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F8F COLORS on the Bearcat


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Anybody know about when the Navy started the practice of painting the undercarriage and wheel bays Dark Sea Blue? Kind of need some other colors for the rest of the plane also.

  1. So the area above the console is the area under the windshield above and behind the instrument panel?
  2. What color is the are behind the seat under the canopy.
  3. What color were the wheels?

Edited by Spectre711
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F8F Bearcat. Cockpit: FS 34151 Interior Green. The area above the consoles was black. The seat was black. Inside of the engine cowling was Zinc Chromate Yellow, Interior Green or possibly Flat Black. All other visible areas were Glossy Sea Blue similar to the F6F-5.

Looks like I found my answer.

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Basically any aircraft that was delivered in GSB was reasonably likely to have had the gear bays and struts painted in GSB at the first repaint. I have seen a couple of period pics of brand-spanking-new Bearcats where you could see the gear gays and they were not GSB. IIRC I have read somewhere that "as delivered" by Grumman the gear bays were interior green.

Corsairs were delivered with interior green gear bays and silver struts right up until the end of production - and then in the fleet often had those repainted in GSB when the aircraft went in for a repaint. Panthers and Cougars delivered in GSB also had interior green bays when they came off Grumman's line, but these areas were often later oversprayed in GSB.

Aircraft in tri-color or earlier schemes that were repainted in GSB later in life likely had GSB gear and bays.

I think the lesson here is that in real life, aircraft painters don't like masking anything they don't absolutely have to.

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I think the lesson here is that in real life, aircraft painters don't like masking anything they don't absolutely have to.

No painter does :D

Ken

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  • 3 weeks later...

F8F Bearcat. Cockpit: FS 34151 Interior Green. The area above the consoles was black. The seat was black. Inside of the engine cowling was Zinc Chromate Yellow, Interior Green or possibly Flat Black. All other visible areas were Glossy Sea Blue similar to the F6F-5.

  1. So the area above the console is the area under the windshield above and behind the instrument panel?
  2. What color is the are behind the seat under the canopy.
  3. What color were the wheels?

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1. So the area above the console is the area under the windshield above and behind the instrument panel?

The consoles are the panels on each side of the seat that extend up from the floor. The cockpit floor, fore and aft bulkheads, seat, control stick and rudder pedals should be interior green. The side consoles, from the floor up, and the cockpit sidewalls all the way to the canopy sill, will be black. Instrument panel is black.

2. What color is the are behind the seat under the canopy.

Flat black.

3. What color were the wheels?

Brake disks and calipers silver. Hub (outboard side of wheels) could be silver or gloss sea blue.

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I would just like to point out that the seat was Interior Green and not black.

The armor plate behind the seat was also IG on the bottom and sprayed black on the top just above the seat.

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