I’m about to start building a 1/72 scale Airfix P-61B Black Widow ; Could anyone please tell me what color the wing tanks should be ? The instructions say ‘slate grey’ , but this color seems to be too dark ; Compared to pictures in one of my referrence books [ Fighters of the United States Air Force ] , the color of the wing tanks appear to be more light gray or off white . The rest of the aircraft will be black all over. I’ll be airbrushing with Gunze Sangyo acrylics . Regards John .
G’day John,
The wing tanks would be Neutral Grey or Black.
Rob.
I’ve also seen them in aluminum. The paint would fade and peel really fast in the tropical climate and repainting them would be a low priority.
If you’re painting the Widow in the USAAF day fighter camo of olive drab topsides over neutral gray belly, then the drop tanks will be neutral gray (which is fairly dark). Neutral gray should be available in model paint lines. I’m pretty sure ModelMaster makes it.
If you’re painting your Widow in its more common gloss black livery, then the drop tanks should be gloss black as well.
Roadkill is right… the grey used to fade due to exposure with the Pacific fleet night fighters. Depending on how much you want to weather the plane you might want to go with lighter shades.
In all, you’ve got a lot of flexibility as you can see from the responses above.
I’ve also seen neutral gray tanks on gloss black a/c; I think they used whatever tanks were available at the time, including tanks leftover form the original batch of A’s.
Do you know what the FS number is for neutral grey? Is is FS36270? I’m doing a P-61B with the original flat black (as opposed to gloss black) finish with neutral grey tanks.
FS # (595b) for Neutral Grey is FS 36118
“Neutral” gray is 36118? I’ve got that listed as “Gunship Gray”, which is one shade this side of “Panzer Gray”; that’s pretty dark. You sure 'bout that?
My bad…
FS 36270
I grabbed the wrong bottle.
I’ve got a copious amount of info and photos of a black P-61B without the top turret “owned” by someone near and dear to me in Italy in 1944.
That ones drops were black in all of the photos.
One significant feature, at the risk of repeating myself, was that the a/c came over on ships with tape over the joints of the airframe to the moveable control surfaces, When this was peeled off, the paint came with it in a big way.
Never changed an R2800 in 6 months. It was not a maintenanced a/c, unlike the previous two types he held together thru the three previous years of war.
His wife was a brunette, like their daughter, my wife, so when she was painted onto the fuze she got blonde, otherwise would have looked bald. Took him a while to explain that one.
This is not a weathered a/c with evidence of field mods, etc. at least in Europe. It’s a potent fast mover, a ki**ing machine.
I’ve got to get one.