Attached:
Captain of the Clouds 'Hurri-schmitt'. Thestills are of lousy quality but they hint at the placement and size of the fake Nazi tail markings ('Hollywood
Hakenkreuz?). And that swastika is a honker! Maybe source appropriately-sized decals from an old Bf 110 or Me 410 sheet? Or Stuka?
All this has me nerding out over that 'Hurri-schmitt'. There's a bunch of confusion over the ID of that aircraft. Pilot Dal Russel is listed as being with No.1 (F) Squadron from 28 May 1940 to 26 Feb 1941. Shortly after joining No.1, the squadron relocated from Dartmouth for Middle Wallop (the unit arrived in June 1940 but wouldn't be renumbered as the more familiar No.401 RCAF until March 1941).
Obviously Dal Russel had returned to Canada after sometime February 1941 but the
Hurricane certainly didn't belong to No.1 (F). Filming didn't begin until mid-July 1941 so the timing is okay. [1] He's identified as F/O Russel ... if that rank is accurate, the 'Hurri-schmitt' scenes had to be shot prior to Dal's promotion to F/L (01 Aug 1941). So, the pilot name is correct but that doesn't help us with the source of his 'Hurri-schmitt'.
There is online speculation that the 'Hurri-schmitt' was a
Sea Hurricane from 118 (F) Squadron. Despite being a
Kittyhawk squadron, 118 (F) did actually operate a few
Sea Hurricanes. But the RCAF's first
Sea Hurricanes had those short, blunt spinner for de Havilland props. The 'Hurri-schmitt' clearly had a long spinner. I'm wondering if this was an MSFU
Hurricanes ... ie: a 'hookless'
Sea Hurricane for CAM Ships? [2] Some of those did get diverted to the RCAF.
Some other online speculation is that this was a Yarmouth- or Debert-based
Hurricanes. Nope. The latter might be confusion with the film's 'Hurri-schmitt' targets - Debert being home to 31 OTU on
Hudsons. Yarmouth only had a handful of later
Hurricane XIIs to provide 'targets' for training TAGs but those probably didn't arrive until 1943. A further speculation is that the 'Hurri-schmitt' might have been painted dark blue or grey. Again, nope. It was all-over black ... just as you've got her
Okay, nerd-mode off ...
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[1] Some sources show S/L Russel being repatriated to Canada in 1942. That was probably based on his having become C/O of No. 14 Sqn, a
Kittyhawk unit based at Sea Island, BC. But that source's credibility suffers in saying Dal became C/O in "summer 1942". In fact, Russel took command at Rockcliffe on 02 Jan 1942 (No.14 just didn't become fully operational in BC until June, which is likely where that "summer" came from).
[2] The first CCF-built
Hurricane Xs were completed in June 1941 but, AFAIK, all of those earliest Mk.Xs were shipped engineless to the UK ... becoming RAF Mk.IIs when locally fitted with
Merlin XXs.