by Steve Mackenzie

OK-Z probably FX819 in DFS Courtesy of Archbold Estate.jpg

Surprisingly due to the small number of airframes involved, there appears to be a variation in the DFS scheme. This seems to involve a more or less complate repaint. The airframes have the opposite MAP pattern ('A' pattern instead of the usual 'B' pattern that all RAF P-40s came from the factory in). They also seem to have the upper surface colours reversed from their expected locations. Thus a complete repaint involved. As we are talking about a full repaint I have assumed colours of Dark Green, the same light Grey on the upper sutfaces and Med Sea Grey underneath.

First example is pictured above, OK-Z FX819. Note that we can still see the vestiges of a Sky Blue fuselage band and the 'C1' type upper wing roundels indicating 1945.

Colours as noted above.

And that is not the only example. This image, one of the first showing the 'No Orchids' nose art has been available since the 1970s. I recently got a good quality scan of it and on this better quality image one can see that OK-K in the background (which is washed out on other examples) has the same odd DFS scheme as OK-Z FX819. (It may have been FX781).

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