P-39D 'Eloise' 345th FS / 350th FG, 12th AF

[Fencer51]

For Dan.

Shows what you know

My friend Earl Miller over the Tunisian Desert on a sunrise patrol in his P39 of the 345th FS, 350th FG, 12th AF.   Earl is 88 years young.  I talked to him last week and he was up flying in a Cessna 152 two days before.

I'd love his bird done.  He flew Airwarrior with us and is the only real WW2 fighter pilot who I know of that flew flight sims.  He did venture into AH early on, but hasn't flown in a long while.  250 combat missions, Silver Star and DFC in WW2.  Retired from the AF in 70.  Flew A-1s as an advisor in Vietnam.

His P39 was named Eloise.  Red surround to the star and bar.  Yellow MTO bands on tail and wings, red spinner, 99 on the door in yellow as well as Eloise on both sides of the nose in yellow.  Now that's a pretty bird.
(Image removed from quote.)

They flew their 39s up into Italy and didn't turn them in until August 1944.  Keep in mind the Mustang had been in combat for a long time by then not to mention the Jug and 38.  At the AW con in Indy way back when Earl was there as was Bud Anderson who spoke.  Bud Anderson was shocked to hear that Earl had flown 39s against the LW.  He hadn't known the USAAF had them in Europe
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[Widewing]

Beautiful! Nice work.

One issue: SN should be 42-9319, not 42-3919. Transposed the 9 and 3.

My regards,

Widewing

[Saxman]

Nice looking ship, but it looks like the red surround on the roundel in the photo does not cut across the white bars as you have it.

[Guppy35]

Now the key will be getting Earl to load AH on his new computer and come fly his bird

Think Sax is right Fencer on the roundels.

Nice work all round though

[Wmaker]

The "99-font" looks different when looking at the photo. Also the "Eloise" is different shade than the numbers for example, probably plain white?

[oboe]

Beautiful work, Fencer.   And there are some sharp-eyed reviewers, here, too--kudos you guys.   Very nice job working off just a B&W photo.

I think the '99' appears different because Fencer's font has deeper bevels on the corners than the '99' in the photo.

[hammer]

Nice looking ship, but it looks like the red surround on the roundel in the photo does not cut across the white bars as you have it.

I'm not sure about that. If you look inside the yellow border, there is a distinctly different color line between the fuselage band and the white bar. To me, it seems to correspond to the line around the star as shown in the red bordered area.


Regards,

Hammer

[Saxman]

hammer,

That's not what I'm talking about. Look at how in the skin the red surround is completely encircling the blue field of the roundel. It should not.

[hammer]

Ah-so!  Concur.

[Fencer51]

Goes to prove you can get so involved in the weathering and aging and screw up the obvious details which you have good info for. 

Thanks all.

[Wmaker]

A bit OT but...

Fencer,

That Eloise is looking very good and so I figured I'd ask if you would be interested in doing a VVS Cobra?

212 British Airacobra Is were sent to Soviet Union and 19 GIAP was the first unit in the VVS to fly the P-39 in combat. My personal interest for these planes is the fact that the Cobra's babtism of fire in VVS colours happened in the Northern Finland front against the JG5.

So 19 GIAP Cobra would be nice to see in game! I think the external and performance differences are so small between 39D with a 20mm and the Airacobra I/P-400 that this one is very doable.

Here is an excellent article about the first VVS cobras with nice photo and a profile of a 19 GIAP Cobra. I hope it gets you interested on the subject!



http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/romanenko/p-39/index.htm

[Fencer51]

I have a P-39Q in Russian colors done I have just haven't got around to submitting it, and have another researched which is quite unique.

I can do a P-400 if you would like, even that one.  Let me check what I got photos for.

Yes that is the same lendlease site I got the info for my Russian B-25 (submitted) from.

So you are interested in JG5?

[BaDkaRmA158Th]

Awesome job fancer51! 
Might i be so bold as to post a link to a p39 skin?

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,231961.0.html

Ill delete the link if you feal it takes too much away from your skin, as i do not want to hijack your wounderful work so far.

Cant wait to see your others, keep up the good work.

[Fencer51]

I saw that, but someone had already spoken for it I believed.

[BaDkaRmA158Th]

Drats!

Well at any rate, thank you for your work and effort for this game and its community.