Nose Art

[gharlane]

I have noticed that on some aircraft, the nose art,on port side, is not repeated on the starboard side. Is there a specific reason for this??

Inquiring minds need to know

[Steve N]

In the case of WWII, many nose arts were painted on commission. There might be one guy in a given squadron who could paint well, and the crews would pay him to decorate their aircraft (either money or some form of barter.) Putting artwork on both sides could get expensive. Not to mention, painting the artwork could be time consuming, and they were busy fighting a war. What's always had me curious is why some aircraft had the artwork on the starboard side, and others on the port side.

SN

[greatgonzo]

I would say the nose art was rarely repeated on both sides, unless it was a part of the unit insignias. In some units there was a tradition to share the sides of the plane between a pilot and his crew chief resulting in different names and paintings on the same aircraft. The idea could have been multiplied on multiply engine crafts .

[tornado64]

some also say it came down to aircraft inspection as well !!

what was on the opposite side to that observed during inspection was usualy looked over by top brass !!

especialy in the case of nudity !!

[TonyT]

I have some shots of the P47 that had different art on both sides..... totally different schemes.. Port side was the norm as that it the side one normally enters from.

[J.C. Bahr]

Seems like if it's on the left side, the pilot had picked the subject and if it's on the right, the ground crew chief had picked it, but I don't think that was a hard fast rule.