Warbird Information Exchange

Well said Marine Air

H*ll, my Mustang isn’t wearing its original paint, yet it’s scheme is 25 years old now… and everyone seems to love it!

glad i never posted a pix of my SNJ painted as a SBD, think of all the crap i would catch.

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For the longest time I thought it was an SBD! They do bear quite a resemblance, especially to a neophyte.

It is all a matter of taste and what kind of story you may want to tell, or who you may want to honor. It isn't easy to pick a scheme for a repaint or a new restoration. Almost every Spitfire or Hurricane has combat history, so their paint schemes are often documented. For something like an SNJ not so much. There were many and it is hard to find photographs of any particular plane (in color?) when it was one of thousands training pilots stateside at dozens of bases.

And by the way, I love civilian warbird paint schemes too!

No good deed goes unpunished on WIX...
It looks great...

Phil

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Looks great Tim ~ congrats man!

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I think it's time to bring back the pink P-40 scheme. Talk about controversial at the time! and flown by a lady pilot, Sue Parrish a former WASP. IT was a beautiful controversy.

I absolutely love the paint scheme.

I know what Tim paid for the airplane and what he paid for the paint and I can tell you when you spend that kind of money, you get to paint it anyway you want to.

These kind of comments have driven off some of the biggest names in the Warbird community.

They won't come back.

I remember one argument with some yahoo here and arguably, but in my opinion, the most knowledgable Mustang restorer in the world. He left and never came back. There were lots more.

For the very few Warbird owners left that are real enthusiasts, such as Tim and myself, We aren't looking for comments from the paint police, or really anything that isn't pleasant. I work very hard to make the money to afford Warbirds, and sometimes work is not pleasant. So we look for fellow enthusiasts here to discuss what we love, maybe with disagreements on what is the best fighter, but not like this thread has become,

Most multi Warbird owners wouldn't spend a minute on the internet with other enthusiasts. That's just the way they are. Hell they don't even give me the time of day and I have 22 of them.

I have rarely been here in many years, but if Tim and Stoney are here I may spend more time here.

Can't wait until they learn how I am going to paint my N model.

Its almost the equivalent of asking a restorer or Builder "how much of it is original?"

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I for one am just grateful to see them.

I wouldn't be surprised if 90 percent or more of the people reading this thread love the new colors on Tim's P-40, but positive people don't tend to make a big deal about it, while negative people tend to want to let everyone know, and make noise disproportionate to their actual numbers. Unfortunately their bleating can be hard to ignore.
I love unique color schemes, especially when they tell an interesting story.



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At the risk of getting myself in trouble I have to ask. Had this P-40 had extensive reconstruction? The reason I ask is this aircraft looks like a P-40M to me. With the exception of the P-40N-1, all P-40Ns had the revised canopy and rear vision panels. So this could be a P-40N-1 except that N-1s had four guns, not six. Could this aircraft be an N-5 or newer with a rebuilt canopy and vision panel section? Or is it an N-1 with P-40M six gun wings or is it a P-40M?.

Some reading on this aircraft and restoration if interested
https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/p-40/A29-414.html
Kiwis, Canucks and the Kittyhawk
Born Again Kittyhawk

Thanks!

If I were to restore something, that is exactly how I'd do it. Or I'd pick any other part of its history that was specific to it, and restore it to that. I would research it till I knew every minute part of that history, and then I would pick a point in its life and restore it to that. That is called respecting the aircraft and its history. Hell, paint it pink with purple polka dots and call it whatever you want. As long as its original, its keeping the history correct. Its just a new chapter in its history. This is why I love warbirds in civilian and original racing schemes. They aren't copying anything, not trading history for something, simply adding a new chapter that doesn't muddy history. That is all that matters. Keeping the history correct. You of all people should understand that since you post more historic pics than anyone else on here. You try and teach history with your posts, yet you are totally fine with trading the real history of one that exists for that of one that is long gone? That just boggles the mind.

Yes this repaint looks great, but its wrong. Yes a ton of time and $ went into it, but why do it wrong when you can do it right and have an equally great looking aircraft with its identity correct? Owners have an obligation to history and to their aircraft to restore it correctly. If they wish to make it their own, then fine, do something original that doesn't steal the identity from one aircraft that is long gone and make it that aircraft again, at the expense of the real aircrafts true identity and history. All that does is muddy history. We need to protect and preserve history as it happened, not be falsely representing it, because we can. I will argue this for every single ship, aircraft, or whatever that is restored incorrectly to represent something it never was, and never will be. It makes me sad to see "restorations" that are anything but that. Every time I find out a warbird isn't restored as itself, it just makes me sick and sad. As a pretty decent photographer, I want to capture the aircraft in its best light, to make it look the best it can, but if its wrong, I want nothing to do with it. There is no point in shooting it because all I'm doing its perpetuating incorrect history. I don't want to put incorrect history out there, there is way too much of that as it is. I don't want to support it, I don't want my name even loosely associated with it. It really sucks to learn that the beautiful warbird I just shot is not actually the aircraft it represents. All my time and effort that went into the shoot is wasted and the pics get left on the computer never to be shared with anyone else, if not deleted.

That's a bit of a hard line position, Blackbirdfan, but I can respect it.

One useful thing your viewpoint does is expose the hypocrisy of a warbird owner saying, at the same time, things like "I'm honored to be the temporary custodian of this piece of history" and "If you don't like the way I painted it, offer to pay for a new paint job or buy it outright and repaint it." If you take seriously the idea that your plane is a piece of history, then you take on a duty to history, to the community. The "I'm the owner, I can paint it any way I want it" position is internally consistent only with the idea that the plane is not a piece of history, just a personal toy. Either view is fine, just pick a lane.

When it comes to American warbirds, we are up against the reality that most surviving warbirds did not have combat histories and there is value in restoring and repainting them to represent ones that did. As a Canadian, I might be happy to see all the surviving Kittyhawks that only saw RCAF service repainted in their old Canadian markings rather than cosplay as USAAF P-40s, but most would not! With British warbirds it's different, most Spitfires and Hurricanes (apart from the Canadian-built Hurris) are combat vets and it's no wonder you see far more of them painted in their own past colors. The few operable genuine German and Japanese warbirds almost all saw combat service and it is nice that almost all of them wear their old colors.

August