When painting a P-61, or other night fighter of that era, would you paint the interior with the usual zinc chromate or interior green? Would this make them visible at all? Would gloss black work better?
Has any company ever made a 1/32 model of the P-39 or the P-63? I’ve heard that this may be happening soon but I’m wondering if any has up until now.
Has anyone found footage of a B-25 firing a 75mm cannon?
Thanks!
O. Mouse
When I was 12, I got the opportunity to visit the Northrup facility with a friend of my father. The production of P-61’s was long over but there were lots of photos of the assembly lines. I remember clearly that the interior looked like zinc chromate to me. The odd thing was that all of them were painted olive drab, not black.
Look at the P-61, that Pixalater built, at www.prettyneat.com, look at the gallery, and American aircraft, there’s a built up P-61 and look at the build article. It’s an amazing build.
i tried the link but got some weird domain advertizing thing
That’s because Pix’s real website is http://www.pix.prettyneatinc.com/!
The early P-61s were painted olive drab over gray. They switched to glossy black later.
AMTech (not Accurate Minniatures) announced a 1/32 P-39, but one of the founders became seriously ill and the company fell on hard times. They are selling other makers kits with some extra parts trying to keep the doors open.
I haven’t seen any footage of B-25s firing the cannon, but my father shot a fair bit. He was a combat photographer and one of his stateside duties before being sent overseas was a stint at Egland Field in Florida where they were involved in a bunch of projects. One of them were experiments at bunker busting from the air. He would set up his 35mm motion picture camera in the side gunner’s window of a B-17 and they would fly along with the B-25 and film it firing the gun. I believe there were other cameras on the B-17 to film the shell’s impact.
I would love to get ahold of some of my father’s footage. I did some preliminary research with the National Archives, but the film from his unit was not catalogued the same way as most combat photographers. (Everything he shot was automatically classified and was not identified with the photographer.)
Bill
The Mid Atlantic Air Museum in Reading PA is restoring a P-61. Id say check out their website for some P-61 pics. IIRC it is www.maam.org
When I built my P-61 I painted the interior zinc chromate.
thanks bill for the link correction
after all these years to keep somthing as old classified if dumb
sometimes our gov.[#wstupid]
You’re right about that P-61, looks great! Give me the itch to go out and build one!
I have, I got it a while back from the Military Book Club as the War Birds DVD set.
This is an excellent set of various air show footage, WWII action footage as well as interviews with veteran pilots from the Air Apache squadron.
Their footage of this is nothing short of awsome!
As for the 75 mm cannon mod, they show the test rig at North American firing the gun, a slow-motion film of the factory modified B-25 firing it, as well as actual combat footage showing Japanese ships literally being blown out of the water with the set-up!
At this time, the DVD set may be out of production, so I do not know who has it for sale.
Tom T. [C):-)]
My bad, got ahead of myself.
Hey, it’s ok. Pix’s site is so cool that I’d probably get excited and muck up the url, too
It might still be classified, but it probably isn’t. Since it was once classified, it appears to be in a different part of the National Archives, or somewhere else entirely. When I wrote the NA, they said that most combat photography was attributed to the photographer, but they could find no reference to my father. I believe most combat photography was not classified or was only the lowest level of classification.
My father’s stuff was automatically Top Secret. He carried a card signed by one of the mucky mucks in the Pentagon that said that his luggage could not be inspected for any reason and that if the bearer of this card requests any assistance, it should be interpreted as a direct order from that general. My father only used it once when a stuffed shirt colonel decided to go after my father upon arrival at a new base. My father whipped out the card and the colonel sheepishly asked him if he needed any help. So my father had the colonel carry his luggage. That must have been a sight, a colonel carrying the luggage of a corporal.
When they were out in the Pacific, some of the guys in my father’s unit used the thing about not having their luggage inspected to their advantage. On Guam, they were encouraging everyone to be armed at all times because there were still Japanese living in the hills. These guys got a few brand new carbines and took them home with them. They figured they would make good hunting rifles after the war.
One thing my father did was just before the B-29s started flying bombing missions from Saipan. They flimed all the runs to all the targets in Japan from a recon B-29. They were working with some geographers who were identifying features the crews should look out for to ensure they were on course. The plan was to show these films to the crews during briefings in an attempt to reduce bomber formations getting lost.
They were flying at maximum altitude so the Japanese fighters couldn’t catch them, but he said he saw many Japanese fighters clawing to get to their altitude.
I did see a small snippet of one of my father’s training films on Discovery once. He said he played a sudent pilot in a P-38 training film. I was watching a Discovery Wings program on the P-38 and they showed that clip. By the time I realized it was my father, they had switched scenes.
Bill
According to Warbird Tech Vol. 15 Northrop P-61 Black Widow, and Osprey Combat Aircraft No. 8, P-61 Black Widow Units of World War 2, both by Thompson, Warren E., the interiors were, indeed, zinc chromate.