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Mustang Wings and panel seams


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Hello,

It's OK, i understand what you mean and you are wright. You do not have to take for granted what i said in my post but i really believe what the old man said because i knew him - he had very vivid memory till his death and i've spent much of my childhood and later talking to him about airplanes.

The Mustang made a strong impression on him (as all the aircrafts that he encountered for that he became after the war an aircraft structural engineer). His comments about the Mustang were made in comparisson with the IAR-80 that was quite rough built, even sloppy - like "hit with the hammer" he used to say.

So, about the D version, i don't know but i will make my B/C versions unputtied. Since i cannot prove what i said you can consider it as a personal opinion.

Eduard

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  • 5 months later...

Hello,

1.About the puttied panel lines on the P-51... After 23 Aug '44, the romanians briefly had some P-51b/c on their hands (see the story of "Bazu" Cantacuzino) and there was a mechanic who worked on them during those times - the "Dorothy II" and the "Sleepy Ann". As he was a neighbour of an aunt of mine, i got to ask him some years ago when i first heard the putty-wing thing, about the wings of the P-51: they were not puttied on both these two aircrafts. He said that the overral finish of the P-51 was very smooth and panel work was very carefully done with very fine panel joints. He also remembered that the inner doors where opened.

2.About the wing profile : i ask an aerodinamcs teacher and he said that the profile is what they call "low drag-highly efficient" and that the "laminar" profile is something of a next level so speaking.

Eduard

MY uncle worked on training P-47's and P-51's in Florida during the war and told me he doesn't remember putty either.

He remembered other things very clearly.

To me the putting of wings would be to much work in the battle field since quick turn around is needed . With the hard maneuvers the pilots do in combat I would think the putty would crack from the stress since the putty I would think was softer than the metal with putty cracking first. That would be a pain in the neck to fix after each mission. Reputty, sand down, repaint area if camouflaged.

What Eduard's friend says makes sense to me but then again I'm not a expert.

I was not there so I don't know for sure.

Rick

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MY uncle worked on training P-47's and P-51's in Florida during the war and told me he doesn't remember putty either.

He remembered other things very clearly.

To me the putting of wings would be to much work in the battle field since quick turn around is needed . With the hard maneuvers the pilots do in combat I would think the putty would crack from the stress since the putty I would think was softer than the metal with putty cracking first. That would be a pain in the neck to fix after each mission. Reputty, sand down, repaint area if camouflaged.

What Eduard's friend says makes sense to me but then again I'm not a expert.

I was not there so I don't know for sure.

Rick

The subject of Mustang wings seems to confuse many modelers and endless speculation hasn't helped.

It is in fact fairly simple, the wings themselves weren't covered with putty, some putty was applied in the appropriate panel lines, then primer (two layers towards the LE) and finally paint.

This didn't crack, or fall off or disappear when rubbing off invasion stripes etc...

For this reason it didn't need to be reapplied all the time and your uncle or others don't remember it.

As surprising as it may sound NAA knew what they were doing and they didn't spread buckets of cracking putty on Mustang wings!

On the beautiful Tamiya kit however, because of the visible "rivets" one will need to apply a lot of putty in order to accurately reproduce a smooth WWII P-51 wing.

Here's what you want:

MustangWingFinish.jpg

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I understand the whole wing was not puttied but some panel lines. I still see panel lines on the outer wing on the drawings.

I guess the flaps the rivets were not smoothed out as shown in this photo.

http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/gallery.php?Group=339&Style=item&origStyle=list&Item=248&Temp=2714&searchString=

Is there any factory instructions on how they did the wings?

Rick

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I understand the whole wing was not puttied but some panel lines. I still see panel lines on the outer wing on the drawings.

I guess the flaps the rivets were not smoothed out as shown in this photo.

http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/gallery.php?Group=339&Style=item&origStyle=list&Item=248&Temp=2714&searchString=

Is there any factory instructions on how they did the wings?

Rick

The flaps were left natural metal.

Jennings's drawings show the puttied lines in faint grey.

The painted parts are represented in light grey and the NMF parts in dark grey.

I think I have some factory documents about the wing finish, I'll have to looks for them when time permits.

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All Mustangs had it, starting with the Allison Mk.I's.

By the 50's the factory finish was sometimes abandoned, if you look at pictures of Korean war F-51's you can see that some have bare wings.

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  • 9 months later...

Australian built Mustangs had factory applied glazing putty extending from the wing leading edges rearward to the quarter cord position as the RAAF required maximum performance during the Korean war. Ironically only 4 locally built examples served in Korea - the remainder being US supplied airframes that had survived WW2. Shutdown procedure required the pilot to activate the unloader valve which dumped hydraulic pressure causing the MLG inner doors to fall to the fully open position. As stated previously the Mustang wing is not true laminar flow due to airflow disturbance caused by the gun ports and the gun camera cut-out located near the LH wing root. Hope this information is correct as it is a number of years since I worked on a Mustang restoration.

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  • 5 months later...
Shutdown procedure required the pilot to activate the unloader valve which dumped hydraulic pressure causing the MLG inner doors to fall to the fully open position.

That may be true of a current day warbird restoration, but the vast preponderance of photographic evidence from WWII doesn't support that claim. In an unscientific survey of every P-51B/C/D/K photo in every book I owned, where the main gear clam shell doors were visible, something like 75% of them were hanging in some intermediate position between fully shut and fully open. A very small number were seen fully closed, indicating the airplane had just been shut down, and a somewhat larger percentage were hanging fully open, indicating the crew chief had opened them for access inside the well.

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  • 10 months later...

Thanks for bringing this up Greg! The bare metal fuselage silver lacquer wings scheme is basically NEVER done by modelers. I assume the factory-camouflaged aircraft also had the panels filled. Wouldn't be surprised if most field units with free time did the same -- the gain in speed was quite significant.

"The bare metal fuselage silver lacquer wings scheme is basically NEVER done by modelers." That may be an incorrect assumption:

DSCN4995_zpsesxwk0pn.jpg

Check out my recent post regarding a Korean War Mustang.

Regards,

Johnny_K

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  • 6 months later...

Hoi All,

 

This is the place to be. I have a lot of P/F-51D Mustang in the stash. Saw the wing drawing from Mr. Heilig (Very useful and nice).

But some colors.

Cockpit: standard interior green for WW.2

But to build a Korea War F-51D is it still green or black? I painted a F-51D with a black cockpit. I remember a P-51D in the AF Museum in The Netherlands with a black cockpit. ex-AURI.

 

Still looking for a nice method to fill in the panel lines. I try thinned white glue, but it was a total disaster. Will try now some automotive putty. Some in put please?

 

Han

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Early participants in the Korean police action were drawn from active units and their cockpits were still in WWII colors.  When more aircraft were needed, they were taken from storage and refurbished. Uncuffed Hamilton-Standard prop and black cockpit paint were two of the steps in the process.

 

Look in the Tools and Tips forum for filler suggestions.  This thread is specific for P-51 wing panel lines.

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  • 1 year later...

Were the seams and rivets puttied over on the wings of Bud Anderson’s P-51D Old Crow

Thanks

 

Were the seams and rivets puttied over on the wings of Bud Anderson’s P-51D Old Crow

Its late 1944 Bud Anderson walks up to his P-51D Mustang for a mission. He finds that the OD paint has been washed off by his ground crew. Now Having washed the OD paint off with Gas and leaving their hands raw from the effort. How would the upper surfaces been effected.? Would the upper surface having been rubbed down with the gas solvent been relatively untouched or would the putty on the riviets been removed to the point that the rivets could be seen? 

 

Thanks

 

Jeff

 

Edited by Stinger16
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  • 7 months later...
  • 4 months later...

Here's an update that may help understand the way NAA finished Mustang wings.

It was put together by John Terrell.

One could reproduce the exact same thing on their models for more accuracy.

Let's just keep in mind the obvious fact that a real wing and a model kit wing are very different starting points.

 

A6Bg5UH.jpg

beCbCrm.jpg

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/10/2014 at 7:57 PM, tourist said:

The subject of Mustang wings seems to confuse many modelers and endless speculation hasn't helped.

It is in fact fairly simple, the wings themselves weren't covered with putty, some putty was applied in the appropriate panel lines, then primer (two layers towards the LE) and finally paint.

This didn't crack, or fall off or disappear when rubbing off invasion stripes etc...

For this reason it didn't need to be reapplied all the time and your uncle or others don't remember it.

As surprising as it may sound NAA knew what they were doing and they didn't spread buckets of cracking putty on Mustang wings!

On the beautiful Tamiya kit however, because of the visible "rivets" one will need to apply a lot of putty in order to accurately reproduce a smooth WWII P-51 wing.

Here's what you want:

MustangWingFinish.jpg

 

Guys,

 

What I've been wondering about; early P-51D's received camouflage paint on top of their wings (on their operational air bases) in the summer of 1944. This was removed after some time. Wouldn't the removal process also damage the alumini(u)m paint? If so, was the wing repainted in alumin(i)um or just completely stripped of paint, primer and -possibly- putty?

 

Cheers,

Erik.

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All Mustangs up through late block B/C were camouflaged at the factory so there would be no silver underneath it.  When stripped in theater, they would be painted with silver lacquer to protect the putty.

Edited by Slartibartfast
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Thanks, Slartibartfast. That indeed sounds reasonable. So, taking this further,  the D-5's that were operational during June-July '44 would have their topsurfaces camouflaged with OD/DG. After that finish was deemed unnecesarry, they would have had their wings repainted in aluminum lacquer if the original lacquer would have been damaged by the removal of the OD/DG by all the usual types of thinner / solvents used...

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Army Air Force dropped the factory camouflage requirement at the end of 1943 as it recognized that German bombing of England was all but kaput and higher production rate afforded by not camouflaging fighter aircraft was more important.  All P-51D should have gone to England in NMF with the exception of early Mustang IV for the RAF.  Some American Mustang units in England insisted on camouflage for the occasional German intruder flight and had their upper wings painted OD.  Eventually, even those unit commanders acquiesced and removed the camouflage requirement.

Edited by Slartibartfast
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Thanks, yes I know all P-51D's went to the UK in NMF. As you wrote, the 20th FG and 361st FG for example, camouflaged their NMF P-51's. I understood that that was because they expected to be sent over to France after the invasion, which never happened. As these were FG's in the 8th AF that would still be needed to escort the bombers in the strategic campaign, your explanation for the camouflage sounds more logical.

 

Cheers,

Erik.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 3 months later...

I'm a docent at a museum which has an airworthy P-51B (an award winning restoration by Pacific Fighters, so I assume it's correct), it has putty over just the outboard wing seam. Even though the aircraft is well taken care of and always hangared (unlike active duty warbirds), it shows some wear.

 

I've tried to post a photo, but when I try the site says the image is too large.

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