Maybe some of you ex air force flyboys can help a tanker out. I’m into the Hasegawa 1/32nd F104 and as I was looking at the markings and paint instructions I noticed that the underside of the wings are painted AF gray, same as the nose cone. What’s the deal with this???anybody know?? just curious as the top of the wing is NMF.
Thanks in advance,
Steve
It would depend on the unit and theater the aircraft was assigned to. Check out the F-104 in action book by Squadron/signal publications. Most of the natural metal finish aircraft pictures shows only the nose cone painted a light grey with a black anti-glare panel on top. The rest of the aircraft is natural metal except for the unit/squadron markings. F-104s in Vietnam were camouflaged. There should be plenty of pics on the net for you to check out.
Tom [8-]
Yeah,and the wings on NMF are semi gloss White
Hi guys,
There was a thread on this on Hyperscale a while back. Wing tops on all natural metal F-104s were gloss white and the undersides were Aircraft Grey, same as the nose cone and some other fibreglass airframe bits. If I remember right, the wings were painted to smooth their surfaces. Somebody even posted photos where you could clearly see the Aircraft Grey undersides of the wings.
HTH.
Ben
Yes, I’ve done a google search and seen the 104C with both upper and lower painted and just the lower painted. I was just curious as to why. I was hoping there was an old crew chief out ther somewhere that could satisfy my curiosity. Thanks for the responses, they are appreciated.
Steve
Steve,
I just spent several hours going through three books specifically about the F-104s. The color fhotos do clearly show NMF aircraft with white wings on top, and some aircraft with Air Force gray on the bottom. The "Air Force gray looks like ADC gray to me, but the color number is not identified. There are also color picture of aircraft with NMF wings, top and bottom. The finish does “look” like it is silver paint.
There is only a fleeting reference to the reason why the wings are painted, and that is to improve air flow. That is all that is said in three good reference books. Go figure!
The color FS 1(2)(3)6473 is alternately called ADC Gray, Aircraft Gray and Air Force gray, but it’s all the same color. It was the most common color used on the F-106, the F101B and the F-102, as well as F-89’s and other pure interceptors.
Rangerj is right, references are scarce for color references. I spent some time on the net and all the pics I found show some USAF F-104s with white wings, bare metal wings with white ailerons, the whole wing unpainted. If there are no 104 chiefs out there, maybe an email to the USAF museum in Ohio will result in an answer.
Tom [8-]