Invasion Stripes

Hi all,

While I am probably a couple of years away from really having to commit, I plan on a paint scheme emulating WWII P 51's, either polished or painted silver.

Does anyone know about how wide invasion stripes should be? I was thinking about the idea of polishing the wings and painting on the stripes while I still have them in the jig. Would certainly be a convenient way to hold wings. Anyway, I would not want to polish the areas for the invasion stripes, as that would just be wasted time. Any experience?

Regards,

Michael Wynn
RV 8 Wings (flaps)

There are plenty of RVs painted that way. You can contact Larry Bowen (http://www.bowenaero.com) to get more details.. he's got a nice -8 (see his site).

RAF specs...

This was the RAF specification (from a Canadian WWII history web site) - I would presume the US used the same specs. for the stripes (not the camo. colors... ...)

The aircraft were in the standard RAF Day Fighter Scheme, Dark Green and Ocean Grey camouflage on the upper surfaces and Medium Sea Grey undersides. Spinners, code letters and an 18" band round the rear fuselage would have been in Sky and the aircraft would have carried the invasion stripes, three white stripes with two black stripes between them, all 18" wide above and below the wings and around the fuselage aft of the cockpit.

Since the WWII fighters were in the 35 to 40 ft. span range, 12 inch wide stripes might look more "scale-like" on our smaller RV wings...

gil in Tucson

I hope Its going to have

a Rolls Royce emblem on the side....

Yes I was tempted to paint it like a spitfire....trouble is it just don't look like a Spit, especially with a training wheel!

English Frank