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Some of my peeves are already out there. The really garish and outlandish schemes like the CAF Wildcat are easy to pick on.
Here's a new one though -- improperly constructed national insignia. The specs for the size and shape of the US stars 'n bars have been the same since 1943, so even a current USAF manual can be used to get this right, and the correct proportions are repeated in countless books. I remember in a special issue of EAA Warbirds magazine in 1981 or 82, they published the correct specs and wrote, "Hey guys, no excuses now, get it right from now on!" Well, some did, and many continue not to. The worst offenders seem to be trainers and L-birds but there are plenty of fighters and bombers with incorrect insignia. (Sometimes it is offered as an excuse that wartime insignia were sometimes painted incorrectly, especially when modified in the field, but this happened rarely -- an actual example is the NASM's XP-80, which has incorrect bars that faithfully reproduce Lockheed's wartime error -- and is seldom a valid excuse.) To me these errors seem like putting the wrong number of stripes or stars in the US flag; bordering on disrespectful.
British insignia are easier to get right and restorers in the UK seem more attentive to these details. The most common mistake is to use too-bright shades of paint for the red, and sometimes for the blue or yellow. Canadian insignia are frequently a disaster because of the variety and complexity of the maple leaf device and the different roundel proportions used at different times and by different services. Most Canadian restorers are getting it right now, but when US or UK restorers attempt a Canadian scheme, the results -- though honorable in intent -- are often comical. I saw a Chipmunk at Geneseo this year that somehow managed to get every single element of the RCAF paint scheme wrong, including the use of helvetica font for the lettering and the replacement of the Canadian red ensign with an Ontario provincial flag!
I have a minor peeve with aircraft that make WWII paint schemes seem more colorful than they really were by mixing and matching elements from different places and times. An example would be numerous 8th AF marked P-51s that combine extended nose markings, which came into use starting around January 1945, with invasion stripes that were long gone by then. CAF's red nose is one of many examples. I just surprises me that the actual, accurate 8th AF markings of that period are still not colorful enough for some folks.
I dislike nose art that looks as if it was painted by an amateur skateboard or custom van airbrush artist. Also, a lot of warbirds carry names and nose art reflecting two themes that were not common during the war, (1) hyper-patriotism and (2) nostalgia. These tend to paint a misleading picture of the values and attitudes of wartime crews, to the extent people assume they are authentic.
ETO call letters replaced by the owner's initials are thankfully much more rare than in the past, but there are still a few around (e.g. Spitfire T-B). This is especially vexing because in the wartime RAF, this was a privilege granted to Wing Leaders, so owners who do this are giving themselves quite an exalted, and un-earned, rank.
Since some people are uncomfortable with the negativity of this thread, it feels appropriate to point out how much great work is being done with paint these days, both by flying and static owners. A lot of the planes coming out of the shops today are really meticulously done. Many organizations have cleaned up their act a lot. Compare, for example, POF's P-47 paint scheme done many years ago with their P-38 or P-51A. Or the way the CAF's SBD was painted 20 years ago compared to now. The Luftwaffe paint schemes being applied to the new Fake-Wulfs and Mock-262s are really beautiful. When I walk through a lineup of trainers or l-birds at a show, typically I see 2 or 3 near-impeccable finishes for every howler. Among static museums, I would say the Pensacola collection, whatever its initials are these days, is the most improved compared to the inaccurate schemes I was seeing there in the 1980s. The NMUSAF and Rockcliffe have raised their games as well, although the latter still has some messes from the 1970s that need cleaning up.
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