Firebomber noseart

Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:39 pm

Was just wondering if there any good examples of firebomber noseart, eg "Always" A-26 Fireeater, but that was jsut fo the movies. Can't think of any offhand, and don't have any pics, but anyone know any good examples?

Wed Aug 16, 2006 2:08 pm

Neptune used to have nose art on their P-2's, since they have gone with the new paint scheme I do not know if they have it anymore. One of the C-119's my dad used to fly back in the late 70's had Miss Piggy painted on it for one fire season. They also had one C-119 that had the sharks mouth painted on it for a fire season tanker 87 I think.
Scott......

Wed Aug 16, 2006 2:32 pm

Need Firebomber pictures?

Soory if this is old hat but...
I was searching for an answer to your nose art question an found this site...

WOW...There's stuff at that site I've never seen..

http://www.scalefirebombers.com/index3.html

Sample...

Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:33 pm

I thought I saw something on one of H&P KC-97s one time, and asked Brent Hoben about it last winter. A few hours later, these showed up in my inbox.

Nice guy!

EDIT:
"Hey.... nice mammatus!"

Last edited by Eric Friedebach on Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:24 pm

All these, were shot April 17, 2006 at Greybull, WY:

Saludos,

Tulio

Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:52 pm

Tulio, isn't the first C-119 the one used in the remake of "Flight of the Phoenix"?

Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:55 pm

Mexchiwa--

Haven't got a way of posting them, but I've got prints of some of the Air Spray Ltd. A-26 Invaders; about half their fleet had nose art one one sort or another. "Oscar Duck" who is sometimes on WIX owns their former Invader "Holy Smoke"; that's one I have shots of. Other names I recall were "Silver Fox", "Miss Red Deer", "Hasta Luego" and "If'n Ah Sez Out Ah Means Out" (the last-mentioned featuring Yosemite Sam peeing on a forest fire!)...

Also remember cartoon characters on the forward fuselages of the last two Hicks & Lawrence TBM crop sprayers--not quite tankers but close! Saw and shot those in fall 1981 shortly before they went stateside. BTW, one of them, former sprayer #18 CF-XOM, subsequently N325GT, is once again on the market, for sale by Courtesy Aircraft...

S.

Wed Aug 16, 2006 11:49 pm

Several years ago the USAF had about 6 C-130's in Boise (along with another 2-4 planes from H&P and others) fighting fires...several of those Herc's had nose art. The one I remember the most was Mrs. Dousfire...like the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. Wish I had some pics to post...it was pretty clever at the time

Not sure if they still do any art...don't make it out to the tanker ramp too much anymore, although we have 2 C-130's flying out here now...maybe I should take a walk over. :wink:

Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:57 am

Yes, Ollie, it is.

Saludos,

Tulio

Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:22 am

Hello

Sorry for the quality, it is an old scan of one of my slides of P2V5 Neptune Tanker 05' nose art taken at Porterville, CA in 2000.

.

More classic (and better picture) is the Always' second star, SLAFCO's PBY, taken at Ephrata,WA in 2004 with numeric.

Regards

Cyril

Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:42 pm

Thanks for the answers and the pics, guess I just hadn't looked hard enough (or paid enough attention)

Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:13 pm

Shot these a couple of months ago at Billings, Montana. This A-26, and an A-26K are stored outside there now. The previous owner passed away at the firt of the year, and I'm not sure if his children are polanning on keeping the planes or not. This one was receiving maintenance while I was there.