The Trojan Warhorse

[Greebo]

Thank you to Lyric1 for finding me the info for this skin, which is an adoption of one originally done by gghost in 2008 but which now lacks the current AH3 lighting files.

"The Trojan Warhorse" was a P-47D of the 86th Fighter Squadron, 79th Fighter Group. This group first flew combat mission in Tunisia in March 1943, escorting medium bombers as the Allied armies began the final battles to drive the Axis forces out of Africa. As part of the 9th and later 12th Air Forces they fought in Sicily and Italy, often flying ground support missions for the British 8th Army.

[Devil 505]

Beautiful job.

[whiteman]

Looks great!

[Vraciu]

Very cool.  Nice variation of color on this one.

[oboe]

Its fantastic, Greebo, as are all your '47s.   

Curious though, I'm looking at these images on a MacBook, and the blue tail and trim are showing as distinctly blue-green.   The profiles I've seen of this skin depict medium blue or sometimes deeper blue.  Just wondering, as its not uncommon for blues to appear differently to people.  Most often I think, people notice purple, indicating to much red.   Could just be my display, or my eyes this morning 



<S>

[Devil 505]

Its fantastic, Greebo, as are all your '47s.   

Curious though, I'm looking at these images on a MacBook, and the blue tail and trim are showing as distinctly blue-green.   The profiles I've seen of this skin depict medium blue or sometimes deeper blue.  Just wondering, as its not uncommon for blues to appear differently to people.  Most often I think, people notice purple, indicating to much red.   Could just be my display, or my eyes this morning 

(Image removed from quote.)

<S>

The tail looks blue-green to me as well.

[Greebo]

Lyric1 found me a couple of colour photos of this aircraft for reference which show the tail, canopy and horse art were painted in a blue/green colour. This looks to my eyes to be a good match for USAAF Sea Green so that is the colour I went with.

[lyric1]

 

[Devil 505]

Lyric1 found me a couple of colour photos of this aircraft for reference which show the tail, canopy and horse art were painted in a blue/green colour. This looks to my eyes to be a good match for USAAF Sea Green so that is the colour I went with.

Cool!

[oboe]

I guess Sea Green would be a mixture of blue and green, so that makes sense.  Any chance though, that the age of the color photographs may have affected the display of the original color?  I have rarely seen these tails in anything other than what I would guess is ANA 501 True Blue.   

I also found this document: Camouflage & Markings Republic P-4 7 Thunderbolt U.S.A.A.F., E.T.O. & M.T.O., 1942-1945

This document indicates the 79th FG's tails were painted medium blue:

The 79th FG, which received it first P-47s in March 1944, continued to use the system of battle numbers formerly applied to its P-40s. This system was the same as that of 57th FG except that group identification in the form of a letter X was painted adjacent to the number on each aircraft.  The letter was usually painted as a prefix to the number on both sides of the fuselage but there were several examples where the X was a suffix. These characters were in white on camouflage finish and black on natural metal. Some 79th aircraft had red nose cowl during the later part of 1944, but by 1945 only the lower portion of the nose was painted. A group identification marking was introduced at this time and consisted of medium blue painted tail surface with yellow lightning flashes on fin and rudder. The pattern and extent of the flashes varied, particularly when the marking was first adopted.

Hard to argue against photographic evidence though!

[whiteman]

There's a Corsair Ive been looking at that is believed to have had a similar green field mix for squad ID markings, only image is it passing by taking off in black and white film.

[Greebo]

Here are the images Lyric1 found me, they are a bit low res but the colour balance looks OK to me.

[lyric1]

Here are the images Lyric1 found me, they are a bit low res but the colour balance looks OK to me.

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

From the web site I found these they stated they were a couple of frames from a film.

[oboe]

Nice!  Thanks for posting those.  Would love to see that film to see if there are any shots of the tails with full sun illumination - both of these shots the sun seems pretty high and the tails are in shadow.

Great find lyric, and thanks for sharing them, Greebo.

[Vraciu]

Kinda looks like blue in shadow.