Dear friends,
During a recent travel to Moscow, a scholar friend of mine, allowed me to examine and photograph some color samples he had.
I have determined that almost certainly, they are samples of the colors that were tested by the VVS in 1935.
From a modeler point of view, I do not think they will be useful but to someone interested in replicating just that experimental U-2.
From an historical point of view, they are interesting, but we must remember that, like the USAAF experiments of the same years, they had no practical application during the Second World War.
They tell us that the Russians used to include real color samples in their experimental reports, and that means that in the future it will be possible to measure some of these colors with a colorimeter.
Moreover, in the articles of Vachlamov and Orlov in M-Hobby of 1997 – 1999, they report the approximate FS595 shades of the colors used in the experiments of 1927 and 1940.
We have always considered these authors as serious researchers, but we asked ourselves how they could be so accurate, but now we know that almost certainly they have based their comparison on real samples preserved in the scientific reports of the time.
I have taken the liberty of translating the captions, and I enclose a copy of page 47 of M-Hobby of 9-1997, where there is an illustration of the U-2 used for the experiments.
I have not been able to find any photo of these planes during these experiments, and I would be happy if any of our colleagues could show us one.
I have enclosed a photo of the color samples and the original report of 1936 in a pdf, that I hope will be available at this address
https://drive.google.com/open?id=189Krbx1agPZ3voYxwjqpe_cqO53dN6dt:
I have used a pdf, because I have seen that several interesting photos disappeared from the forum with the passing of years, while with a pdf who is interested can copy and preserve it easily.
Best regards
Daniele Righi