Personal preference. In my view the majority of skins look like they came from an airshow flight line or a car wash. Its all good, you're the skinner.
Because most airplanes looked more like that than they did the example you posted. And you can ask the guys who flew Mustangs about this one. Their maintenance crews took great care of those airplanes. They had a tremendous amount of pride in doing it. The VLR groups off of Iwo Jima were obsessive about maximizing range for obvious reasons. An airplane covered in sand and grime is an aerodynamically inefficient airplane by definition. This goes against the mission requirements and would not be tolerated.
Doubt you were on the flight line at Bouganvillein in those 50 years. I wasnt either...
Doesn't matter does it? Seeing airplanes that fly in and out of island environments duplicates the same conditions. A notable example is the PBY I watched corrode into dust on the flight line in Harlingen and Brownsville over about 30 years--and it never looked like any of those.
But I doubt with the turn around time there they had time to clean and touch up paint to planes before their next flight. Except Pappys plane before photos.
And yet they sent airplanes to depot maintenance if they kept them long enough. And who said they "touched up" Pappy's plane for photos? Sure doesn't look like it, now does it? But it is clear that they *DID* slap on some paint here and there as needed to keep the thing from corroding.
The model shows dirt from the island runway exhaust streaks and chipped paint from daily open and closing and foot wear.
Its all good, after skinning back in the day, I'm not going back to it.
No, the model shows a bunch of sand stuck to the bottom and sides of the plane like it was spraypainted on there. Not likely.
