Roundel Placement

Roundels

If you managed to make your way through the various blogs to this point and continued reading, there is one point that should and probably is apparent…your interest in the Labrador and Voyageur. So it is likely that you will have figured out on your own the various locations, on either variant, where the roundels were placed. That said however placement of the roundel on the underside is not quite as obvious, in part because of the shortage of decent pictures.

Roundels have been placed on the underside of the fuselage of Labradors only once (SARCUP), while on the Voyageur the under fuselage placement of roundels occurred in two separate eras. The first time the Voyageur wore roundels on the underside of the fuselage was while the aircraft were still dressed in Army livery.

409 Wearing early white markings and 400 series numbers with the red ensign on the aft pylon.

White the photo above does not allow us to identify which aircraft it is, three things are of note. Firstly, the aircraft has black numbering, secondly the helio has the new current Canadian flag on the aft pylon and lastly note the Mobile Command emblem below the left side pilot's glass door.

313 The only airframe to wear the variegated camo livery has the roundel on the underside of the fuselage. This aircraft had black 300 series numbers.

I have viewed too few photos of the underside of the Voyageur to conclude roundels on the belly were standard marking for green Voyageurs. Given that the roundel was located in this position on the 400 series aircraft and that pictures show that they were also there while the aircraft wore interim SAR markings before being painted yellow suggests that they likely were in this location for all of the Army schemes…but I cannot prove or disprove the theory. The pictures below show 315 in the interim SAR markings and while the roundel is there it is somewhat difficult to make out.

The above drawings shows placement of the roundel on green Voyageurs.

By the time both variants were painted yellow, the roundel was removed from the underside until the 113s approached retirement. With the FIP era came an overall marking change, which included the roundel again being placed on the underside of the airframe, but this time on both the Labrador and Voyageur.

PreSARCUP yellow Labrador 302 without the under fuselage roundel.

PreSARCUP yellow Voyageur 308 without an under fuselage roundel.

Another shot of a preSARCUP yellow Voyageur without an underside roundel.

SARCUP Labrador 301 with Symmetrical Era markings without the roundel on the underside of the fuselage.

SARCUP Labrador 302 with the underside roundel in place suggesting the helicopter is wearing FIP markings (Federal Identity Program). Note too that there is a squadron crest of one style or another on the aft pylon behind the Canadian flag.

SARCUP Voyageur 308 without the roundel mounted on the underside. Symmetrical Era markings would be the proper choice for this aircraft.

SARCUP Labrador 304 without the underside roundel.

Voyageur 307 with the underside roundel. FIP era markings would be correct for this aircraft.

Voyageur 308 without the roundel on the bottom of the fuselage.

SARCUP Voyageur 308 without the under fuselage roundel. The left side CANADA titles used during the symmetrical era are clearly visible in the photo above.

308 Lowering the stokes litter to SAR Techs on the ground. There is no roundel on the bottom of the fuselage.

Symmetrical era SARCUP Voyageur 310 without the roundel. The photo below shows 310 in FIP era markings and the under fuselage roundel.

FIP markings are visible below the crash position indicator and behind the external fuel tank. The roundel is only slightly blocked by the front door.

The wreckage of Voyageur 311. SAR Tech Phil Young unfortunately died in the crash. Note there is no roundel, so 311 would not wear the roundel on the underside when painted yellow.

FIP era Voyageur 315 with the underside roundel. Only those Voyageurs that went on to serve in SAR when painted yellow would have the underside roundel. Voyageur 313 for example would never be painted yellow and therefore have an underside roundel except in ARMY livery.