The NMUSAF's Lost B-29 "Command Decision"

[APG85]

Wow, the nose art on the museum bird isn't even close to the original.

No kidding. They didn't even try to make it authentic in style, let alone composition and typography. What a shame.

Probably done long before people cared as much about accuracy as they do today...

[Steve Birdsall]

This photo may answer a few of the questions posed here, or simply add another confusing piece to the puzzle . . .



The photo came from the Boeing collection but without details of when or where it was taken. You've got to wonder exactly when and why the Disney characters were overpainted.

[Shay]

Great find Steve!!

Is it possible this was taken just after retirement???

She looks parked on a unused ramp or taxiway. She still has her brownings and doesn't looked demilled. For some reason the paint on the forward fuse looks fresh while the rest of black looks war weary. Doesn't look like Wright-Patt but it could be Dayton International Airport after the crowds went home. (I've got a similar picture of Hanoi Taxi after everyone went home, kinda sad).

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[APG85]

That's a fantastic picture! To bad she wasn't preserved as is...

[Steve Birdsall]

Shay, I think the photo was taken at the very end of Command Decision's career, and I too think it's at Dayton.

As I said, I wonder why the nose artwork was painted over at this point in time? That photo you have of the nose artwork after somebody fairly carefully painted around it was dated 10 August 1953, after the armistice . . .

[APG85]

Keep digging Shay,
Someone has pictures of that plane on a flatbed truck...

[Ken]

Hrrrm, isn't it less than honest for a museum to paint up an aircraft as another? The goal of a museum should be preserving history, not faking it. That would be like me paint up my F-84F as a Thunderbird then slapping kill marks on the side when my aircraft was only a trainer.

Sad to say that if every museum bird and flying warbird were magically re-painted in a scheme that was accurate to that airframe's history we all be sadly disappointed. I understand why it's done and I'm okay with it as long as no false claims are made. The world would be kinda boring if were only the Swoose, Enola Gay, Flak Bait, Bockscar, Upaupa Epops, Shoox3 Baby, Memphis Belle, etc.

We wouldn't have a HJGB, for one.

Ken

[John Dupre]

I have often thought that one way to have an exciting paint scheme on a plain vanilla Air Force aircraft is to make use of the data block information painted on the left side and record the actual serial number there while painting the larger tail code serial number of the replicated scheme. If you have a viewer who knows his paint schemes the discrepancy ought to get him asking questions and if the technique were widely used then the plane spotter types would know exactly where to look for accurate information on the aircraft. As for Navy aircraft since the bureau number is usually in small numbers on the tail I would paint the actual number rather than the "replicated" scheme's number. On most photos of Navy WW2 aircraft the photo has to be exceptionally clear to read the bureau number and I can't think of any Navy aircraft widely known by their bureau numbers as opposed to tactical numbers.