JHM asked some questions about Matra rocket pod colours in the build thread for his very excellent "Meteor-Hog" here:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,8242.msg109321.html#msg109321 but I didn't see them at the time, and since that build is now finished, I thought a separate thread would be more useful.
On colours: I can find pictures of RAF Matra pods in all sorts of colous schemes including all-white, correct underside colour, incorrect underside colour, topside cammo and tatty-looking mix of greys. However, the most common, and I think attractive scheme has a black nose cone, "aluminium" body, and "steel" tail cone (inverted commas because those are just my impression of the colours: I don't know what the actual materials are).
On Dates:It was pointed out on JHM's thread that Matra pods are anachronistic on a late-'40s RAF aircraft because the RAF didn't adopt them until the mid-'60s. That might be true for
service aircraft, but it's always been my impression that the RAF were rather late adopters of the Matra pod, being wedded to the 3" RP longer than it's performance really justified. Does anyone have any dates for when Matra pods were actually
invented and available on the market?
On loaded/unloaded:It seems to me, looking at photographs, that a loaded Matra pod has either:
a) flat oval covers over the tube muzzles, thus making the pods nose a smooth cone,
or
b) the heads of the rockets protruding beyond the slope of the tube muzzles, thus making the pod nose "bumpy" rather than "holey".
Either way, that implies that most of the "holey-nosed" Matra pods supplied in kits are therefore, by implication, empty. Is this correct, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?
