Recovering aircraft history through paint investigation

[JDK]

A couple of interesting professional discussions on case histories where an aircraft's history was established (despite erroneous paperwork) by careful review of paint and firsthand experiences.

The discussion is about the Australian War Memorial's (AWM) Sea Fury and another discussion on paint that I've not read yet, on the Memorial's Lancaster.

Thought this might be of interest given recent discussions on how to investigate an aircraft's history through its paint layers in a couple of recent threads.

http://www.awm.gov.au/events/conference ... /index.asp

See: # Original paint as evidence - John Kemister and # Questions and answers - John Kemister. Both downloadable illustrated PDFs, not webpages, so not displayed here.

Lancaster details are at: # Original paint-evidence and presentation - Andrew Pearce and # Questions and answers - Lancaster paint - Andrew Pearce.

Lots of other material worth a look, too.

Hope that's of interest.

[Enemy Ace]

This subject is very well covered by Robert Mikesh of the NASM in his book "Restoring museum aircraft". A highly recommended read. The airplane used in the book is the museum's Fw190.

[JDK]

The Mikesh book is an essential in the area, I agree. More detail in terms of paint / finish investigation would be Dave Morris' book on the Fleet Air Arm Museum Corsair.

[mustangdriver]

The same thing is being done as layer by layer of paint is taken off of t he Memphis Belle, it is revealing different markings changes that it carried as well as all of those signatures.

[Versatile]

I watched as about 6 layers of paint came off Robbie Jones P-51. The last layer had a Kangaroo on it.

[michaelharadon]

In the '70's, I talked with an employee at the Musee de l'Aire in Paris as we were standing in front of their Mustang. He said that they found American, Dutch, and Israeli markings on top of each other as they prepared the plane for display. Cool.

[rreis]

About the Mikesh book, a "warning". Except for the covers, the content page to page of the old and more recent edition is exactly the same so buy the least expensive (but buy it).

best regards,

[aerovin]

Speaking of Robert Mikesh, this is an illustration from his 1978 NASM book on the restoration of Excalibur III, P-51C NX1202, showing paint revealed on the rudder counterbalance weight.