Small Scale Military Headquarters

Why are some japanese fighters painted gold?

Not sure what you are referring to?

Any pics, links?

Sounds like the color scheme for planes assigned to the trainer role....but not combat duties.

Here's a link to what I'm talking about:

http://f8onpmu.devhub.com/img/upload/65_3_b2.jpg

It says it's a prototype, perhaps that's the reason. Although I recall seeing a SkyMax Val (5003) painted in orange. Don't know, my knowledge on IJN is quite modest

Cheers

Luke

Didn't know they did them in orange. I've seen the two seat Zero Trainer in yellow though.

Only one of those Aichi's in Floatplane version exist now. It sure is cool looking.

The Skymax orange Val is a depiction of the plane flown by Lt.Cdr. Takashige Egusa who led the second Val attack wave at Pearl Harbor from the carrier Soryu. This was his personal scheme and there is some controversy as to if it was orange or red. Considering some Japanese texts refer to the plane as the "red tiger" (jaja uma or more commonly akatora), I gotta think it was actually more red than orange based on that. What few black and white photo's exist of it can't really prove it one way or the other. "Aka" is the japanese word for red though, not orange. If it were the "mikantora" (based on their color ref to fruit), or the "daidaitora" (based on their ref of actual color) than yeah I'd say it was orange. After the war daidai was dropped for "orenji" as they adopted alot of english words into their language, go figure.

Prototype aircraft were infact painted in the color of the profile link posted. Trainer unit colors differed abit. Later in the war though alot of trainer aircraft were relegated to combat duties especially kamikaze and had green painted over the upper surfaces whilst maintaining the orange lower.

Does anyone know what actually happened to Takashige Egusa's red val??

I was always under the impression it went down with the Soryu at Midway assuming he maintained that particular aircraft. Egusa got blown over the side and was badly injured. He was one of the main test pilots for the Ginga (Frances) though once he recuperated. He later died during the Marianas campaign. There is a book called Fist from the Sky which is all about him and though I've thumbed thru it and never read it in it's entirety I'm not sure if it specifics on the fate of the red one, if it even was still red after the attack on PH. Several still think the scheme was a farce as well as the later plane he flew with the 3 yellow fuse stripes.

I've seen artist depictions of the "akatora" with an all red fuse, all orange fuse, red with orange stripes, orange with red stripes, and gray with red stripes. But that's all they pretty much are though, speculative depictions. Alot believe because of the "tora" part which is tiger in japanese, it must've been orange, but that doesn't coincide the "aka" part which is red...

That's's some interesting info VMF.

As a former auto painter I know that unprotected red, that is red without a clear coat like on modern cars, fades into an orange red until it is polished again. It doesn't take much sun to make it fade once it's lost most of it's properties. and it has to be polished very regularly to keep it red. I've seen some red turn to orange in this manner, and no paint of that era had any clearcoat UV protection. Kinda like OD green almost turns yellow when in the sun for a long time.

That could explain it maybe?

Makes perfect sense to me. Good point.

I remember Volkswagen bugs painted red back in the day became a dull chalky pinkish color quickly. For some reason red bugs were always the worst.

Very interesting. May Egusa rest in peace as one of history's best bomber pilot.