Luft-Gangster

I beleive it was 1943 that the red surround was used for a short period. It was discontinued because some pilots just saw the red in a dog fight and shot at it thinking they saw a meat ball. So it was discontinued.

FireBee

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Luft-Ganster,

Chris' post #9 covers the period of red surround. "by 14 August 1943; just over 2 months after the red surround was directed."


But that is not what I noticed. want to try again?

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Looks like the entire white bar is surrounded in red but it could just be an anomoly in the picture. Sure looks that way to me though. Somebody may have mis-read the directive when adding the red!

FireBee

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Chad,

that is what I noticed!! the left inside of white bar has a red outline where normally only blue is!

Since I'm just a Warbird Rally and not competing, I'll just go with more well known red surround.

a65l

My Feedback: (17)

I used to teach the Navy's Paint and Finish course in Norfolk. We taught the old fashioned way to lay out the national insignia on an aircraft. One of the things we did was make a "ruler" with holes in it at strategic lengths, so we could simply scribe the circle, the border, and all the stripes. Made life much easier. I must have graded hundreds of final exam boards, which included either a tri color insignia or single color insigina and letters, plus someother incidental stuff. I've actually, somewhere, got instructions for laying out most of Nato's national insignia.

Actually, you can find it on the web... MIL-STD-2161. Also has instructions for painting the US insignia, but I think just the latest versions. Haven't cracked that book in years....

Avaiojet

Just stumbled onto this Thread.

Good thing I've been making my stuff correct all these years.

Charles

frets24

My Feedback: (15)

Nice explanation, Thanks.

The whole topic made me want to go check my homemade stencil and paint insignias....Whew! I passed!

Chris Smith

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Couple of notes.

Many P-47s (especially in Europe) wore insignia on both bottom surfaces of wings. This was an anti fratricide measure. Don't assume all P-47 s did though. This was also an exception and not the norm. It is very rare to find any other aircraft type done that way, and many P-47s did not.

In addition to the red color used being confused with the Japs, one of the primary reasons the red surround was painted over with blue was the complication of supporting it in the field. Often it was simply applied incorrectly as in the photo on this thread. The other issue was red fading and paint quality issues. In addition, stocking another paint color for maintenance added complication.

It is risky to over generalize but...if the insignia did not include bars, as in the very early part of the war you will probably find them placed in all 6 positions. Either with red meatball or just a star on blue circle. Unless a rare photo shows otherwise, assume only 4 positions used if the insignia has the bars.

And yes you will find what are called "transition" insignia. Insignia like the star and bars with no surround. These are cases where the squadron misinterpreted the directive or hadn't finished the work yet!

flyingchef

My Feedback: (93)

Chris,
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, very informative post which I will certainly use in the future. I hope it opens the door to perhaps similar posts on WWI/II/post-war British, German, and other air forces.
Thank you again,
Bruno

Chris Smith

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Thanks Bruno,
I wish the jet flyers were interested in accuracy as much as warbirds flyers are. I too look forward to any info from research someone might have on British and German insignia.
Chris

F4u5

My Feedback: (81)

Excellent post. I never knew most of this detail. Thx

Jeff

RC Flier

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What about the insignia that is only White??? No stripes, nothing but white star and bars.

Chris Smith

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The all white insignia (used on Navy all blue scheme) is no different. Just leave the blue background and blue surround off.

Peter_OZ

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it's funny I read this thread couple of weeks back as I was about to apply the paint masks for the insignaia on my 85" P47 build.

Promptly forgot all about it.
50:50 chance of getting orintation of the mask wrong way and I managed to do so ended up using decals instead!!

rzingsheim

My Feedback: (4)

Just revisited this post. Great information. Do you guys have correct color info for the red, white, and blue used on the insignias? Even better would be corresponding color names for companies such as Tamiya, Testors Model Master and others in acrylic or enamel for those who want to paint their own.

Chris Smith

My Feedback: (2)

In this graphic, we show a summary of the way the insignia is constructed. In RC models we still see the majority of modelers continue to get it wrong. It is just as easy to do it correctly. The ARF manufacturers simply don't care.

Note on the sheet the 3 FS paint numbers thus:
Insignia Red FS11136 or 31136 semi-gloss Model Master #1705
Insignia White FS17875 Model Master #1745
Insignia Blue FS15044 or 35044 semi-gloss Model Master #1719.

bailegb

Excellent information contained in this small thread. Thanks Chris,