Colour of the Inscription on Munkuev's plane

[Anton Petrov]

Hi Massimo and everyone, hope you are all well:)

The plane in question is Munkuev's La-5, photo attached.  
What colour in your opinion was the inscription?



I have initially interpreted it as 'yellow'. I have also seen others interpret it as yellow before me.  But there are good arguments for 'silver' or perhaps simply some light 'Off-white" colour.
Thought I'd ask the community of people who are knowledgeable on this subject and see what your thoughts are.
I have expressed some thoughts on the colour options at the bottom of this page https://www.planesinprofile.com/la-5f/munkuevsgift. 'Yellow' still seems reasonable to me even though it was a hard-to-get colour paint for many Soviet VVS units during WW2.
 Would you leave the colour of the inscriptions as 'Yellow' or would you change the colour? and if you'd change it then to what colour?

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Anton,  happy to read you here.
The inscription is a bit surprising for me, it don't look made by brush, nor by stencil. It has sharp letters of regular thickness, seem made by some sort of pen.
My guess is not for yellow, but silver or some sort of white. Is it known what is written on the other side?
Best regards
Massimo

[Anton Petrov]

Thanks Massimo.

Good point about the evenness of the line thickness. One might presume it was written in chalk,  but I doubt that because had it been written in chalk then it would have washed off by the time of the crash probably (I am making presumptions here)?   It was probably just done by an artist with a 'steady hand' using a paintbrush:)

Yes,  I am beginning to feel that 'yellow' might not have been the most likely of the available possibilities, having heard the opinions of some people, and having seen your reply too.

About the inscription on the other side,  yes, we know most of what was written on the other side because there is a photo of it,  here:


The photo was found in this link https://books.google.com.au/books/content?id=4fD7kCJimQ0C&pg=PA199&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U1BpuzDrZ-IZPZgFt8vUGG6UWd_nA&w=1280

Here is how I have interpreted/hypothesised what is written on the port side (but the inscription is 'yellow' here still,  I might need to change the colour of it)

[Anton Petrov]

Silver or 'off-white'  coloured inscriptions might look like this:

[Massimo Tessitori]

Absolutely excellent artworks.
The reversed photo seems to show that the trim tab of the rudder was in solid color, maybe red, or perhaps bended in such way to give the idea.
Regards
Massimo

[Anton Petrov]

Thanks very much Massimo -  I try:)
And that's a great point about the trim tab!  Thank you. Yes, It could definitely be red. Something to think about for sure, hmmmm.  
I did wonder why it was darker,  thought that maybe it's simply because it's turned at a different angle to the light,  or it could be from another airplane (A plane with a Green/Black camo perhaps?), or maybe it was dirty or something. But it's definitely also a possibility that it might have been red. Will have a think some more about it.

[Massimo Tessitori]

Have you continued to widen your collection of artworks, in the meantime?

[Anton Petrov]

Yes,  but very slowly at this stage Massimo.  I wish I had more free time to dedicate to it.

I will soon start to introduce fighters of other nations to the website, P-51 for example, etc.  but again,  unfortunately,  not as quickly as i'd like.

Looking forward to seeing more art/research from you though. your I-16s are looking beautiful - I've been keeping a keen eye on that section of the website:)

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi,
I was working on a remake of the page on MiG-3. I'll see if I find time and will to complete it this winter. In the meantime, I've modelled some 3D parts to improve old kits.
I hope to see your next works soon.