Bspatz,
you are quite right about the Hemp planes standing out on the black pan.
This was a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.
On the one hand we were trying to make the aircraft blend in tonally with their
existing backgrounds, in order to make them more difficult to detect from space. Which is where the Hemp colour (or tone) came from.
The information regarding tone from this trial was also used by the Air Defenders when deciding the shade of grey to use. But that's another story.
On the other hand there was the RAF Airfield Tone Down team who's job seemed to be to paint everything green, buildings vehicles and vertical structures. The concrete taxiways and hardstandings were as you know covered in black bitumen. No doubt this made the airfield infrastructure harder to detect but ...
One day the RAF might get it's act together.
