a book that detailed this aircraft's entire restoration - from just the little that I know, it is astonishing. I believe that just like other restorations in the past that broke new grounds in terms of getting it 'right', things are bound to be questioned at first, only to become a benchmark-guide later on.

I know one day I'll have to make the trip out to Everett to see it and the rest of the FHC collection, but until then I am really looking forward to the first "Fly Days" and public events that this aircraft participates in, and the internet begins to be loaded with pictures and video of it as a result.

Happymeal and Bruce and k5083;
Thank you. just because 'it's something I've never seen' doesn't make it not so, I've seen photographs of Henry Ford riding in a Packard. The only 'constant' is 'expect the unexpected'. And Bruce, your inputs from having worked on the airplane for 6 years carries a pretty fair amount of gravitas with me-plus I know how..er..'focused' FHC is on accuracy. Name me another restorer who would insist the original wiring be reproduced using mid 1940's materials and techniques. The airframe in question was built in small parts and sections in barns and basements and kitchen tables, not in huge well lit factories located in the American Mid West, by kinder, hausenfrau's, old men, anyone who could be trained to do simple tasks.

And, as far as publishing the dimensions and being countered by people dragging drawings and literature along to disprove what's right there in front of you reminds me of a Richard Pryor line 'what you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?'. I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but when the factory original 1/4 scale drawings used by BELL to design and build the X-1 were scaled up to full size by computers for the movie 'the Right Stuff' the studio models came out just a very slight bit bigger in all dimensions because the computers used scaled up more accurately than guys with slide rules ever could have. Bring your documents and I'll bring my Brown and Sharp 1/100th to an inch 6 inch stainless steel scale and if I measure something on the real 1/1 airframe as being 1 inch, it's one inch not .9999998 inches. Dimensions are a tricky thing, every airplane drawing for every part is designed to +/- .003 in. for a total of .006 in. (the only variance from this is the 787 where due to it's construction materials, everything is nominal to + .003) If every part is built to the maximum allowed dimension (+ .003) then the finished product will be somewhat longer than the advertised manufacturers dimension, in other words due to a buildup in tolerances, a 737-900 could wind up .6 inches longer than advertised. Up until computers took over formulating paints, it was sort of a crap shoot about color matching from can to can, that's why the guy @ the paint store tells you on big jobs, 'mix all the paint together and stir the heck out of it' so your front room isn't two shades of tan. Paint formulas are closely guarded company secrets and always have been, if you are doing a government project, your paint supplier can obtain the approved formulas from the Government, but due to variables like water quality and chemical content, variances in local pigments and their chemical content, storage, temperature and location where/when applied, whether or not the paint, in shipment was heated or cooled excessively changes it's compounding, we painted a 727 many years ago for a Brown and White box hauler company, the box car the paint was in while in shipment was stuck in a blizzard and when the paint was applied and dried, the color coat had lots and lots of orange splotches in it kinda Hippy looking in a VW Microbus sorta way, but the customer was not amused.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

With respect to German schemes in particular, the top restorers and the modelers have had their disagreements. I don't know if the light green on the FHC 190 is supposed to be RLM 82, but if so, it doesn't look any brighter than the shade chosen by the NASM for its Me 262, which itself generated some controversy. The modelers seem to favor duller interpretations of colors in general. I wonder if that's because bright colors look brighter and more toylike on a miniature model than they do on a full-size plane. The modelers may be subconsciously wishing that the real planes had colors that would make their models look more realistic!

OTOH I hope Bruce was being glib about not being worried what modelers think, because they truly do the most exhaustive research into the color schemes. You can't blame them, since it's all they've got to do, with no real-airplane mechnical or structural issues to worry about. They can be a precious resource, as long as you bear in mind that they have their own biases and orthodoxy like any other group.

August

August,

Yes, and no - as you know, there are some that know they are right, even when the evidence stares them in the face. I should not however group everyone in the same band.

Yes, there are many, many good researchers. There are also plenty that trot out the same inaccurate research over and again.

I say again - the bright Arizona sun will bring a totally different caste to the colours. Lets wait and see!!



Bruce

That's why aircraft modellers use what they call 'scale effect' where in they tint with white to various percentages so the paint is 'toned down' and not so garish or vibrant on the model to simulate by tricking the eye and the mind into 'seeing' the object from a scale 6 feet or 32 feet or whatever. It does work, step out to the curb and look down your street, as things are further away, they tend to blanch out and tone down due to atmospherics, so it's way to 'force' your brain to compensate and it is very clever that somebody figured that out, it adds to the overall look of the subject. Car modellers could care less as they purposely want their cars as bright and vibrant as they can get them because no one wants to see Ben DeBumpa's NASCAR stocker 'scale effected' to 25 feet away.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-