an authentic looking battle of midway wildcat....help needed

[aferguson]

just before the battle of midway, the us navy altered the markings on their aircraft by painting out the red and white stripes on the rudder and the red spots in the middle of the us stars

can anyone point me to good reference pics, or a good model, that shows this done. I'm interested in finding out what colour(s) were used to paint out the rudder stripes and how crude looking (or not) the painting out of the white spots looked.

[Folkwulfe]

Try here.....its B/W but it gives you an idea.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/imag ... g11636.jpg

This is an F-4 that retains the red centers, but the tail is painted out....
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=us+navy+ ... ,s:0,i:126

[aferguson]

the first one is an interesting photo. The rudder stripes have been crudely spray painted out by what looks to be a very dark colour..maybe black? Looks too dark for even fresh blue grey. Yet there is no trace of painting over the red spot in the middle of the star....you'd think there would be a hint of the red bleeding through. Maybe there is and it just doesn't show in the pic, though.

I have another question. Why is it on some wildcats there are stars on both upper and lower wings, and on others, only on the upper left and lower right. I've seen this for both the stars with the red spots in them, and stars without. It's like there was no standardization at the time and one factory painted them one way, and another the other.

[Folkwulfe]

To answer your first question, why doesn't the red center disk bleed through, you have to consider two things. First, the white probably had to be applied over several coats, so it would have been covered easily. Second, the most popular film at the time was 35mm tri-pan X film and colors appeared very different in the B/W photo than they did normally. Alot of colors changed dramatically on the film.

As for the second question, I can only quote a reference to timelines for US Navy markings...

December 14, 1940
Carrier Air Group Commander's planes were to have a diagonal band, 14 inches (35.56 cm) wide painted around the fuselage forward of the service marking, of the same color as the empennage painting of the carrier group, and the title "COMMANDER (name of ship) GROUP" be painted horizontally on each side of the fuselage.

February 26, 1941
An extensive modification of aircraft marking specifications introduced the following basic changes: . National Aircraft Insignia were added to both sides of the fuselage or hull and two were eliminated from the wings, leaving one on the upper left and one on the lower right. . Branch of Service marking was moved from the fuselage to the vertical fin above the Bureau Number, the figures were reduced in size and letters "U.S." omitted. . Use of colored tail markings, engine cowl bands, chevrons, fuselage bands, gunnery pennant and Marine Corps emblem was discontinued. . Air Group Commander bands were eliminated but use of title continued. . Use of vertical Red, White and Blue rudder stripes was discontinued. . Color of markings other than National Aircraft Insignia became those of least contrast to the background.

January 5, 1942
National Aircraft Insignia were returned to both right and left, upper and lower wing surfaces. Rudder markings were changed to 13 Red and White horizontal stripes.

May 15, 1942
The red disc in the center of the National Aircraft Insignia and horizontal red and white rudder striping were eliminated.

So you can see there were changes coming hot and heavy during the time and some of the aircraft had to wait for time and materials to catch up to them before the changes could be made. Things didn't happen as fast then as they do now, but they did happen quick at times.

[aferguson]

interesting stuff. Thanks.

[Folkwulfe]

Found one...sort of. Go to this site and look at the first picture. Its in color of the side of an SBD in flight. Clearly you can see the painted over red center of the white star on the fuselage side.
http://ww2history.com/key_moments/Pacif ... _of_Midway

[aferguson]

very cool thanks.