Build Photos at: http://www.parkerinfo.com/ap111.htm
And so, I'll again open this can of worms...
Howard wrote:
The Japanese had a great deal of difficulty getting good quality pigments and binders for paint during the war and their aircraft finishes were not very durable. Many of the references to green camouflage jobs with silver or grey oversprayings that were actually from pictures of solid color aircraft with the paint flaking off! The Rufe on the box art, (Actually a Zero on floats. The tail is wrong.) has a Kana "Ko" at the beginning of the tail number, indicating that it was assigned to the "Koku Gijitsu Sho", the naval Air Technical Arsenal at the Yokosuka Navy Yard. This was a sort of Japanese version of Wright Field or Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Any Japanese aircraft used for experimental purposes would have been all over orange with a black cowl until US Carrier aircraft began strafing airfields on the home islands in late 1944 and early 1945 when they would have had green or blue camouflage paint applied to the upper surfaces.
NOTE: There were never any mauve/purple colored A6M2N's (Rufe's). I have no idea where that story surfaced but it isn't true. A6M2's were primed with a russet red on exterior surfaces and then color coats put on top. Now, if top coats wore off, as they most likely did in the South Pacific, then the red would probably show through in spots/areas. Add in the sun fade factor and it would turn a shade of light red/pink...but not mauve or purple and certainly not over the entire aircraft.
And then from:
http://modelscale.free.fr/profils/Rufemauve_P/
And so: Purple Rufes?Voici la queue d'un Zéro retrouvé il y a quelques années dans une île du Pacifique . L'apprêt rouge brique est très résistant car il est encore là après 50 ans de moussons et autres intempéries. Notez que l'immatriculation de l'appareil -176 est encore visible alors que le camouflage gris N10 ne persiste guère que par endroits.
TRANSLATION: Here's the tail of a Zero discovered several years ago on a Pacific island. The brick-red primer is very resistant because it's still there after 50 years of Monsoons and other weather effects. Note that the ID number (176) is still visible, whereas the the Camouflage Grey No. 10 is hardly hanging on except in a few places.
The author on this site calls this his hypothesis as to the origin of the widespread stories about the existence of a mauve version of the "Rufe". He concludes that this belief began by witnesses seeing old Zero wreckage.
I won;t paint it purple then...
