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Weathered Warbirds in museums?


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One of my favorite museum aircraft is the P-38J on display at the National Air & Space Museums's Udvar Hazy center. I don't know much about the history of this aircraft, but it appears to be in original un-restored condition. Well used, weathered and beautiful.

http://www.kazoku.org/xp-38n/walkaround/smithsonian/index.html

Do any of you know of any other original condition weathered warbirds on indoor display?

** I don't mean the one's that are outdoors and have just faded while on display due to neglect. **

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The HE-126 at the Canada Avition and Space Museum in Ottawa has their He-126 on display in an un-restored condition, just reassembled after being in storage

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and a Junkers J.I in a fully unrestored, exactly as found in WWI condition:

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but just remember, that P-38 HAS been through a restoration/preservation program, they just haven't repainted it or anything.

Sean

Edited by martin_sam_2000
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The P-38J at NASM has never been restored. It has its original WWII OD/NG paint, as in fact does "Flak Bait". The latter is being reassembled at the moment for display at Udvar-Hazy.

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Those are nice Sean. Exactly the type of thing I'm looking for. Beautiful reference pictures. Thanks!

That Heinkel 162 is a good inspiration for my Tamiya kit.

Edited by dmk0210
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The He162 saw so little service there would have been little time for any to become weathered. Much of that wear and tear will have happened since the end of the war. Which is fine if you want to model it as a museum piece.

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The P-38J at NASM has never been restored. It has its original WWII OD/NG paint, as in fact does "Flak Bait". The latter is being reassembled at the moment for display at Udvar-Hazy.

I was under the impression that they stripped some paint off of it to find the existing paint and markings on the P-38, and had to add some missing equipment before it could be put on display. While I don't claim that it was completely restored, there was definately some restoration work done. but I guess it all comes down semantics and technicalities..lol.

while we are on topic, the Me-163 at the Udvar Hazey complex is also in an un-restored condition

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Sean

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I believe this is the only Bf-109 still in it's existing colors. Stored indoors for most of it's life, it's the best example of late war German colors out there. Australian War Memorial.

Since these pics were taken, it has been reassembled.

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Great to see the He-162 and J-1 reassembled. The were in disassembled storage when we visited the museum in 2007. I understand the Junkers spent a number of years sitting outdoors being neglected after coming to Canada as a "war prize" in 1919..if it hadn't been a metal aircraft, it would be long gone. The museum in Ottawa is fantastic..I'm hoping to make a trek there next year to see the Hawker Typhoon.

The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry has a Ju-87 Stuka (one of only two in the world) that I've been told is still in largely original condition. It's had some touch-ups are repairs over the years. I think most or all of the canopy glass is new, and the prop looks new as well. The wheel pants are missing, and the wheels themselves are American replacements, but the rest is mostly still as it was when the aircraft was captured by the Brits in North Africa, including a considerable number of shrapnel holes.

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The museum also has a Battle of Britain veteran Spitfire Mk.I. It still wears original RAF WWII paint, but was finished in the later green/gray camo when it was refurbished for a training unit later in the war (unfortunately the lighting sucks.)

IMG_9195.jpg

SN

Edited by Steve N
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There's something to be said about once in a while having a aircraft on display not looking like it was fresh from the factory, the wash rack, or the painting pad. It's nice to see them that way sometimes. Can you imagine walking into a museum with 1 to 1 scale dioramas and seeing this:

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or this?

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That would make a display that would set it apart. At Pensacola's museum they have a couple displays of aircraft looking like they were found under water.

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This Lavochkin La-7 is part of the Kbely Air Museum in Prague:

lavochkin.jpg

I took that picture in 2007; however, it looked just the same on a visit I made to the museum last month. Sadly, I have no better picture of it as the indoor exhibits at Kbely are very difficult to get good photos of. On my most recent visit, the La-7 was in the WWII hall which is horribly dark.

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I'm hoping to make a trek there next year to see the Hawker Typhoon.

SN

I was just there the other day for that exact reason. I just haven't gotten around to posting them online yet. AMAZING aircrafT!!!!

Sean

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Thanks for the info and pictures guys!

There's something to be said about once in a while having a aircraft on display not looking like it was fresh from the factory, the wash rack, or the painting pad. It's nice to see them that way sometimes. Can you imagine walking into a museum with 1 to 1 scale dioramas and seeing this:

It probably wasn't realistic to leave most of the aircraft in original condition. I've seen pictures of some from before restoration and they were pretty bad off. That said, they could have done pretty realistic weathering on some of them. It would have made a nice display to better present how they looked in service. Of course original paint and wear would be much better.

Edited by dmk0210
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Thanks for sharing all those pictures, as they will come in handy when I eventually do my 1/48 scale P-38.

It's certainly a nice change of pace to see some aircraft in their original condition and paint. Like others have said, a lot has to do with it's present condition. But I would think that too many heavily weathered aircraft would have a negative overall effect to the general public.

Joel

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The National Museum of Naval Aviation has a Wildcat with faux weathering displayed in a diorama setting representing an airfield on Guadalcanal. It's a nice display, although the "weathering" around the guns is pretty crudely (over)done. Of course it's an FM-2, masquerading as an F4F-3 or -4. For some reason, the museum has a total of five Wildcats on display in various paint schemes and configurations.

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And there are the aforementioned F4F-3 and SBD-3, displayed in an "as found" diorama on the bottom of Lake Michigan (although no doubt the sand is from the nearby Gulf of Mexico..I'm a lifelong Michigander and that sand is much too which and fine for Lake Michigan. ;) ) Forgive the quality of the last shots..I didn't have a tripod with me and using flash destroys the lighting effect..plus I didn't want to disturb the folks watching the movie.

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The USAF museum has a handful of newer aircraft displayed "as retired," but of course most have been fully restored or at least repainted. There were some complaints when they recently repainted a B-57 as part of the newly re-vamped Vietnam display. The airframe did wear those marking while flying in combat in southeast Asia, but had been displayed for decades "as retired" from the Air National Guard.

Before:

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And now:

Personally, although the SEA camo looks great, I would have preferred to see here retain her "time capsule" markings.

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The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum has a neat display of a Fleet Fort trainer..one side is restored, and the other left "as found" in a farm field. I don't have a pic of that one handy.

SN

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The National Museum of Naval Aviation has a Wildcat with faux weathering displayed in a diorama setting representing an airfield on Guadalcanal. It's a nice display, although the "weathering" around the guns is pretty crudely (over)done. Of course it's an FM-2, masquerading as an F4F-3 or -4. For some reason, the museum has a total of five Wildcats on display in various paint schemes and configurations.

Those are wonderful pictures Steve. Thanks for sharing them.

I give credit to the museum for the faux weathering. As we all know convincing weathering is a bit of an art and luck sometimes. Even perhaps overdone in spots, that looks way better than a glossy aircraft and has much more historical 'presence' IMO.

As far as the B-57 I have mixed feelings. The modeler and amateur historian in me would like to see original, unrestored with patina and all. OTOH, I think a lot of folks would rather see these birds in the markings they had when they saw combat action.

Edited by dmk0210
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Wow, that is amazing Mike. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to effectively restore to under levels of paint. Kudos to them for their hard work and respect to history.

This is a wonderful reference aircraft. I wish they had bigger pictures of this Corsair on their website. (Though you can find a bunch with a Google image search for: Fleet Air Arm Museum Corsair KD 431)

Can an aircraft that was re-painted many years ago be returned to its original paintwork: presuming it survives beneath the later layers?

If the original paintwork can be revealed, is it a financially feasible exercise and what will it add to our understanding of the aircraft?

In 2000 it was decided to use the Museum's Corsair FG-1 to pioneer this "whole aircraft" method of paintwork conservation. We believe this ground breaking project to be the first of its kind in the aviation Museum world.

Using techniques familiar to archaeologists and forensic scientists this project has revealed, after three years of painstaking work, a unique, time capsule aircraft. Inch by inch, layer by layer, the entire aircraft has been scrutinised, researched and carefully stripped of the paint finish applied in 1963, when the aircraft was first presented to the Fleet Air Arm Museum.

THE RESULT- A Corsair in as near to totally authentic and original condition from 1944 as it is possible to achieve. Paintwork, markings, stencilling, even the scratches and wear marks from the period are all original. Of the forty or so remaining Corsairs around the world (some in flying condition, some on display in Museums) there are no known examples in their truly original condition other than the Fleet Air Arm Museum's Corsair KD 431.

View of KD 431 after three years painstaking work. All of the paintwork, markings, scratches and wear marks are authentic and original from 1944-45.

Edited by dmk0210
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Wow, that is amazing Mike. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to effectively restore to under levels of paint. Kudos to them for their hard work and respect to history.

This is a wonderful reference aircraft. I wish they had bigger pictures of this Corsair on their website. (Though you can find a bunch with a Google image search for: Fleet Air Arm Museum Corsair KD 431)

Here's a link to more photos of KD 431. The first 3 aren't of KD 431 but the rest are.

KD 431

Cheers,

John

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  • 2 months later...

The Fleet Air Arm Museum "Reverse Restored" their Corsair. They spent 5 years slowly removing all the layers of paint, to get back down to the original wartime paint layer. As a result, they uncovered all the original colours, stencils etc, showing how the aircraft actually looked in wartime. They are now doing the same to their Martlet ( Wildcat ).

EDIT - Just noticed the link to the Corsair above! ( It's late, I'm tired! ). My pictures were taken June 2014.

f4corsair14.jpg

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f4corsair16.jpg

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Edited by Army_Air_Force
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In Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego in Krakow you can find many interesting subjects, especially from WW I, but also the other. For example prototype of the Me-209, look here (scroll down for better pictures):

http://www.muzeumlotnictwa.pl/zbiory_sz.php?ido=24&w=a

Here You can find photos of other museum subjects:

http://www.muzeumlotnictwa.pl/zbiory.php?w=a&zb=aeroplanes

Edited by Andzin
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