Blue Angels Hellcat color

[peter havriluk]

I have a Grumman F6F I intend to decorate as a first-generation 'Blue Angel'.   Somewhere I picked up a comment that these were not painted Deep Sea Blue, but a lighter shade of dark blue.   Any reason why Tamiya rattle-can 'Navy Blue' wouldn't work?  

 

Thanks! 

[Chriss7607]

The Blue Angels Hellcats aren't really well documented. After all, they flew them for a very short time (June 15th to August 15th 1946) and at the time they had no way of knowing that the team would still be going all these years later. The actual color used was only vaguely described by Butch Voris, so in the absence of any color photos I would say that just about any glossy dark blue would work. Personally, I decided on the same can of Tamiya Navy Blue. If you warm it up for 15 minutes in warm water it will spray beautifully, leaving a very smooth glossy finish. It was revealed years later that all of the gold lettering was actual gold leaf, so that would be a metallic gold finish not yellow as some drawings and decals represent. After their service, the Blue Angels Hellcats were all converted back into trainers and reassigned to squadrons in training command. At one point, I was able to find the final fate of each of them. I hope this helps you out a little.

[peter havriluk]

Sounds good to me.  Thanks!

[Tailspin Turtle]

For what it's worth: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/04/blue-angel-blue-and-gold-draft.html