What's wrong with this paint job?

um…

I wondered if sombody had tryed mocking it up as one of those twi light blue thunderbolts? Like the Revell kit which was a pig to paint 😡

But surely the thunderbolt isnt as rare a wildcat so why paint up a wildcat? Film work?

:confused:

Dear Chad – see my forthcoming poll…

You mean that Wildcat is a new paint scheme???????

I looked at it ad thought, thats an interesting period photo. Oh well I suppose I should read more and work less this afternoon.

Just a post script JDK, your comment about the Wildcat paint job being “1958” is dead on. This is exactly the kind of tacky, pseudo-military style paint jobs that were constantly applied to warbirds back when they were just beginning to flirt with putting them in military colors. Reminds me a lot of P-38 “Scatterbrain Kid” and it’s recent, short lived copy. Just to add more controversy, who thinks Doug Champlin ought to be slapped for selling the night fighter canopy off his P-38M to the CAF? (or for even removing it in the first place) 🙂 Cheers!

James, I certainly wouldn’t offer any defence to such a ****-up but just making sure that all angles had been covered.

Bloody hell, can you imagine the outcry if TFC or OFMC presented such a beast to us…….

CAF, guilty as charged M’lord.:D

Lol

As someone once said – ‘Had an accident mate?’

‘No I always park like this.’

Originally posted by JDK
Dear Chad,
I think you are right about keeping it light. However, if I landed a P-51D with the star in the star and bar point down, at the CAF base, I’m SURE I’d get a few pointed remarks or worse.

I suppose it would depend on which way up the wheels are pointing when you land, if they are above the fin you may have a problem. 😀

Excellent defence of the undefendable Tony C.

Don’t get me wrong, the CAF are stallwart – but -er- a bit rubbish with aircraft from outside Texas as regards painting them.

The red on the fin flash, the demarcation of the colours. Nope, I can’t manage that withou a lot of work in Photoshop. As has been said, just get it right. It’s easier.

On the ‘why did they do that’ front, why did they do extended and thus non-credible serials on the Pearl Harbor Spits? The rest wasn’t too bad – quite nice in many ways, and then thay do that. It’s not even important, just bizarre!

Cheers

Originally posted by JDK
Dear Chad,
I think you are right about keeping it light. However, if I landed a P-51D with the star in the star and bar point down, at the CAF base, I’m SURE I’d get a few pointed remarks or worse.

Absolutely JDK, as a builder of flying scale models I see upside down US insignia constantly and I cringe every time. I guess that some warbird owners/operators are like those model builders. They really just like to fly and aren’t that interested in historical accuracy or the research needed to achieve it.

Before we continue shooting down the CAF and this may possibly be stupid question time but….

Is it possible that the picture of the Wildcat was taken with a digital camera but due to the sun, the resulting image was too dark and has been lighten by Paintshop / Photoshop or its like.

If it had, would this result in a poor representation of the actual colours used?

Somehow doubt it but just a thought.

Dear Chad,
I think you are right about keeping it light. However, if I landed a P-51D with the star in the star and bar point down, at the CAF base, I’m SURE I’d get a few pointed remarks or worse.

Part of the issue to me is that (worldwide) people are careless of foreign schemes, which misleads the public who ought to be better informed. The CAF aim is to commemorate W.W.II aviation and sacrifice – primarilly US, but they have been great about being quite global in their interest, and they do this well. They are not doing a cartoon version of W.W.II and that’s what the scheme on the Martlet (sorry Wildcat) is.

Still, I an’t a Colonel, so I can’t insist on doing it better. Now, where’s my spraycan to get RAAF roundels on their Mustangs…

Cheers

Originally posted by Mark V

Has this been done recently? I spoke to a pilot associated with the CAF at ‘Sun n Fun’ this year and he said that a Wildcat was to be painted in British markings and that they were in discussion with TFC about the colour scheme. If its the same one something must have gone wrong.

Mark V, this is the first time I have seen any pictures of the airplane in this scheme and it has not been more than a year or so since I saw the Wildcat in its previous paint. Obviously, if there were discussions with TFC then somebody on the CAF side of the phone was asleep. As usual, the TFC bird looks fantastic. I think the TFC Hellcat is the only one flying in a tri-color scheme that comes even close to looking proper also. Take a good look at the Bob Pond or Lone Star Hellcats some time for a good lesson at how not to do it.

For those who are interested, the original pic came from a post I found at www.aircraftresourcecenter.com. Go to “discussions” and then to “prop planes” and then find the post titled “hey Spitfire buddies” to read the entire thing. The pics were taken by a gentleman who goes by the handle TF51GregWise or something real close to that and one would be lead to believe he works for or has other ties to Stallion 51.

As Mark V pointed out it appears as though only the codes on the Spitfire were changed rather than a complete repaint but that’s not what the above post would lead you to believe.

Lastly, my only intention with this thread was to point out a humorous (for me anyway) story of a good paint job gone bad by a simply mistake. I don’t have any problem with owners painting there airplanes any way they like. I just don’t have to like it! As for the CAF Wildcat, they are a large organization that is dedicated to preserving history and all paint changes supposedly have to be approved by someone within the hierarchy. Not sure how this particular paint job got approval but obviously they need somebody on staff who can do some research. In my opinion the “that looks about right” approach always looks wrong! However, I’m not angry about it. Quite the contrary, I think it’s humorous. The reversed color fin flash is almost a riot in fact, and I’m certainly not losing any sleep over it!

If I may jump in before the much more qualified Mk.V!

Anything in a national collection should / ought to be in an authentic scheme. If you want authentic, the Spitfire Mk.I in the IWM Lambeth is in its W.W.II colours – it’s a Mk.I in 1944 colours, but they belong to each other.

The DH9 at Le Bourget was given to the french in 1919. It’s never been restored.

Most warbirds are what I’d call ‘good enough’ – my opinion, for me. That’s what grates about the the ones discussed here – it’s lazy, inconsiderate. Not good enough. Still, they aren’t part of a publicly owned collection, I’m not a CAF Colonel, and I don’t own the Spitfire, so best I can do is politely provide references and suggest how much more worthwhile it would bne if it looked that this, not like that!

Cheers

Mark V.
What would you consider as a benchmark for a WWII aircraft that has a good representation of authentic/correct markings?
Even if its not flying.

OFMC Fan

Could’nt agree more Bruce 🙂

Who gives a toss about colour….!

Well, I do for a start!

As James says, if you are going to use a civil scheme, then paint it however the hell you like.

If you want to use a military scheme, then at least try to get it right. All the British colours are to a British Standard, so references are easy. I see that as is often the case, the CAF have used post war roundel colours – how many times have we seen that!

If you have even a few references, it really isnt that difficult – I marked out LF363 using two old photocopies of photos, a Japanese modellers reference, and an Osprey book on Hurricanes. If you have a photo and nothing else, you can scale up from the picture, and use points of reference.

And it costs the same to do it right, as it does to do it wrong…..

One point for which I am guilty though – I have been known to substitute bright red for dayglo, due to the latters propensity to fade in sunlight. But I think I can justify that one!!

Cheers!

Bruce

Good ol paintscheme issues.

If it’s your aircraft, you can paint it as you wish. (Tip – Red with G-insert type name here in 4 letters, works for me)

If you wish to represent it as ‘authentic’ or a ‘memorial’ etc – get it right!

It’s the bane of groundcrew* that there’ll be some smart alec who leans over the fence and says ‘your roundel is 2 inches 2 far aft’ and will, inevitably, be wrong. Meantime the CAF (gotta love ’em – most right wing communists in the world) come up with a scheme which in warbird terns is about – Oh – 1958. As usual it’s some ‘limey’ scheme they’ve got wrong.

Basically it’s lazy and rude in this case. If it was in the old Confed civil scheme, great.

*Aircrew are generally remarkably unaware of schemes, authenticity etc. That’s why the aircraft has a little callsign plaque on the instrament panel – otherwise when using the radio, they’d get out to check what it says on the side, with as they say, hillarious results.

Cheers

LOL @ that Wildcat. Yet shaking my head as well… :rolleyes:

Personal codes on Spitfires. Hmm.

D – B

JE – J

IR – G

Would anyone have wanted to tell those distinguished gentlemen to toe the line…? 😀

Good God, so it is! :O

As for the personal codes – I’d have them on a Spit, or (probably regardless of variant) I’d paint it up as X4036, the Spitfire flown by Bob Doe with the letters D-AZ on the sides – THAT’S personalised! 😉