4 Attachment(s)
Blue Gray Camouflage 8-T-7
Well, I'm finished quite a bit later than I expected, but I finished my first camouflage paint. This is quite fun, especially since I'm not trying to match a real airplane.
Continuing my Naval Heritage Skyhawk series, I painted TA-4J BuAer 154284 in the colors of TBD 8-T-7 of VT-8 as it appeared aboard Hornet on June 4, 1942. Ensign John Gray and ARM3 Max Calkins died that day aboard this aircraft attacking the Japanese fleet near Midway. Having read quite a bit about Torpedo 8's attack, I felt obliged to paint an inscription on the nose landing gear door, compete with gold star USN service flag.
In case anyone wonders, I went through Joe Baugher's fantastic list of BuAer numbers and found a nice block of cancelled TA-4Fs between numbers 154218 and 154286. All of my paints will be Fs and Js from that serial block to complete the "fiction." The really observant will notice that TBD 8-T-7 was Douglas serial number 284. This paint is of fictional BuAer 154284. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that one ;)
Anyway, I'm going to try and complete paints for Torpedo Squadrons 2 through 8. VT-2, -3, -5, and -6 will be in the prewar high-visibility scheme, while VT-4, -7, and -8 will be in the blue gray scheme. Like Josh said above, I consider these paints "plausible" based on some of the schemes that appeared for the Naval Aviation 100th anniversary. They're all going to be clean...for the airshow circuit.
Thanks again for all the advice, everyone!
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=75043&stc=1
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=75044&stc=1
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=75045&stc=1
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=75046&stc=1