Wheel well colours? (interior)

[Sir Francis]

Hey guys,

This is an area I always find hard to confirm. At the moment Im working on a Buffalo, have B&W photos which appear to show as the same tone as the underside.(skyblue)

I've seen repro P-47 with yellow. Other aircraft with green or white

Is there any consistency with particular fighter variants or nations?

If there is someone who knows this stuff Im doing:
Buffalo 488sqn
Whirlwind late40
Boomerang BF-S
Ta152H
D520 1940
Avenger

cheers

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Each manufacturer will have something a little different when it comes to wheel wells. Most will be primered or have a matching underside color, some may be left bare metal and others may have a contrasting color. White is always popular because it quickly identifies leaks. Also keep in mind that aircraft may undergo repairs or field modifications and during that time wheel wells may be re-painted.

I know I'm not specific, just letting you know what you're up against - good luck.

 

[Wurger]

Hi,
Unfortunately FLYBOYJ is right.It is very hard to say what colours were used to paint these areas of a plane,especially if they were repaired.But taking that these a/cs were military ones into consideration there were rules how to paint not only all planes but also their parts.For instance,initially fuselage interior and wheel wells of Avengers were painted with Zinc Chromate Primer type 1 yellow-green (some sources - dirty yellow FS-33481.....Humbrol 81.
(many years ago when the Humbrol's enamels weren't available in Poland as easy as today are)I did some "experiments" with a mixture of silver Humbrol and yellow one.As a result I obtained some colours of a different tonality.The much silver paint in the mixture the colour was more green and vice versa the less silver one the paint became more yellow.So,if the primer was yellow and was painted on a silver aluminium plate its tonality became rather yellow-green.Certainly it depended on how many layers of primer were painted on and how dark the yellow colour was.)
But let's come back the Avanger interior.Later, both the fuselage interior and the wheel wells were coloured with ANA 611 Non-specular Interior green FS 34151 Humbrol 151/Gunze H58/Testors 1715.The paint was introduced into using on 22nd December 1942 (the circular Aer-A-2574-MVS,F38-2).
Another instruction - Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation Report No.2040B of the 15th March 1944.The instruction said that the all interior surfaces should be painted with one layer of Zinc Chromate Primer and one layer of Dull Green during the equipment mounting,after that all of the damaged surfaces should be coloured again and then the Dull Green primer should be put on whole.

That's all on Avenger.I'll try to find info on other mentioned planes.Of course if nobody write something about it firstly.

 

[Sir Francis]

Cool Thanks, So far I've used interior green on most and silver on a couple.
But it would be good to know what they actually were.

cheers

 

[antoni]

You can find information of the different ways US aircraft interiors were finished at the IPMS Stockholm site.

Camouflage Markings: Interior Colours of US Aircraft, 1941-45 (Part III)

There are three parts - part 3 is naval aircraft.

Zinc Chromate is used to inhibit corrosion of aluminium in damp conditions. It is a component of anticorrosion paints and there is not one single Zinc Chromate paint. Other pigments are added which changes the colour (yellow). The US used both green and yellow zinc chromate paints. The green colour was produced by adding black pigment. Green is used in the interior mainly in the crew areas, cockpit, etc. because it does not strain eyesight as much as other colours.

 

[Wurger]

Good find Antoni.

 

[Sir Francis]

Excellent,

Looks like US Navy planes generally had gear wells same colour as the underside. Exceptions - Helldiver and other field resprays during maintenance.

If the Buffalo was originally built as a US Navy plane the ques is did the RAF respray the gear wells also? Hmmm