Carrier Flight Deck, question

terrific answers, all.  thanks so much! 

here's the akagi flight deck.  maybe more in the way of oil stains than skid marks...

This deck looks pretty grubby to me:

Maybe not much in the way of ski marks from landings, but those radials are dirty customers, lots of exhaust carbon, oil and fuel spillage, plus tire marks from respotting aircraft on the deck. And airedales are among the dirtiest sailors on the ship, too.

Hi ; What I did on the ESSEX and her sister , was take an artists eraser and just lightly rub it in the right direction ,lightly .Do not erase anything and keep this to a very bare minimum . Remember , with the lower landing speeds it was not that noticeable and certainly would be very vague in this scale . .You could achieve the sheen you want , by using a car modelers tip .To get a sheen and not overdue it just rub your finger over the area and lightly at that . The paint will gloss up a little (very faint semi-gloss ) that's enough !    Tanker-builder

Hello!

I'd say leave 'em off, unless you find a photo of a real thing. It's normally a bad idea to try to show something you know too little about - I tried it too many times, so I'm talking from experience. Using a modern carrier deck as a reference doesn't relly count neither. Good luck with your project, have a nice day

Paweł

Guys (and girls?) - keep in mind that these are WWII aircraft with MUCH lower velocities than modern day jets, landing on a surface that was MUCH smoother than modern-day runways and flight decks! You shouldn't really see any skid marks.

On that last observation about the skid marks getting cleaned off; nope! They stayed that way for a long time. And it didn't take long to get bad, either. I know this first hand.

One comment, the skid marks would only be on the after 1/4 or so of the deck at most.  There would be few if any skids forward of the arresting cables.  Second, land the air wing a few times, and the skid marks would be pretty heavy in the center section, and few outboard.  I would guess that a dry brush of dark gray or black, heavier in the center of the deck would duplicate the effect, but have never tried it.  

One further thought, ship captains hate bored sailors, so I expect the skid marks get cleaned off before they get too bad

Or maybe pastels instead of paints.....

I havent tried this, but for some reason, this idea just popped into my mind as I read this.  What if you took a pencil eraser, cut it down to the right width for aircraft tires, and put a little paint on the end of it?  Then, you could do with the eraser what real aircraft tires would do during landing--they hit the deck, leaving an abrupt starting point to the marks, then they trail off as the plane slows.  I would try this on a scrap piece of something first, obviously.  Remember a couple of things too, when doing this--landing planes would commonly bounce a bit on their landing gear, so the marks would be short.  Also, the landing speeds were pretty slow, so you will want to do this lightly.  Also, because of the bouncing, it would be more realistic, I think, to have uneven lines--a plane might bounce on the left MLG first, leaving a heavier mark on that side or even no mark on the other side.  And the lines do not have to be straight as an arrow, since uneven bouncing could cause a bit of a curve in the landing path.  

If you try this, please do post pics of it.....would like to see if it works.

I have not tried this yet, but I would consider using various shades of gray pastels or colored pencils and a straight edge as a guide.