Green or Brown.

[Ginger.]

It's an old one,but they are the best.What colour where the SE5s?On the back of Cross and Cockade magazine is an illustration of 56 Sqdn SE5s tangling with The Von,the aircraft are dark green. Cecil Lewis writes of chocolate coloured fighter planes.
Can I paint them in both shades and be accurate?

This is one one the questions that I was hoping to get help with when I posted.
This is what I have as you know The SE5s
was painted a color called P.C.10.
This was made by mixing. They say the color looked greenish with a brown predominant.
Then with weather and sunlite they say that planed turned brown. The underside of the wings was in clear dope.
Know I have looked and I meaned looked a lot. I have only found 1 cholor plate of a brown SE5a. I have found sites with one of the few SE5as that are left. ( that is 3 I bleive) found meny replicas and scales planes and thay have all been green looking to me. I have send mail to a few that do scale modeling and I get a diffent and answers I have seen them done in brown and green.
So maybe some one else can add to this. I building a 1/4 SE5a rc plane. So I too would like to get the makings and the color right.
I have a few aces in mind still trying to find more info on a few of them before I deside. Hope I helped and I hope more will add what they know.
Dave

[PeterL]

I favour the brown school of thought for PC10. For modeling purposes Gunze pre 1943 olive drab , beng more brown than the post '43 OD, is a good choice IMO. If, like me, you are still using smelly old enamels rather than accrylics, try Humbrol "brown bess". It's a bit chocolaty, but I like it.

The great PC10 debate has been running as long as I have been modeling and will continue long after I'm gone.

cheers

Peter L

i also have seen SE's depicted in both brown and green. Gentlemen: is it possible that various squadrons or different services might have used one color over the other? (the brown is much nicer)

Check out the new paint line from MisterKit(available from Aeroclub,other places too). They have a PC-10 ("green" end of the spectrum,but still pleasantly green-brown)and a PC-12("brown" end,like C.S.Lewis'"chocolate-colour" ,I imagine).Both are wonderful& seem reasonably accurate ,as they are meant specifically for WWI modelers.Good stuff!

The one at Rhinebeck is green, but I'm pretty sure it's a replica. It doesn't fly any more, and didn't have a n engine in it when I saw it last summer. The only other SE5 I've ever seen was a 3/4 size replica on board U.S.S. Intrepid Air & Space Museum several years ago. It was brown. When I was aboard Intrepid last year, the SE5 was not there.

[Ginger.]

Confusing is'nt it.In 'High In The Empty Blue'there is a print of a photo sent home by one of the pilots.This has sketches and notes on it,one,describes the SE as green.Carry on that man.

Olive Drab is a descendant once removed from PC10 and Olive Drab is a greeny/brown colour. If we didnt have the moniker "Olive Drab" to describe the colour it would be alternatively described as Green or Brown.

I believe it was the cellulose coatings over the PC10 that gave a yellowish tint to the aircraft and made the newer aircraft ( or still shiny ) ones appear greener. As the outer covering wore, more of the PC10 showed through and it appeared browner.

Another thing to remember is that mass production back then was not Deming like. It was still predominantly a craftsmen's world and bucket chemistry ruled. PC10 mixes despite having an "official" recipe would have run the gamut of "She'll be right mate", "we are knocking off in 20 minutes" and "Hurry up Joe, it's smoko".

Factories would also have used what is there. A good example of this is in WWII when the Boomerangs came out painted in Light Green rather than Foilage Green for a period, for no other reason other then CAC wanted to use up their Light Green paint stocks. This is despite the RAAF having drawn up official camouflage patterns for aircraft in the three theatres around the Home Front and South Pacific.

Plenty of variety and tonal shades there to choose from, and all with the bounds of believeability and arguability.




cam
AFC - http://members.xoom.com/pointcook/

I'm with Cam on this one. The stuff I've read on this subject suggests that the "green" colour people wrote about was an optical effect of sunlight on newly doped PC10. As ultra-violet rays degraded the nitrocellulose, the green appearance faded to something more brown-like. Remember, the PC10 itself consisted of a mix of ochre and black pigments. No way do you get green from that. Huntley uses the phrase "green shift" to describe the optical effect of new dope on PC10.

From a modeller's point of view, of course, this is just great. You can paint your SE-5a in a whole spectrum of greenish-brown through yellowish-brown shades, and be able to claim accuracy. Of course, it'd be harder to claim accuracy if the upper surfaces were green and the machine showed substantial weathering and aging...

[Ginger.]

I'm totally underwhelmed.The greatest brayns on WW1 aviation lurrk on this forum,will anybody come off the fence green or brown!!!

We had a 97 thread debate about that murdering hun Voss` cowling...Yet no grand masters know what clour a WW1 SE5 was...