Combat damage and repairs?

Another thing on WW II a/c is the OD dope on fabric surfaces tended to weather faster than the laquer or enamel the metal surfaces were painted with. In most pictures I've seen the fabric covered surfaces have a couple of shades lighter than the adjacent metal covered surfaces. Also, the origional paint (whether dope, laquer or enamal) will usually be lighter than a freshly painted area (eg a repair)which is true of any color, gloss or flat, even on todays aircraft.

Murphys Rules of Combat #45

That "ping" you just heard was the radio antenna being shot off about 2 inches above your head just when you were about to send a call for fire on the final protective line.

Hey Guys:
.05 styrene also works good for scab patches, some times you got to work with what you got on hand and if it's a little thicker then the skin then its a better repair(more strength on the skin) when you're in the field, also it's easier to glue the styrene to styrene and you could sand it down to the thickness wanted,
Ugly Butt Deadly Effective Hawgs
cuda

Another method of indicating scab patches is alfoil. The ordinary kitchen type,but not the chequered type. Just cut tosize and glue on.
Dai

Depending on the scale, you can also make patches out of regular tin-foil. Much cheaper than brass shims, anyway. Just make sure to smooth it out well.

demono69

Good feedback - I'll work with it and see what I can come up with. I figure small scabs can be made from thin brass shim material.

BTW - Keep up the good work over there Cuda!

Hey scooter;
being in USAF A/C maintenance there are scheduled times for the plane to be painted their home station paint at 3 year schedules and depot level paint schedules at 5 years, the 3 year is just a sand and paint like you'd get at local Maaco shop, the 5 years are at depot, they media blast the skin, acid etch & alodine the skin, the prime & paints it, as for ABDR's(Aircraft Battle Damage Repairs) that is a local stations repairs to keep the plane in the fight or to get it back to home station, if go to Forum; "FS # for A-10's" a few days ago you'll see an A-10 that was hit pretty hard and had to be torn down and shipped back to the Stateside Depot for repairs, when I get home I could send you some Pix of an A-10 that was field repaired at a forward station just to get her back into the fight, if you see some combat A/C that's been around the block it'll have scab patches and maybe a totally new panel lines in an area that has never had it before, also primary & secondary flight controls will have a different shade of paint from either being repaired on station or just plain replaced with a new or used part like in the old WWII pix, this practice still goes on today I should know I'm in Iraq with an A-10 unit and we seen some planes come through being totally beat up from ground fire and helped repair the damaged A/C's
Ugly Butt Deadly Effective Hawgs
cuda

Berny's right. We have C-130s at my base and the maintainers will patch small spots and then paint them. The paint isn't as worn as the rest of the a/c so it stands out. Ours just returned from southwest asia so they are getting the going over. Also, USAF a/c go to depot level maintenance every so often so the maintainers don't worry about cosmetic repairs matching perfectly. Not that the planes aren't airworthy, cause I'd definitely feel ok about boarding one but they know the a/c will get a full paint job at the depot so a little mis matched spot here and there doesn't really matter. So in a combat situation it is a little more pronounced.

Wroper

Small damaged areas were repaired with scab patches rivited on. Some time the patch would be painted and at times it would be left natural metal color. If the item could be replaced, such as flight controls they usually were. This is why you can see pictures of aircraft with mis matched parts installed on it. There was a lot of spare parts laying around the airfield in the form of aircraft in the bone yard.