Flat Black F4U

[zorro7]

F4U folks:

Good day!

One interesting photo fm the folks of Life Magazine is this poss F4U-1A to the right with the engine cowling # 112! A red prop spinner & some 25 bombing missions to its account.

The color scheme is unique in this color picture as only the bottom part of the fuselage seems to be light grey and the rest a deep flat black scheme.

Does any one know more details/angles of #112 & the Sq #? Any more of this birds seen in WW II? Photo somewhere in the S. Pacific c. 1944. LIfe Achives.

Tks!

[The Inspector]

It looks more like very fresh F.S. 35042 (F) flat sea blue. That's a KODACHROME slide so color saturation x how many times it's been inter negatived over the years. It could be a new mount for the pilot and the mission markers just transferred over.

[JFS61]

Agreed. Also (judging from the shadows), it appears that the plane was under the shade of the palm trees as well, thus making it appear darker than it really was.

[k5083]

I think so too. The cowl on 116 looks freshly painted the same color.

Interesting photo nonetheless. It appears that no effort was made to repaint the intermediate blue parts, resulting in a dark blue Corsair with white undersides -- never an official scheme at any time, although it was the way Monogram used to tell us to paint our models in the 1960s.

August

[Redtracer]

We got the same thing after we painted the Harpoon her original color of non-specular sea blue. A lot of people have asked if the color was black? It's just that the sea blue paint is so flat that it sucks the light right out of the sky!

[zorro7]

F4U Flat black folks:

..it's a bit puzzling the 2 diff schemes. But then,.. how come the lower side of the L/wing of a/c 112 looks all black??

[The Inspector]

If you enlarge it with your mouse it's flat sea blue also, it's just in such contrast being shaded and sitting on that glaring white sand

[famvburg]

To me it looks very dark blue. the prop blades definitely look blacker than the dark blue.

[Mark Allen M]

I believe this to be a 'colorized' image as I have the same image in B&W. I also don't believe it's a LIFE archive photo.

Last edited by Mark Allen M on Sat May 11, 2013 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[The Inspector]

As I understand it, the Navy shot everthing except some personal photos in color throughout WW2, and if LIFE shot it there's a better than even bet it was in color and B&W prints pulled from them. We've seen lots of color Navy photos here then someone posts the same photo in B&W.

[PbyCat-Guy]

Yeah, look at the Corsair in the background, appears black at the front, then at the tail looks blue.... so case solved?

[zorro7]

F4U Folks:

Do any particular Navy SQ used the red prop spinner!

We are doing some digging in other archives to pinpoint place & poss date for this pic. With the hope to run into others aircraft with the same prop schemes. We know flat black schemes were used during the Korean conflict c. 1952 & later years.

[The Inspector]

F4U Folks:

Do any particular Navy SQ used the red prop spinner!

We are doing some digging in other archives to pinpoint place & poss date for this pic. With the hope to run into others aircraft with the same prop schemes. We know flat black schemes were used during the Korean conflict c. 1952 & later years.

Didn't VF-17 use red prop hubs at some point?

[greatgonzo]

VF-17 used coloured hubs (and part of the blades) as a distinction of flights at the beginning. Red was for Blackburn flight. It seems the idea did not survive operations reality.