My local ABC station has a couple of old low-res channels where they show a lot of old movies and series. They are now showing episodes of the old Baa Baa Black Sheep series.
I have noticed something about the Corsairs. They DO have the exhaust and oil stains common to Corsairs, going up over the wing root. But in closeups, the paint is pristine, no weathering or chips or chalking. They look like the day they came out of paint shop! Old pics I have seen of Marine planes on South Pacific islands show all of them very heavily weathered. I got to wondering- were the exhaust and oil stains actually painted on to make them look a little more like hard service aircraft?
It seems I remember reading somewhere that they borrowed Corsairs from various collectors and flying museums for the show. Maybe they painted on the war weary look with a “whitewash” of some kind. Something that could easily be removed before they returned them to their owners.
Gee wiz you guys it is Hollywood for crying out load. A lot of the flying scenes where rehashed from the original pilot show/movie. The aircraft that was used for the close up cockpit scenes was not flyable at the time and later became the F2G Super Corsair that was raced at Reno. And yes they used about every flyable Corsair in the southwest during the original filming. Also, airplanes do get washed by there owners once and awhile.
Those radial engines throw out a lot of oil. I recently saw a pair of A-1s and one F4U Corsair that were in pristine condition and they were oil and exhaust stained along the sides of the fuselage. A T-28 I see on a regular basis is kept in a very clean state and it is oil and exhaust stained. The South Pacific sun, sand, salt air, and coral dust were very hard on the aircraft paint and the aircraft in general. That old lacquer was nothing like the new aircraft paint used today, (e.g. Imron by Dupont?).
What point would that be? If you are talking about the exhaust up and over the wing, yes it follows the aerodynamics of the aircraft and the dirtier it gets the more pronounced it is. If you are talking about the fact that the aircraft weathered fast in theater, yes. They never got washed except during the monsoon season and something else people often forget is a lot of these airplanes where not in service for very long. Many where lost in combat or accidents before any major maintenance needed to be done. Others where assembled from crashes into serial numbered aircraft that the factory never actually made. If you are talking about “weathering” actual aircraft, No, not normally. I think we did once for that mini-series World at War or something like that where we “dirtied” up the SBD painted with movie paint and maybe again in Flight of the Intruder where we flew the crap out of the Skyradiers and never washed them so they would look the part.
Not trying to be contentious here at all, but I have noticed as a whole sometimes modelers get a little to focused on hyper-reality and end up drifting away from the very reality they are trying to model.
From what I’ve read about “behind the scenes” for that show, the aircraft were re-painted overall blue for the show. They were privately owned and basically rented. Somewhere on the web there is a list of the aircraft used and who owned them.
They staged the aircraft from a dirt strip in California. During filming the aircraft were not washed in the hope that they would look a little used. In some scenes you see them looking new, in some they look dirty.
I believe they shot some flying scenes and re-used the same shots over and over again. They brought the aircraft in for static shots with the actors at a different times.
Shoot, speaking of rehashing old movie pics, how many Top Gun clips have we seen, especially in JAG over the years. I can’t speak to the conversation first hand, other than ask why would the director have gone to the trouble to paint on oil markings. I get that he presumably wanted the war weary look, but Rangerj has a point. From what I’ve seen of those old radials, they can be dirty creatures that put out a lot of exhaust. Add in some smoke for effect (“Help me Pappy I gotta Zero on my tail”), normal flying conditions, a dirt strip and a plane will get dirty pretty quick. No paint required.
As far as birds actually used in theater. The C.B.s would scrap off the sand in the area where the runway was to go, if the runway had not already been constructed, leaving the exposed coral. Between the Salt, Heat, and being sand blasted by coral every time they took off and landed the birds took a beating. When I was researching F4u-1A 883 I ran across a Corsair whose prop had one blade had been worn down to bare metal. 883 itself had a heck of a fuel stain that ran down both sides of the fuselage just forward and beside the cockpit. Timdude is right in many regards… These birds often led a short tough life, often ending in the water or as replacement parts. I have a picture of what was left of 883. I’ve thought about doing a model of it… I just don’t know if my wife would understand building a $60 model, then tearing it up Raymond
You mentioned that fuel stain? In the reference photo is the bands of tape visible forward of the cockpit? The early Corsairs had leaky fuel tanks and the crews in the field used strips of dope and fabric to try and seal the seams to the fuel tank compartment panel and those are the famous white lines you always see in old photos. If you have a photo of an airplane prior to this fix being implemented that would really make a interesting model. Those are also the patches around the gun ports on the wings. They would dope and fabric over the gun ports to keep sand, and sea spray out of the guns and of course when fired the first round would break the tape. That is the flapping residue you see in close up vintage videos of the guns firing.
Nope, no tape. The fuel stains on this particular Corsair, again it’s a 1A is its distinctive characteristics. These were taken late Dec. 43 upon his return after supposedly tying Rickenbacker’s record. The last is a picture of my build.
I love that show! Thought the real Corsairs were that color for a long time when I was a kid. I’m glad it’s back on; it’s never been the most accurate historical rendition by a long shot; but it got me interested in all this.
Mississp… Unfortunately, many of his pilots thought “Gramps” sold them out on that show due to the inaccuracies. I think many of them made peace with him eventually, knowing Boyington would do anything for a buck, but it caused a lot of hard feelings.
My original thought was that if modelers can weather an aircraft, surely Hollywood (or wherever the producers were) could do it considering the big bucks that go into a TV series.
But then, as I reconsidered further, I realized, when that show was originally made, we modelers were not doing much weathering either. Funny how the passage of a half century or so can alter your view of things.
They really weren’t going to go through the trouble. With movie and TV production, they are always short on time and money. They painted the aircraft overall blue instead of tri-color because it was cheaper and quicker and they figured nobody would notice. They weren’t going to take the time to weather for realism, even if they thought of it.
Ray- yeah, I heard about that. Some author, whose name escapes me, set the record right on a lot of scores with a couple of good books on the subject. My only point was that, as a 6 year old, even as wrong as the show was on multiple points (not that any 6 year old would know the differences), it made enough of an impression that not only am I still modeling after 35+ years, the Corsair is still my favorite bird!
I’m right there with you… Shoot, Boyington is one of my favorite all time characters, and that’s exactly what he was. Yeah, he was a bum and a drunk, but at least he had the guts to admit it. I’ve know plenty of people who wouldn’t.
As far as the F4U… It’s my all time favorite air plane. P-51??? Shoot, I’d like to think if you cloned a pilot perfectly, and all things were equal, and you put one in a P-51D and One in a F4U-1A, the dude driving the horse drawn buggy better make sure he’s got his chute on Though I think the 'stange’s a little better in the turn… Then again… take it into the vertical??? I tell you what, it’d be a show to watch for sure! Raymond
Good point. Heck, even the news broadcasts and documentaries constantly show the wrong aircraft. How many times have you seen “documentaries” about Pearl Harbor, and seen the SBDs bombing the Arizona (from old John Ford movie)?
Raymond
