On almost all U.S. WWII aircraft, there are three lights on the underside of the aircraft. they are red, green, and yellow. I want to know what their function is. How do they work, and why are they there? I’ve read that they were formation lights, but how are they used? also, did the B-17G have them? Thanks in advance!
P.s., does anyone have any good techniques for representing them? I ususally use sharpies over silver paint, but it doesn’t always look so good.
The green, amber, red are recognition lights. Others include: landing, taxi, formation, approach, navigation, identification(same as rec. lts.), section, and on bombers some had bomb release lights at the tail gun posistion as on the B-17G.
B-17G’s have their recognition lights located under the fuselage aft of the ball turret and slightly forward of the waist gun positions.
On my B-17 project I was planning on drilling them out and replacing the with the proper size light lenses from M.V. Products. These are lenses used in model railroading so they should be in the model railroad side of the hobby shop. The lenses are available in various sizes. They look great as white lights and if you overpaint them with a clear color, such as Tamiya, they would look good as recognition lights.
Okay, I get how they are recognition lights, but why the three in those colors? Also, thanks for the info, you wouldn’t happen to know where all the other lights on the B-17 are located and what color?
I’m not sure why they chose those colors other than they are primary colors.
As far as the rest of the lights on the B-17 go, there are the taxi lights in each wing, navigation lights on the wing tips, red left wing, green right wing. Depending on which model of B-17 (E, F, G,) you’re making there was a differing arrangement of lights. The E’s, F’s, and early models of the G’s had two nav lights on each wing tip, one on top of the wing tip and the other on the bottom. Later G’s had a single nav light on the outer edge of the wing tips.
On the fin leading edge there were four lights, from front to back, a blue formation light, a white position light and then two more blue formation lights all forward of the deicer boot.
On the fin itself, on both sides, a white position light forward of the rudder cut out.
On the horizontal stabilizers there were two blue formation lights on each stabilizer, one near the tip and one about halfway in from the tip, forward of the elevators. I have seen and an additional two formation lights on the underside of the horizontal stabilizers but these are on restorations and I haven’t be able to confirm these on a original aircraft.
Finally, underneath the tail guns two bomb release lights, red on the left and white on the right. These lights seem to only be on the original style tail turret and not on the Cheyenne turret.
Thanks a lot for all the info! I’m working on monogram’s -G, modified as a -25DL. You wouldn’t happen to know which block the single tip light was installed on and what style (cut-out, blister, etc) it was, would you?
This is the one that you were building as Man O’ War II correct? I couldn’t find any exact reference as to when this change was begun on the -DL line. But I was able to locate a good photo of a B-17G-30-DL and it clearly shows the dual wing tip light arrangement. It was a teardrop shaped light like Monogram molded it.
One method, I’ve used, is adding food colouring to Kristal Klear. Another, on larger models, is to drill into the light, forming a dip, paint the interior your choice of colours, then fill the dip with clear 5-minute epoxy.
Thanks! Last night, I added all the lights using a little technique I have: Stretch clear sprue, then hold the end near a candle, and it’ll curl up. through trial and error, you can get a good teardrop shape, which you cut in half, and voila! you have 2 lights! these were then attached to the model with white glue.