Since I am the person who did the P-47D11 skins, a word of explaination might be in order.
With the upcoming (eventually) Combat Tour there is a need for planes of different time periods and from the 8th AF. Your multi colored Pacific planes are useless to CT. The three P-47s from the 334th FS of the 4th FG are each from a different time period and are 8th AF based.
One is "Miss Dallas" flown by Vic France from Spring 1943, it has a yellow band around the insignia.
One is "Salem Representative" flown by "Kid" Hofer from Late Summer early Fall 1943, it has a red band around the insignia.
The last 334th FS P-47 is a request by Treize69 and FlyinFin that I do Beeson's P-47 Boise Bee. It is from January 1944.
I can guarrantee you that the paint scheme of each plane is individualized. The color of the planes are different. The wear of the paint is different. The chips are different and the stains are different. Each has different nose art.
The 335th FS P-47 is that of 4th FG Commander Col Donald Blakeslee. As one of the greatest leaders of the 8th AF he deserves a plane in the planeset somewhere IMHO. I will grant you that it has the same base color as that of Beeson's but that is because it was from the same time period. However the paint wear, chips and other stains are completely different.
I will concur the panel lines are the same as the Republic people had by that time learned the assembly line technique of mass production.
You want different planes in any plane set, well learn to skin.
Its a bloody time consuming process and I could have cut corners and just changed the plane codes and nose art. But I took the time to do it right. Take 5 mins and actually look at the planes before you come in here and start spouting off about them being exactly alike.
I hate to break it to everyone but the vast majority of aircraft flown in combat were not the brightly painted clown type planes everyone seems to prefer.
I can guarrantee that the P-47 skins are flown daily by the guys in the 4th FG which is more than you can say about quite a few fine skins.
I personally fly the P-51 alot. I keep mental track of the other skins I see and I can tell you that at least half of them I have never seen flown. Now, I am not saying that they should be removed because I have never seen them. Some if not most of the P-51s have been in there for 8 months now. Coincidently some of those that have been there longest are the ones that you never see in the arena. Dunno what the reason for that is, but there you go. They are all fine skins.
I also don't think that just because Machnix (heavens, I named names) has 6 P-51 skins he should have some removed.
However I think that planes should be rotated. Look at LOU IV. Fester was doing that but the P-51D plane set filled up so he did not complete or submitt it to the best of my knowledge. (I hope I am wrong here)
I guarrantee that it would look better than some of the other P-51 skins. Should they get bumped? No. Someone spent time on them and they were good enough when HTC accepted them. What HTC should do is either expand the plane set numbers or rotate them and that rotation should occur about every 2 months.
Cheers.
