Surprisingly, low-level reconnaissance aircraft were often painted light pink. High-altitude reconnaissance aircraft were painted medium PR (photo reconnaissance) blue overall. There were several other paint schemes for specialist variants. Reconnaissance Spitfires, which carried cameras to photograph enemy territory, were stripped of guns and other non-essential equipment, streamlined so they could fly as high and fast as possible, and painted with special camouflage. Later on, the entire underside was painted light blue Sky, duck-egg blue or light grey to make the aircraft less visible from below during dogfights. However, to make it easy for anti-aircraft artillery batteries to identify friendly fighters, the underside of the early Spitfires was painted half black, half white, along a dividing line from nose to tail although sometimes the whole of the fuselage underside was white. This was designed to break up the aircraft¹s profile. The first Spitfires to go into service were painted with a pattern of Dark Earth and Dark Green on top of the wings and on the upper fuselage. Operational aircraft required camouflage to make them less visible from above in flight and on the ground.

Raf squadron codes and serial numbers