Spitfire Mk.22 Hilton Fighter

[novis2]

In search of photos for one of the buildings I came across this
He said it was a gift for 27 birthday from friends hotel empire heiress Hilton and Paris Hilton
For her popularity pink color, the aircraft was painted the same color, canopy, blades and chrome exhausts

[perttime]

I've seen pink Spitfires before ... but not Mk.22, or wearing US markings

[Gondor]

Looks nice

Gondor

[Dizzyfugu]

I've seen pink Spitfires before ... but not Mk.22, or wearing US markings

Yup, there's a "PRU Pink" for RAF reconnaissance aircraft - and that was my first impression when I saw this one.
Nice paintjob, by the way!

[The Wooksta!]

PRU Pink is a misnomer, it's really an off white.

[PR19_Kit]

In the RW there were two versions of ''pink' for RAF PR aircraft.

In the early days, 1940-42 etc. when the PRU and 541 Sqdn. were operating out of St. Eval in Cornwall to keep tabs on the Nazi progress through France and later to cover the docks in Northern France, they used a very pale pink finish on the low-evel aircraft. As the Wooksta says it was almost white with a very slight pinkish shade to it. The higher altitude tasks used aircraft painted in Camotint, the pale green (Sky Type S almost...) shade developed by Sydney Cotton during the late 30s, or in variations of PRU Blue which was still being 'fine tuned' at the time.

The low level pink aircraft were configured with either port or starboard facing cameras depending on if they were flying at dawn or dusk, the reasoning being that the dawn aircraft would fly east to west ('Beware the PR Spitfire in the Sun....') at just below cloud level and the dusk aircraft would fly west to west and would need their cameras facing the coast on the starboard side. My Dad was always a 'dawn' person apparently, a trait not followed by me I must say. 

Later on in WWII when the Allies were moving through Northern France and Belgium one of the RAF Sqds. flew their FR XI Spitfires painted a much darker shade of pink, very much like that on the Spit 22 at the start oh this thread. There's a photo of them lined up on a Belgian airfield, all heavily weathered in their pink paint, taken during late 1944 or early 1945. By that time the 'real' PR Sqdn aircraft were almost all painted PRU blue, flying either PR XIs or PR XIXs.

The situation has been clouded somewhat by the recent appearance of one of the best preserved PR XI Spitfires, PL965, painted in the FR IX darker pink shade, which the PR XIs rarely if ever used. Before PL965 did its tour of the US a few years ago it appeared in that pink shade as part of the WWII duo 'The Pink and Black' alongside a Hurricane II flying from the old RAF airfield at Broughton in Yorkshire. Somewhere I have some photos of PL965 being strippped down just prior to it being shipped to the US and is it EVER pink!

Luckly PL965 is back in its 'proper' PRU Blue scheme and has been amazingly re-united with one of its original engines, but doesn't sport a proper PR one piece windscreen, it still uses a normal fighter type windscreen.

Here endeth the lessson on pink Spitfires. 

[perttime]

Hmmm...
What about the stories about Spitfire paint jobs fading and turning pinkish in the hot sun - North Africa, or something?

[PR19_Kit]

My Dad flew some of the pale pink PR Spitfires from St Eval and also flew some later Marks in N Africa and the Middle East. While he mentioned the pale pink ones he never mentioned any 'fading to pink' during his time in the Middle East.

Having said that he was VERY secretive about his entire time during WWII and it took me years and years to prise what I've learned above from him.

[Glenn Gilbertson]

Mad but beautiful!