jimmaas

!I think I see the little formation lights (topside of wing, outer panel). These should be removed and sanded down, they did not appear on the British version (did on the Dutch and USN variants, though). Also, you can extend the interior green to the rear decking, liferaft container and rollover pylon. Looking good EDIT Whoops - forgot you're doing a USN version, so leave the formation lights! Sorry!

Dull Dark Green is quite a bit darker than MAP Grey Green. I've seen some modelers using USAF Europe One Green.

You may want to know that the F2A-2's used on Long Island were really F2A-1's that had been completely rebuilt at the Brewster factory. Given the time peiod, it seems that the cockpit interior was redone like that on the F2A-3, i.e. in Dull Dark Green.

The 'B-10' designation actually covered a family of aircraft with slight, or not so slight, variations. The export Martins all had engine cowlings, and nacelles behind the cowlings, of different configuration. The 'long canopy' versions with the Dutch ML-KNIL had a recontoured forward fuselage and completely redesigned wings (from above, the planform looks more like a DC-3 than a B-10.

I mean the cockpit and the flat bit behind the cockpit, although the liferaft tube would be black.

Alan, I'm not sure that's always the case. Brewster has a (rubber? canvass?) glare shield that fitted over the instrument panel coaming. Many factory photos were taken with this removed, which shows the instrument panel flush with the coaming. But it looks like some of the British aircraft had the glare shield fitted, with a cutout for the reflector sight.

Hi! If you mean the aircraft from VS-201, it is a toss-up. These aircraft were rebuilt F2A-1's brought up to F2A-2 standards, which forward of the firewall meant a pretty complete rebuild. They were back at the Brewster factory around the same time as the F2A-3 order was under construction and the repainted exterior camouflage matches that of the F2A-3's: overall Non-Specular Light Gray, 24 inch fuselage roundel, etc. It would make sense that if the cockpit was reworked, it would be painted like the F2A-3's - Dull Dark Green overall. But the only good photo we have of these F2A-1/2 rebuilds is of 201-S-13, and it looks like the turnover pylon struts are still in aluminium lacquer, like the yellow-wing aircraft. So at this point I am starting to lean towards the 'rebuild' aircraft still having the original aluminium lacquer (with black sidewalls) interior. That would have been cheaper, and remember we're dealing with Brewster, not a philanthropic institution.

The cockpit colors for both USN yellow wing and Dutch are the same - aluminum paint, but with black upper sidewalls forward of the raised boxes on each side. And the instrument panels, of course.

....and the camouflage pattern was different, and the insignia placement was different, and the cockpit layout was ( a bit) different. But no, they were not painted in Dark Slate Grey/Extra Dark Sea Grey.

Yes, as in "FS 595 wasn't around then but Dutch vets say those colors are close to the Dutch aircraft colors in the NEI". Actually, the In Action book I did is getting rather long in the tooth and there are some errors (like, the F2A-3 didn't have the ventral window, though the 339-23 did). You might want to grab the new book by Rich Dann in the Ginter series, much good stuff in there.

You could always do your spare Tamiya kit as USAAF. Yes, they had them. You'd build using the same parts as the Dutch 339C/D. The camouflage is two shades of green (close match, the two green shades from Vietnam era USAAF tactical aircraft) over either aluminium paint or light blue (disputed issue). Star on blue disc upper left, lower right wing, "U.S. ARMY" in black under the wings. If you want to get really fancy, there's a reflector gunsight in the cockpit.

Bomb-aiming ventral windows were present on the F4F, F2A-1 and 2 (and all export versions, but not the F2A-3), early F4U-1's and the Grumman XF5F. Then the problems (keeping clean, repairing broken glass, need for the space for tankage, etc.) caused the enthusiasm for the idea to wane.

Whoops, I was away from my references when I initially replied. The interior would depend on the period involved. SOC-1's and SOC-2's had fabric surfaces in silver enamel, but metal surfaces in gray enamel (around FS 595a color 16473). So the interior metal surfaces would be gray. By the time the SOC-3 was in production, the Navy had discovered the joys of aluminium lacquer, and both exterior and interior finish would be in that 'silver' finish.

"Unpainted" is unlikely. Metal on USN aircraft was routinely given a coating (enamel or lacquer depending on period) to prevent corrosion. Sea air can be unforgiving. Remember that some areas of interior may have shown the inside of fabric areas, which gets into a whole other question.

Curtiss SOC's were built in the mid 1930's, the "yellow wing" era. Interiors would have been aluminum lacquer. The Naval Aircraft Factory also built some as SON's, and production lagged behind Curtiss so the interior factory finish might be affected, I don't know. And the aircraft may have been overhauled later so completely that an interior repaint is possible. But the default interior is probably silver. Interiors are much harder to repaint than exteriors.