jwc50 wrote:
John, I think you are generally right in what you say regarding the Day-glo, Arctic Red, etc. But one good example of operational/non-test fighter aircraft having the high visibility orange day-glo markings were some Air Force and Air National Guard F-86L Sabres which sported these markings during the late fifties/early sixties.
You're right, I do recall seeing F-86s in the Dave Menard book
USAF plus Fifteen: A photo history 1947-64. In fact, there is a 8" x 10" color shot on the back cover. If you have any interest in 50s markings, you need to get a copy. It came out in 1993. I was at Wright-Patt at the time and got mine at the NMUSAF Gift Shop. And I just noticed, I had Menard autograph it.
Color shots there give great examples of both, you can clearly see the diference between the arctic scheme and Day-Glo...not only in term of color, but applicarion.
It confirms what I said above, day glo was usually put on in bands, on the rear fuselage and nose. The rear application loks a lot like the yellow "Rerscue" band you'd see on helicopters and HU-16s, only in Day-Glo. Also, many tranports just had the arctic red on their taills, not the forward fuselage.
There are shots of F-101,102, 105s with Day-Glo, but again Menard's captions indicate those are test planes.
There is one 105 with arctic red aft fuselage.
And to remind us to "Never say never"...There is a shot of an ARS HU-16 with the Yellow band and what appear to be arctic markings...but instread of the entire rear fuselage anmd vertical tail being red, it's Day-Glo. Wonder if it ended up like that because it had the ARS yellow band, there was no room for the Day-Glo fuselage band?