Dear friends,
In this very interesting page from Massimo, there is a short note on the “silver” color that was often applied to other Polikarpov airplanes.
In the M. Maslov book “The battle "gulls" of Stalin. I-15, I-15bis, I-153” (Боевые «чайки» Сталина. И-15, И-15бис, И-153) there is a very interesting document, that I do not seem to have seen before, on the reason for the use of this color:
“Color options
In an explanatory note to the revised draft of the I-15 bis, drawn up on February 25, 1937, and written by the Director of the aircraft factory N°1 Sidor, Chief designer Polikarpov and assistant chief designer Tetivkin, it was said: "The coloring of the aircraft will be given great attention. We believe that the I-15bis aircraft is intended to take the fight mainly at altitude, and not on a low-level flight, the color of the aircraft's color should be in harmony with the color of a clear or cloudy sky and masked by it. ...We think it is necessary to paint the aircraft to match the color of a clear blue sky or the color of a cloudy sky, that is, a grayish-silver color. In addition, in some cases, it is necessary to mask the aircraft for the ground, giving a greenish protective color””
It is interesting that the first Bf 109 in Spain, painted “silbergrau”, had just arrived, so the idea seems to have originated without foreign influence, and these ideas were at the origin of the Summer 1937 decision to paint monocoque aircraft silver.
But obviously at Zavod 21 they had a lot of green paint available…
Regards
Daniele
