Hellcat Exhaust Stains

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Hey fellow modellers !

Recently I’ve seen several color and B&W photos of carrier based Hellcats during WW2, and couldn’t help noticing that there are really heavy, bright white exhaust stains. (At least they show up that way against the dark Navy body color) I havent seen this on any other plane that I remember. I was just wondering if anyone here knew why this occurred, and whether it was unique to Hellcats.

Chris

2

Chris, I have seen that happen to all aircraft with a dark paint scheme. Check out nightfighters and anything with dark colors of any country. P-61s,A-20’s,Beaufighters,Hellcats-too many to name, all of these and more I’ve seen have the white /light brown exhaust stains.Allen

3

Here’s my educated guess - I’ve seen this on modern planes as well - notice that the white deposits are closest to where the stain starts - the black is carbon deposits, the white is the the deposits that have been burnt to the white ashy color by the heat of the fresh, extremely hot exhaust - if you have a big open fire place you see the same thing- the soot that runs up the rear wall of the fire place is black on the upper portion and the part usually directly behind the flame is white… I’ll put money on that answer. I’m in the middle of a 72nd H-cat project and plan on attempting to re -create the said stain. Happy modeling

4

The different colour come from different types of fuels being used . I found a link explaining everything about this but I can’t remember where it is , I’ll have a look around a post the link for you…

cheers mike

5

I wonder if it temperature has any effect on the color of the exhaust staining. I say this because most of the photos I’ve seen of P-39’s, P-40’s, etc… flying through Canada and Alaska have huge white/light gray exhaust stains all the way down the fuselage.

6

I don’t think so, I saw the same stains on the SBD’s flying at Midway… must be the fuel or body color or a mix of the two…

7

The Lancaster up in Hamilton has the same effect. There’s alot of black paint on that bird and they only fly that in mild weather. It must be that it shows up on dark paint.

8

I don’t think it’s white, more of a light grey “soot” color.

Regards, Rick

9

Thanks for the input guys. I might decide to do my Hellcat with heavy weathering so I’ll keep those things in mind. Maybe grey it up a bit and put black farther away from the exhaust point.

Salbando - Cool shot of the P-39. That one looks as though it was rode hard. I’ll have to save that photo for when I do a P-39 some day. I like the dark green camo edge along with what looks like dark green touch ups around the doors and panel seams.

I don’t see many modellers doing super heavy weathering - but when I look at old photos - alot of the planes are really toasted and they have all kinds of patchwork touchups.

Thanks again,
Chris