Adoption VBF-83 F4U-1D USS Essex

[whiteman]

This was Fencers skin, I kept it pretty much original except for the "NO STEP" I changed to a yellow. I've seen a few and they all look slightly lighter than the rest of the known white markings and I've seen them mentioned as yellow before. Possible they could be white as the Essex had Yellow and White noses for the Japan strikes, along with aircraft with nose art and kill markings which is very rare for 1945 carrier based Navy units. Essex had about as an unique group of aircraft as your going to get with late war Navy Corsairs and Hellcats. The 3 digit plane code puts this Between April and June 1945. Previous to this they had 2 digit codes that lasted till the end of March or shortly into April. In June the G-Symbol would be dropped for an "F" and planes would be numbered 1xx or 2xx.

VBF-83 172 a by whitemanLS1, on Flickr
VBF-83 172 b by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

[Greebo]

Looks really good Whiteman, just right.

[lyric1]

 

[Devil 505]

Excellent job.

[Nefarious]

Excellent work! <S>

[Vraciu]

Very nice.

[whiteman]

Changed the "NO STEP" back to white, just watched multiple videos of color footage from the Essex and I can't find a yellow nose on that ship and bet these were faded white. Which sucks because I had what I thought was a photo of a yellow nose F4U from that ship I just finished and the plane number just after it rolled across with a white nose. 

VBF-83 172 b2 by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

This looked better with a yellow nose.
VBF-83 194 a2 by whitemanLS1, on Flickr
VBF-83 194 b2 by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

[Mister Fork]

Why does Tamiya think they're yellow nosed? Every modeler I've met are nutters to accuracy, even compared to us.  And Tamiya is usually 99% accurate to their airplanes. Not 100%, but pretty dang close.

[whiteman]

Why does Tamiya think they're yellow nosed? Every modeler I've met are nutters to accuracy, even compared to us.  And Tamiya is usually 99% accurate to their airplanes. Not 100%, but pretty dang close.

(Image removed from quote.)

The USS Bunker Hill aircraft did have the yellow nose like that VF-84 Corsair pictured. You can see its clearly a dull shade in B&W photos and doesn't match any known whites. It seems all the other CV's that participated in the Okinawa and Japan raids in March 1945 used white noses that are clear in B&W photos and color videos. I've gone through forums and books that say yellow and white were used and some believed the Essex air group was a mix of both, just not finding that yellow like i wanted to.

EDIT: sure as toejam as i look it up again there's a photo of a yellow nosed Essex aircraft from Fundekals. They have a guy that goes through the national archives to get information on their aircraft decals. So he found unpublished photos. I'll start another thread for that later for 94 and it's yellow/white nose.

[ordy]

Has far as I know they cowls were all yellow and removed fairly quickly.
My cousin Don Owen flew F4U-1D #3 with VMF-112 aboard the Bennington.
His F4U is depicted has white painted cowl (including AHII skin) but it was
yellow according to Col Dave Andre the squadron XO.  Attached is Don after
landing after the first raid with battle damage.  He received his 2nd DFC on
this mission.