I’m not sure if this discussion has been made previously, so I apologise if I’m repeating an earlier subject.
I have read in several references that P-51’s were factory finished with wing panel joints filled, sanded flush and painted over, so that the maximum effect of the laminar-flow wing could be achieved with minimum disturbance to the airflow over the surface. Later (uncamouflaged) P-51’s apparently had their wings painted with silver lacquer, whilst the rest of the fuselage remained bare metal, except for the anti-glare panel on top of the cowl. This prompts me to ask several questions:
Was the lacquer on the wings applied to both top and bottom surfaces?
Where did the paint end and bare metal start? Was it at the wing to wing root fairing join or at the wing root fairing to fuselage join?
Was the lacquer ever removed to leave bare metal wings? I see many P-51 models that have a bare metal effect portrayed on the wings in addition to the fuselage. Is this totally incorrect? Given the treatment applied to the wings, a P-51 model should show little or no trace of panel lines on the wings, except for the ammo, fuel and service access hatches. Correct?
Why silver lacquer? If the intention of painting the wings was to provide a sealed and smooth surface, and if camouflage was no longer required, then why silver? Was this just to maintain the attractive appearance of the aircraft? Was silver lacquer “smoother” than other paints? This may seem an odd question, but I was just pondering the issue… for example, if there was excessive stocks of olive drab or interior green paint available, then why weren’t these used?
Any enlightenment would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Obviously, the vast majority of modelers are not aware of this situation. I vaguely remember reading about it some time in the past, but hadn’t really made the connection of how to properly model the filled and painted wing.
If you can find “In Action,” no.45, there’s a good photo, of a P-51 production line, where you can, easily, make out the painted wing surface. Only the root fairing, wingtips, flaps, and ailerons, were unpainted. The silver paint was designed to reflect the sun’s heat, on fabric surfaces, and was readily available, so, why not use it? Danny Morris, who wrote the first “Aces & Wingmen” books, once told me that members, of the 8th A.F. groundcrew, got so fed up with retouching the finish, that they experimented with stripping off the whole lot, and found that it made no difference. There’s a taped interview, with “Bud” Anderson, in which he says that he’d, jokingly, complained to his crew that his camouflaged P-51 stuck out like a sore thumb, in the snow, during the 44/45 winter. While he slept, they stripped all of the paint off his a/c., leaving a n/m finish. Somehow I don’t think that they’d have had time to fill, and paint, the wings. If you study photos, carefully, it is, sometimes, possible to pick out stripped, rather than painted, airframes, and I am not, in any way, saying that it happened everywhere.
If anyone ever made the statement, " THEY always did such and such with this particular aircraft", they would really be sticking their foot in their mouth. Someone would be bound to point that out to them very shortly.