A WHOLE WORLD OF WRONG COLORS
Recently on one Czech discussion modeling
forum there was a short debate about the
coloring of Finnish MiG-21BIS. One of the
discussing guys sort of “knocked us over the
head” with the coloring of the Finnish scheme,
saying that we got it wrong and should fix it. I did
a bit of research on this subject some time ago,
although I am not the author of the scheme of
the kit in question, so I took up the controversy.
I was further reassured by the words "I know of
hundreds of photos of Finnish MiG-21bis aircraft,
but in none of them the aircraft sports the original
large cockades and green-brown camouflage."
An exchange of a few posts with photos followed,
the last one I argued with showing without any
doubt the aircraft in brown-green livery with
large markings ... Thus, the debate fizzled out and
with it, unfortunately, a bit of a final conclusion,
which is that the opponent of our livery, although
I have no doubt he knows a lot, was simply wrong
in this case and Eduard got the camouflage right.
The special thing was that the author of the
original photographs that we have, which in many
cases have not been published anywhere, wrote
to me himself about it: “When the first edition of
Eduard’s BIS appeared, someone immediately
started to question the Finnish coloration. This
was quite amusing to me, because I had verified
these colors personally and directly on aircraft in
active service!”
The opponent of our color scheme of the
Finnish “BIS” argued that some of the submitted
photographs were distorted due to the lighting
conditions, which is certainly a very relevant
comment in general, but this too has its rules.
Light is not selective and if it affects colors, it
affects all of them, not just one. One could write
a scientific treatise on the subject (not that a few
scientists haven’t already written a few, Richard
Feynman not excluded). If I take it to the absurd,
colors as such don't actually exist. There is light,
and what we see is fundamentally dependent
on it. The limit of this “function” is a state where
there is no light. Then there are no colors either
... Dive just 15 meters deep in the sea and all
that remains of the colorful coral “gardens” and
other fauna is a blue-grey dullness, because
the water has gradually filtered out most of the
color spectrum of daylight. The red is the first to
take its toll, then the other components follow.
Climate, time of day or season, geographical
location or even altitude can do similar things
to colors, albeit to a lesser extent and intensity.
Well, then we can add to that the different
characteristics of photographic material (this is
what photography was done on before the digital
age, in case some of the younger ones didn't
know; today the white balance can be a problem
on digital cameras), the different quality of
reproduction, scanners, the color characteristics
September 2023
of displays and individual image viewers, and
suddenly we have an equation of twenty or so
unknowns, the solution of which would lead us to
that one absolutely correct and accurate shade
of color. However, unlike aerodynamics, where
the international standard atmosphere is used
to achieve comparable measurement results, it
is difficult to convert something to some kind of
“international standard lighting conditions”. Yes,
we could agree to take pictures only at 6,000
K, but we probably won't be able to do anything
about it in the photos we have already taken ...
I prefer not to go into the topic of reading colors
from black and white photos. However, for those
interested in this subject I would recommend
the book Jasta Colors Vol. 1 (Aeronaut Books;
2020) by Bruno Schmäling and our excellent
collaborator Jörn Leckscheid, who discusses the
types of black and white photographic materials
and their different color renditions in depth.
When looking for the “right” colors for our
models, we usually have no choice but to use
our imagination, extrapolate already known
facts, add a little bit of feeling and perhaps some
tolerance when judging finished models of other
modellers. After all, we don”t all have the same
color sense either. For example, a friend of mine
from my paragliding days kept his colorblindness
a secret for a time. We only discovered it on
a trip to the woods, where we came across
a place thickly covered with strawberries in full
crop. “That's a lot of strawberry!” we exclaimed,
happily munching away, while Alex, the man in
question, stood unhappily right over the bounty,
and finally got out ”Where are they?” He just didn’t
see red color ...
Color chips! I can hear the die-hard modelers,
clamoring for the one and only right shade no
matter what. Yes, chips ... Like the ones of the
ANA 623 Glossy Sea Blue shade for example. The
production “recipe” for this color was changed
in 1967/1968 because the original paint degraded
quickly and had to be made from different
components to make it more durable. The US
Navy then, sometime in the 1960s, made surplus
samples of this paint available to modelers and
aviation historians, with
some getting the original
1944 samples while others
had 1948 samples. And the
basis of the controversy
over the one and only
correct ANA 623 was born,
because these two chips did
not match each other! So, of
course, changes in recipes
and components used in
production, however forced,
could also have affected
the final appearance of
Text: Richard Plos
the colors used on aircraft. In my cheerful
relativizing of our ability to find the most correct
camouflage colors, I have not even come close
to name all the stakeholders. In our hobby,
for example, scale effect and related scale
lightening of colors (of which I am a proponent
myself) come into play, and of course the aspect
of availability of the right shade from your
favorite paint manufacturer. Here, by the way, my
colleagues and I occasionally get into a tight spot
when creating the color schemes, most often in
the case of colors for the pre-war Czechoslovak
air force and most of all when preparing kits of
civilian machines, in our case mainly the Trenér
line. Our office is then scented with Gunze C
series, and more and more colors are occupying
my desk as I try to find the ones that could be
used to mix the blue I see on the display. Which
brings us back to the point. I may have a graphic
calibrated one, but what good is it if the photos
I’m working from each show a different color?
Probably the biggest nut for me was the Z-326M
with registration OK-OTP. I shot it in the hangar
at the Točná aifield, then we took it outside and
I shot it in daylight. And then again, outside again,
but later, after flying. Then, on the display I got
three completely different colors of one aircraft
in one day. And mix the right color then!
All the discussion regarding the coloring of
Finnish MiGs-21BIS was therefore, in my opinion,
instructive for at least two reasons. Firstly, I think
that claiming anything about the color shades as
an unquestionable reality is pretty “waxy”. Then,
too, it’s important to realize that an individual
cannot know everything, and thus it never
hurts to have a little humility and the ability to
admit that my fixed idea may not be correct (you
know that saying about the benefit of doubting
everything in life at least once, even the fact that
one plus one are two, right?) And in the spirit of
these last words, we asked the aforementioned
Finnish colleague to share his knowledge and
photos regarding Finnish MiGs-21BIS. So, you can
look forward to his article(s) in some of the future
issues of Info magazine. So, all hail the colors,
especially the right ones in the right light!
INFO Eduard
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