felixdk

In the case of the F-2s, they were the first version of the Twin Beech to reach service and after they started arriving at squadrons, they found that the senior officers would try to appropriate them as personal transport (Shiny New Thing syndrome). The warning about appropriate use was probably added at local level, not during manufacture, so who knows what font it was painted in.

And while we're on the subject, the landing light in the wing leading edge is wrong for an F-2 as they had a retractable light under the port wing, no round window behind the crew door (the normal latrine area could be used as a darkroom) and the navigation lights on the wings will need to be changed to teardrop lights on the upper and lower surfaces inboard of the wingtip. The black areas under the wing roots are painted around the fuel tank vents (just visible).

I've never found a photo that was taken close enough to show the lettering, so I don't have a clue as to what they used. If you can find one, that would be great.

Here's the marking from the tail of the F-2 that I painted, typical USAAC for the period. It appears that not all the planes carried these. The ones that did also seemed to have the number repeated in an unpainted circle on the nose baggage door. You can see the location of the position lights as opposed to the kit here also. Here's a good source for pictures of the a/c flying (you'll have to scroll through as they're not all together, the whole SDASM Archive is worth browsing!) I did the research about 7 years ago, so I'll have to do some digging. I'll see what I can find.

That's great. I'll be looking forward to that sheet. These first F-2s have always fascinated me as they were the first version of the 18 to enter service with the USAAC. There's very little coverage of them. I intended to try a conversion on the new ICM kit; your decals will make that much easier. Other than the camera doors and window for the drift sight, it looks like there's just the placement of the position lights on the tail to change.

The Alaskan F-2s were actually painted red and green on the upper surfaces, but the red faded to an orange color. I researched them for artwork that I was working on and found that there are not a lot of good photos, although there are some nice ones from the LIFE magazine archive. The legend painted behind the entry door is also very distinctive. There was also a camera hatch in the upper fuselage in line with the second cabin window back.

Beautiful Mark. That's the equivalent of 4 F-105s taking off in formation in terms of exhaust effluvia ;) .

Excellent Gray, a shame it was just a little too late to make it into service.

Thanks Gray, Mark and Holmes. Now I'll see what I can do with a real brush.

Hello again, it's been a couple of years since my last aviation painting. What time I had available for art was being devoted to motorsports subjects. This painting depicts a Beech F-2 of the USAAC used for photo mapping of the route for the Alcan Highway during 1941. This piece was set up in Photoshop and painted in ArtRage 4. It's to serve as a value\color study for a traditional painting, which will be commenced this weekend. I'm a fan of the Beech 18 and have always found this color scheme to be one of its nicest incarnations.

Hi Mike, Here's a profile and the painting Are you from Stanton or Walsham le Willows? Don

Mike I looked at a lot of photos of Sabres of the 81st FIW as research for some artwork and all the photos of wing F-86As that I found had the V screen. It looks like the one in the photo that you posted has it too. You can see the shape of the fairings on the top and bottom of the windscreen. The 116th was re-designated 78th FIS in November 1952, received F-86Fs in 1953 and moved to RAF Sculthorpe in 1956. They returned to Shepherds Grove in 1957 and moved again to RAF Woodbridge in 1958. I would say that if you're doing a Shepherds Grove 116th F-86A, it would have the fairing. Don

Thanks Art and Holmes <_< . Possibly you've had personal experiences with the old metallic green Aurora "Mig"? Don

I'm going through my old works and updating them with what I've learned since getting into digital art and I realized that I never posted this cartoon from several years ago. It's definitely related to modeling. The guy on the right is the notorious Major Howdy Bixby. Don

Those are beautiful Neu, you're opening up an entirely new market with these. Will there be any "classic" airliners, or strictly contemporary schemes? Don