wera710
Well Known Member
Been wanting to do something to honor my older friends before the last one passes away. Most of the pilots I've known from WWII/Korea are have already flown west. Two flew P-51s in WWII and one in Korea. As I've always felt my generic Vans paint scheme looked pretty much like every other, I decided to do the P-51 thing. My buddy John passed away before I could pin him down on his paint scheme, as did a guy named Don, who taught me formation, so I decided to go with a general scheme that would represent the 357th Fighter Group, 362nd Fighter Squadron (Sqd code G4), although the OD was applied in this manner to aircraft from all three squadrons, the 362nd, 363rd, and 364th. Some had OD/Neutral Grey, some just the top in OD, and some just OD on the cowl. Came out ok I think, although the painter did not get the mask correct on the stars and bars. Ah well.
For those not interested in history, stop here and just look at the photos if you like, as the rest will be boring. lol. For those of you into the history, the P code was actually used by a guy from Texas by the name of Lt. Otto D. Jenkins on "Floogie II" and again later by a Lt. Edward Hyman on “Rolla U-bar”. No idea from where he hails. I went with P with an underscore to diferentiate it as I was not trying to replicate a specific aircraft. The serial number on the tail is actually this RV-8s number, with the addition of 44- in front, as was common on the P-51s in that era, where they dropped the first 4 in the tail serial number.
The military project stencil can be a lot of fun. I saw one guy use "Service Pilot with 100 Proof Whiskey" or something like that. My own uses Vans Zip Code, my initials, a Nod to this website (VAF!!), and an observation about the future of 100 Low Lead.
Hope to see some of you at the RedStar Formation Clinic next weekend. We need MORE US stars and Bars to counter all those Commie RED ones!
For those not interested in history, stop here and just look at the photos if you like, as the rest will be boring. lol. For those of you into the history, the P code was actually used by a guy from Texas by the name of Lt. Otto D. Jenkins on "Floogie II" and again later by a Lt. Edward Hyman on “Rolla U-bar”. No idea from where he hails. I went with P with an underscore to diferentiate it as I was not trying to replicate a specific aircraft. The serial number on the tail is actually this RV-8s number, with the addition of 44- in front, as was common on the P-51s in that era, where they dropped the first 4 in the tail serial number.
The military project stencil can be a lot of fun. I saw one guy use "Service Pilot with 100 Proof Whiskey" or something like that. My own uses Vans Zip Code, my initials, a Nod to this website (VAF!!), and an observation about the future of 100 Low Lead.
Hope to see some of you at the RedStar Formation Clinic next weekend. We need MORE US stars and Bars to counter all those Commie RED ones!
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