STORMO! Forums

Howdy, all!

At:
http://www.stormomagazine.com/RegiaAero ... 0Interiors

...I see the interior of a Macchi 205 should be "Grigio Azzurro Chiaro 1" which is close to FS 36307. In the Testors catalog, it calls FS 36307 "ModelMaster 4759 - FS36307 - Light Sea Gray (F)" which seems fair enough. I'm going to guess that this was inside the cockpit areas only, and that "Verde Anticorrosione FS 34272" was applied inside cowls, etc (a color that looks a lot like a slightly darker FS 34227 - MM "Pale Green"). Am I right on that?

Also, inside the cockpit, were the hydraulic, fire, and air component colors painted this interior color, or were they the red, white, etc?

Thanks!

Hi Rob,
We get this question quite alot and perhaps I need to add more material to that section of the colorguide. Below from Tavola 10 issued in Nov. 1941 and in full effect in 1942, what it says is that undersurfaces of wartime aircraft were to be finished in Grigio Azzurro Chiaro, however it also says internal surfaces such as the wheel wells, armament installation, housing for radio, photographic and other related equipment were to be finished in Grigio Azzurro Chiaro.



Below photographs of an unrestored C.200 and C.202 at Vigna di Valle Air Force Museum in Rome; take note of the aircraft cockpit colors as well as the wheel wells. All this says is that Grigio Azzurro Chiaro was used over top an anti corrison paint. In some cases the cockpit interiors were remained unpainted in anticorrision green for example.






Below a color wartime photo of a C.202, take note of the color of the wheel wells and also note the shade of Nocciola Chiaro (which looks correct), use it as a reference point for the correctness of color in the photo.



In some restorations, such as the C.205V MM91818 at Museo Nazionale Della Scienza e Della Technica and the C.200 MM8146 at the United States Airforce Museum, the cockpit and wheel wells are finished in an anticorrision green.




Hope this helps.

Vince, you absolutely rock! Thanks - that's everything I was asking, plus answers to all of the follow-up questions I would have had!

Researching for 1/48 build - https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mat ... ject=92524

I found this to be very useful and did some further research. I pulled paint standards form Italian Website and found best color matches in my opinion.
I am really happy with the paint from this company for anti-corrosion under coat.
http://www.modellismostatico.it/prodotto/colori-acrilici-lifecolor-ua116/

I find the grey in post pictures very dark though?

Also was the Engine really Blue or is this an error in (restoration?) - Can't seem to upload the photo (.2MB)?

Anticorrosive paints in RA were of several types.
In 1940, there were at least two paints, a light grey and a light blue. The latter was fixed on metal by a kiln-dry treatment which turned it by blue into green. Later, it was also used, particularly on late FIATs, the zinc-chromate yellow; that one made in Italy was named Tekital. As for orders, a second hand of grey -probably the same one later called GAC1- was applied at least in the cockpit. Some factories, as Aermacchi and Reggiane, avoided to do this, and interiors were left light green. MC.200s and 202s were built also by Breda and SAI Ambrosini, which used grey, and this explains the differences. The MC.205s were built just by Aermacchi, so their cockpits were green. See the armoured seat of a serie III 205 flown by Ten. Vittorio Satta (by the way, 200s and 202s had it natural metal).
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Segg ... rrare).JPG
Green hues varied among factories, Aermacchi one was a pale green FS34558, so the green on museum examples should be too dark, probably it's a modern paint used during restoration.
Wheel wells were usually sprayed grey jointly with undersides. Note that in Macchi fighters there were covers to protect cables and engine devices by sand and dust; these covers were removable for personnel work, and didn't survive, as no Macchi fighters in the museums had them. However, in active use these covers were often left down, and in that case the green inner structure was visible. Electric wiring was yellow or textured silver, piping was in the proper colour code.
Stefano

Thanks for this very informative thread!

The linked picture of the seat is very interesting. The anti-corrosive primer is such a pale green shade, that it can be difficult to distinguish from GAC even in a good color photo.