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Red Wildcats

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  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 12, 2003 8:57 AM
Yep, those were Hellcats. The different color tails denoted each aircraft's radio frequency. The drone conversions were done at NAS Pensacola.
  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 12, 2003 8:51 AM
The ones that I have pictures of are F6F-3K and F6F-5K Grumman Hellcats. These were used to test radio-active clouds during the Bikini Lagoon atom bomb test blasts.They were also used as highly visible drone-controllers for radio-controlled flying bombs (war-weary aircraft packed with explosives), planned for use in the cancelled invasion of Japan. Some were all red, some red w/ yellow tails, some all yellow. Some have the red bar in the national insignia, some don't. This shows they operated from at least 1945 - '47. They can be found in Airpower magazine, Sept. '97. It may be available in back issue, if you are interested. Hope this helps . . .you weren't seeing things ! Pix.
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: USA
Red Wildcats
Posted by nsclcctl on Tuesday, August 12, 2003 8:24 AM
I saw the coolest picture last night. It was in a book I have of color phots of WWII Pacific fighters. It was taken I belive in 1945 and shows a squadron I belive of Wilcats or maybe it was Dauntless (it was 1AM) and they were painted all flat red. There role, I think, was to fly through areas of nuclear tests and measure radiation. I think this was it but again could be way off. The point is, they were absolutely stunning as red planes. Anybody know about this?
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