Proto Yellow Belly

[Scooterman]

Just as the title says boys.  How late was the RAF prototype yellow belly used?  I got something in mind say 1947 to '49.

TIA!

Brad

[Maverick]

I'm guessing 'twould have a lot to do if the job was in cammies or not.  Can't say I've seen the yellow bellies on NMF or silver ships.

[Scooterman]

yeah, it would be camo-ed.

[Mossie]

I'm pretty sure it was purely a wartime thing, as the need to identify an unknown aircraft to freindly troops ceased with the end of the war.  After this most prototypes were NMF or silver dope.  I've seen pics of the Hawker P.1040 (Sea Hawk prototype) in 1947 & the Gloster E.1/45 Ace in 1948, both are in silver or NMF although the Ace does carry the circled yellow 'P'.  Later Sea Hawk protoypes received full camo when the Navy showed interest (it was originally touted to the RAF), no yellow undersides I'm afraid.

[kitnut617]

When I was doing some research to buid these, the Rolls Royce Private Venture Fighter (on the left) and the Rolls Royce Flying Test Bed,



I was in contact with David Birch, the official Rolls Royce historian and fellow Air-Britain member.  It was because of some information he gave me that I built the FTB version which he said had it flown would have got a Tempest tail.  When I had shown him a photo of the finished models he commented that the FTB wouldn't have had the yellow undersides because it was purely a wartime thing to help observers in identifying friendly aircraft.  I left it painted like it is because 1. it gives it a bit of colour, and 2. I had used an acylic clear coat over the enamel paint I use and thought I would have a major problem if I overpainted the acrylic with another coat of enamel.

I think though, High Speed Silver over yellow looks pretty good but highly unlikely it would have happened, at least after the war anyway.