F3F's at Quantico

Don't where I found this on the Internet but it's a real gem.

are we looking at A/C finished in silver paint or light grey? Different areas lead to ne or the other

Silver paint. They had to use silver paint on the fabric before putting on the top color. too. So it's good for the metal, too. See attached.

According to a D channel documentary, "natural aluminum" P-51's had the wings painted with silver lacquer.

And on the Northrop BT-1, too.

And the SB2U...

Naval aircraft in the "Golden Age" were some of the most colorful I've seen. Hope to build a wooden r/c sized Boeing F4B-1 & -4.

You know, at first I thought that BT-1 shot was a Vindicator until I looked more closely at it.

Naval aircraft have to be painted due to the salt water environment, so if they wanted to look as spiffy as the land based birds they had to use aluminum paint. Of course dope with aluminum power in it was also applied to fabric as a base coat to protect it from the Sun, a way to keep UV rays from harming the fabric.

The Air Force used "aluminum" paint on its aircraft for decades as well as natural metal. I was TDY to Myrtle Beach AFB in October 1975 to work on their A-7D's and while I was there they painted their two T-33A's gray. The end of an era!

The Navy's interwar colors are part of a very complicated story - I hope you all can put up with the short version here...

For most of the 1920s and '30s, the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics was opposed to any use of pigmented dopes or any lacquers. The standard finish coat was enamel - a pigment mixed with spar varnish. (Fabric was doped to strengthen, tauten, and preserve the material, but an enamel finish coat was applied atop the layers of dope.)

Immediately after the Great War, the Navy favored a finish coat of light gray enamel:


The gray enamel was replaced by aluminum enamel in the early 1920s - the aluminum reflected more UV and IR, increasing the durability of fabric and woodwork. The aluminum finish gave an overall even appearance:



However, the aluminized enamel did not adhere well to primed metal or wooden surfaces, making the aircraft - and the uniform of anyone who rubbed up against it - appear shoddy. By the very late 1920s the Navy began using aluminum enamel on fabric surfaces, and gray enamel on metal or wooden surfaces. The contrast between the finish coats was easily distinguished::



By 1936 the Navy relaxed its opposition to pigmented dopes on fabric surfaces and lacquers on metal and wooden surfaces. Aircraft again appeared in overall aluminum finish, but the slight differences between aluminized dope and aluminized lacquers could still be seen:



Most F2Fs were delivered when their metal fuselages were still being painted gray; the aluminum lacquer was introduced during F3F production and repainted onto older aircraft (where the lacquers tended to eat through the original layers of enamel:



Anyway, that's probably more than most modelers want to know, but I hope it's helpful. And then there's them yeller wings....

Cheers,



Dana

Hey Dana,

I have wondered about the finish on USN aircraft from time to time in the past. Thanks for the info on the dopes, paints, and lacquers. Very good description.

Cool shots!