Warbird Information Exchange

Okay... this is a slight rant...

But what is it with vintage aircraft owners and painting their warbirds with glossy freaking paint? Allied and Axis aircraft alike were NOT glossy...

A warbird with a glossy paint job looks as if a cheap pimp from a New Orleans cathouse decided to paint them! I'm sorry get with reality... you go through the pain staking effort to acquire and restore these warbirds then go 9 and 1... don't do 9 things right and the ONE visual thing wrong!

Recreate the aircraft of that time period they way they were. There was a reason they were FLAT drab colors and NOT glossy... putting glossy paint on a combat aircraft is just TELLING the enemy "here I am." I go out to see warbirds but it pains me to see them painted in a glossy finish. I want to see them as they were not as WE would make them as trophy planes. Their not, they are war machines, they are military equipment and should be displayed as such. They're nothing flashy by their paint job but, they're flashy and beautiful by their lines and curves.

If an aircraft is polished aluminum fine thats the way they were but, if they have any drab FLAT paint on them then they should be painted as such.

Just sayin'...

Be historically accurate and correct. Don't be a revisionist, this current generation needs to see and learn the truth.

Respectfully,
Laggin' Dragon

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Sgt. James Dunigan, III
U.S. 509th Composite Group
U.S. 393rd Bombardment Squadron
U.S. 20th Army Air Force
Tinian Is., The Marianas

No one will argue that glossy paint is usually not "correct" for WW2 Army aircraft. However, in the real world of today, glossy paint is MUCH easier to maintain than matte or flat paint, especially for a flying aircraft that's subject to oil, fuel, dead bugs, bird droppings, fingerprints, and other "undesirable" foreign matter getting on the paint.

Glossy paint IS correct for many WW2 Navy aircraft. It was more resistant to salt spray.

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

Simple answers: 1. Go buy a Warbird and paint it how you want.

2. Paint it in something that is able to be cleaned so that you can fly it and you and the world get to enjoy it in the air where it belongs.

Drab (Flat) paint begins to fade as soon as it gets in the sun. It is also made flat by adding Talcum powder to the paint. We all know what Talcum powder does, it absorbs moisture. In this case oil. You can't clean flat paint. Most restorations are done by assembling painted parts using new ( Unpainted) hardware. To keep a flat plane looking good, you would need to repaint it every year or so, depending on how much you fly it. No one wants to re-restore a plane every year. The cost and time (a couple of years each time) would make it impossible. If you wanted to paint a Warbird drab and keep it looking good, you would need to keep it in the hangar and not fly it.

Choice is yours, 1 or 2.

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Blue Skies,
Doug

www.cavanaughflightmuseum.com

This topic has been discussed so much in the past that glossy paint would be grab by now, your laggin dragon Just funnin ya!

Laggin’

Be humble and ask questions. Be humble and get answers. Be humble and learn something. And don’t ASSume anything. There are several folks on WIX that have decades of war bird experience and if you are polite and humble they will gladly share information with you. Airplanes are filthy beats that puke oil and other things like crazy. Keeping flat paint clean is impossible. We painted our bird in semi-gloss as a compromise. Now if it turns out that you have a war bird that you have painted in flat paint and that you have found a way around the maintenance issues please share your secrets with the rest of us.

Respectfully,

Dan

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Check out our new website.
CAF SoCal Wing http://www.cafsocal.com/

Here we go again.

Hey, new kid. Try reading the forums instead of coming in and shooting your mouth off about what should be done. This topic has been done to death, and I really can't see anything new coming from this conversation. This topic has been done to death, revived, flogged again, revived and done to death more times than most of us care to remember.

Spouting off about what should be done will win you no points, and it is completely inappropriate. Like a noisy five year-old, you'll achieve nothing by throwing a tantrum and demanding that things be done your way or to suit you. It's a free world, and warbird owners are not answerable to noisy demands from you.

Back in your box, son.

Cheers,
Matt

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Matt Austin - playing with warbirds since the early 80s.

See my Lee-Enfield videos at - http://www.youtube.com/user/Jollygreenslugg

Really- REally REALLY - are we going to go down this road again-

Since you seem to be new on the board I will gvie the benfit of the doubt but there are several things to note

Maintenance- As much as we all know that flat paint is more authentic it is much harder to maintain. Flat holds onto dirt, oil, grime and moisture which can lead to corrosion issues. Glossy or semi Glossy paint is much easier to clean and maintain and forms a better protective barrier. Remember that in the war zones the life expectancy of an aircraft was a few months at the outside- the only corrosion they had to worry about was caused by hot lead on cold aluminum.

Cost- A few years ago a well known 4 engine bomber with which I have spent a few thousand quailty hours needed a paint job. The old flat paint was really in bad shape and for the reasons mentioned above and to protect the airframe it was decided painting was a priority. Even with donations of materials and services it was a 6 figure plus expense. The decision was made to go with Glossy because it would last much longer before needing to be painted again and therefore money could be spent getting other airfcarft flying instead of frequent repaints. IT was also donated and that was a huge factor in making the paintjob happen.

Public perception- As much as you and I and most people on this board know what the correct paint is- we are the 1/10 of 1% of hte folks that go to shows. I remember when airplane mentioned above was getting to the end of its paint job life and people used to make some comments about it not looking to good and would walk by us at shows to spend there money touring our neighbors on the ramp. When the new paint was applied the perception went up which lead to more peole taking tours adn more bookings. At the end of the day this means more money and as the line from a favorite movie goes- "No Bucks- No Buck Rogers". If we can make more money we can fly the aircraft more and we can educate more people. LEts face it the American school kid nows jack sugar about history these days- we need to do waht we can to get them interested. How many times we have been asked if said big 4 engine airplane was real and how we got it there would have made us rich if we got a dollar everytime.

The guy footing the bill- I have met many warbird owner/operators in my brief warbird career. All of them were basically generous good people once you got to konw them. THey were all spening a TRUCK LOAD of money to keep there birds in the air- money they could have easil spent elswhere with much less risk. At the end of hte day they have the right to make the desions they see as the best to proect there investment. While many of the folks we are honoring fought and died for our right to have our opinions- they are just that our opionins. THey also fought and dided for the right of the idividual to do with his property as they see fit. I am sure if you were to make a well thought out and reaonsbly presented case to them in civial discussion you may win them over - but if you don't - walk away happy that they are sharing there toys with us. They don't have to do this and it often just adds to there out of pocket expense.

As is typical with most blanket statements this one is not true in every case. I'm sure you've heard of "Glossy Sea Blue", no? It's that dark blue color used on US Naval aircraft starting in 1943/44. That's just one case among many. It is also fairly well documented that even flat paint does not stay flat when it is cleaned and polished on a regular basis which was not an entirely uncommon practice during the war. So aside from the maintenance reasons already provided their are cases where gloss/semi-gloss is historically accurate as well.

Good Point C Veich- Wasnt the Black widow also Gloss black. I seem to rember reading about a test they did with Various paints and when the Glossy airplane flew through the searchlights it was not seen at all.

Rember that a flat paint has white in it to get the flat effect. Therfore the blackest black is actually Glossy. Something I have also learned over many years as a lighting tech in the entertainment industry.

Flat black at night is not a good thing. It tends to absorb any light thrown up at it leaving a,well, black hole. Aircraft flying in a predominantly night time role would have been painted gloss black. Case in point, P-61s, and Korean A-26s.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

I'm proud to say our P-51 was painted in flat OD. The aluminum has been polished just once and the OD oversprayed as it would have been in the unit it was assigned. It was a process to paint though. First coat was a base coat, then a gloss clear. After that, lightly wetsand gloss clear and then shoot a last coat of flat clear. It looks fantastic and does clean up fairly well. It is our intention to let the aluminum patina to a more original finish. Now all we need is some gun powder stains and wear and tear to be more authentic.
There has to be one war weary looking Mustang and I think we're going that direction with the finish. Check it out at our website, www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org
David

Many well documented cases of WWII aircraft being painted in finishes other than matte; factory-fresh Luftwaffe aircraft (certainly early-war) were know to be quite lustrous (photos on one of the threads on this forum somewhere), and as mentioned above GSB late-war US navy aircraft etc. Also it was not uncommon for ground crew to wax to a high sheen camo'd aircraft when time permitted. So lots of exceptions.

greg v.

And it looks GREAT, David.

The CF F-4 is flat. Thank goodness it's a nice clean jet. It doesn't leak at all and there's hardly ever any cleanup necessary ! At least that's what I was told before it was painted !

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

And topic locked (again)! Laggin' Dragon, I strongly suggest you pipe down a little!

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I'm Batman