Scooby

Hi Ian, I was hoping you'd weigh in. I didn't realize you live in the UK. I had always thought you lived in Canada. I recently bought an original 5x7 of Hampton's 115 on the deck of the Formidable that I hadn't seen before. It is still in the mail to me. It is a deck shot with 115 at the front. Previously you mentioned you had some images of Sheppard's Corsair, do you have any of T8 H? You also mentioned the 115&119 image. Is that on the deck? A shot of them parallel to one another? If so I have that as well. John, thanks for posting your photographs! I have seen them before although I think these images are clearer then what I have seen in the past. At least the third one is much clearer.

I know a war was on, but I don't think the FAA employed photographers like the US military had. Sadly this portion of the war is not well documented. I did not mention this in the thread, I do know a FAA pilot that flew Corsairs off the Formidable at the end of the war. Years ago he gave me a large numbers of his photos. All of which are not published. I just don't know where there are at the moment. He has photographs from after the war that are fascinating. One group of photographs is bombing practice on a Japanese carrier that was towed out to sea at the end of hostilities. No flak or guns firing so he was able to take great photos from the cockpit of his squadron bombing this carrier. He was an avid photographer so he took great shots! After the war he opened a chain of photography stores in his name. He still works at the main store on Saturday's! He is 90 years old! I plan on contacting him to see if I can see more of his collection. I want to author a book on his life in the FAA. Very sad.

Wow, I thought Britmodeller would be the place to find any leads into online images.

Agree, but I think the images do carry a lot of important information. It reveals fade patterns and staining. One point I would like to make in regards to the gear door that looks lighter, it may have been repainted. It could have been damaged, replaced, or even the aircraft may have changed Squadrons and the coodes changed, which would have required a repaint of the door only.

At least I can't find many, I likely have roughly a 100 images saved to my hard-drive of FAA Corsairs. I have over 75 Corsair publications and the FAA Corsair sections don't have a lot of wartime photographs. I do have Aircraft Films on the F4U Corsair. Part of that DVD set has wonderful footage from the HMS Victorious in 1944. I have seen the HMS Arbiter album, I must say those are some of the best, most detailed, and well documented wartime FAA Corsair photographs I have seen to date. I am having trouble finding any images of Don Sheppard's Corsair's. I hear they do exist, but where? I can't find any actualy images of Sheppard's 13 (insignia) 6 JT537. I can find a few of 8 (insignia) H, JT410. Later a T was added to the left of the 8, I can't find a single photograph of the T added. I can determine this much, the aircraft markings were not aft of the insignia and were not grouped as one (T8H). Sheppard scored four kills in this aircraft and flew it a total of 42 times. I would really like to find info/photographs on this aircraft. I can find two photographs of another Corsair Sheppard flew, 8 (insignia) B JT422, with and without the T (only chalked on though, not painted). I believe he scored one kill in this aircraft. Surely when decals were made for the above three aircraft some sort of research was done that included photographs? Or is that why the aft of the insignia T8H error was created? And yes I know Fundekals has some well researched FAA Corsair decals set for release, I do plan on purchasing them and they will be top quality. If anyone can help with the above I wold much appreciate it. Do the FAA archives not have unpublished images? I'd love to see what you guys may have.

I wish, I work on AW-139s and would love to see it in injection molding.

They are not rivets, they are yellow cut lines for firefighters to chop the canopy off if it were jammed. This detail is well documented in the KD431 book.

Fairly sure that is the CO system before the scoops were added. I am thinking this may have been one of the test prototypes for the system.

So looking forward to your book Dana. I just received in the mail, Kagero's Volume II (#56) on the Corsair. It looks a lot like there other Coraair books (#26 & #52). No pictures I haven't seen before.

Here is a link to JS479 http://s297.photobucket.com/user/DCRanger_photos/media/JS4792.jpg.html

Mark, I have lots of FAA images and over 70 Corsair books. Are you at home this week? I may take Friday off so I will have a long weekend. Gary

Can you post an image of the new decals? 809 was my favorite Twin. It was the only one that had a camera in the belly. It was installed for mapping. We used it for one covert operation with the RCMP, which I was involved in. We maintained the aircraft, the RCMP flew it. The aircraft was painted white for that op, but it carried both civilian and military serials. Which I thought was dumb. We parked it at an airport which had an airshow and all the aviation buffs started asking questions. 440 has downsized and now only has 4 Twin Otters. 809 was sold, 806 is still in service. My son actually sat in the cockpit of 806 this past summer. I have a good shot of him in it, there are a few changes to the markings that have not been updated on builds of 806 I have seen online. Rescue is gone (along with the French translation) as is the Armed Forces surround on the roundel. Added is th R to the CAF.

I worked on these in the CAF, it was the easiest aircraft to work on in my career. I wish I had more than two years on them before I was transferred. The aircraft never broke!!! Looking forward to your build!

Beautiful build. I am 99.9% certain the wheel wells were overpainted in the belly color. The tech orders called for the underside color to be painted in the wheel wells. The problem is for years modelers painted the wells interior green and it has become folklore since then. Sorry to hi-jack your thread.

Well that is "poo-poo Hot!" Which the saying Tutae Wera means in Maori.

I think it was under the BCATP. The fatalities from training are listed as BCATP deaths. Although it was a unique unit, originating in Gtreat Britain then moving to Canada. As well, it was under RAF command. It was administered by the RCAF and was on an BCATP base. I am not certain if this answers the question though, Interesting read here: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nbpennfi/penn8b1NewspaperStories_PartOfVEDay.htm

That's great Exactly, I have argued that for years with modelers. Wheel-wells were painted over in underside color too.

Hadn't seen that one before, something looks odd about that scheme.

EDSG/DSG was only found on the FAAM Corsair's components such as ailerons and other control surfaces. They were sub assemblies from other factories or built at an earlier date. I think some of the ammo boxes had those colors too under the blue but those parts were interchangeable and likely were not original components. The main airframe was sprayed blue at Brewster.

I've never seen an image of an FAA Cosair delivered in tri-color. I can't open the image you linked. I have seen Kiwi Corsairs in tri-color.

Looks like our posts overlapped with similar info.

This article has an example of the T code chalked into the fuselage on Sheppards Corsair. Look at the photo in the article of JT422 not the artists drawing.http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/471/language/en-CA/Navy-Blue-Fighter-Pilot-Episode-Two.aspx I also recommend reading the other two episodes, Vintage Wings does an excellent job on these articles. http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/468/language/en-CA/Navy-Blue-Fighter-Pilot-Episode-One.aspx http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/475/language/en-CA/Navy-Blue-Fighter-Pilot-Episode-Three-Until-the-Bitter-End.aspx

The post over at ARC has generated 12k in views in just two weeks. This one is approaching 8k. That's a lot of views in a short period of time. If Tamiya doesn't release the kit I hope they see how popular the choice would be. The Airfix thread here is almost 3 months ld and has 16k views. I think that is an interesting comparison. I agree as to when they may announce this kit.

Haven't you heard? We aren't giving it back. That was the price on the loaner of our Lanc.

I don't know, I think this boxing is representative of a 2015 model year Mig-29 and it is perfect. I wonder if anyone will actually buy one of those kits?