WW II aircraft as deck cargo

This P-38 looks like it is wearing a sock

Toms Modelworks Liberty Ship Photo CD

Note the OD vertical stabilizer sticking out of the back end.   The aircraft on the dock look to be similarly outfitted. 

Other pictures on the CD seem to show an overall dark paint you mention with no national markings

As the aircraft pictured above does have its BuAer No. painted on the fin I am certain it would be painted Olive Drab because any coating would obscure the numbers.  Is it not probable that it also has its national markings applied, albeit hidden?  From what I've seen aircraft seemed to be painted and marked up even before final assembly at the factory and these would have been test-flown before dismantling and preparing for export.

I couldn't make head or tail of the colours so I just presumed Olive Drab for my P-38's and 47's, and painted the tarps in Khaki.

Does anyone know how to paint white stars on 1:350 vehicles like these?

Michael 

In my guesstimation the stencil would have to be about 1mm (0.03") or less across.  I don't know about anybody else but I know I couldn't cut out a suitable stencil - I could barely see it!  Even if I could I wonder if it would be possible to use it.

Does anyone make decals in that size?

Michael 

Would it be possible to use the decals for the 1/350 aircraft that go on all the trumpeter aircraft carriers?  B-25, f4f, f3f, sbd-3 etc.  I think you can get then aftermarket, and cut the star out of the round part.

                                               G.L.

None of the pictures I have been able to find of airplanes as deck cargo show them with any national markings.

Just that weird-looking dark coating of some kind.

Here ya go. Stand by and I'll dig up a closer shot. The coating is dark grey or black and looks like a trash bag. 

Fred

Here is a shot of the coating after it has been stripped off by foul weather. The plane was also damaged. The date is probably post war, 46 or 47. The Mustangs were going to the Italian Air Force and the ship is, I believe, the S.S. Exermont, American Export Lines.

These are my dad's pictures, he was radio operator there.

...and one more.

Here the coating looks bluish, but I think that's just the light and 60 year old film.

As for the stars, doesn't somebody make insignia decals for those 1/285th war game vehicles? Maybe they'd be too big for 1/350th. On my Liberty deck cargo I painted the stars by hand with a 0000 brush. Some came out better than others and I was cross-eyed by the end. If you don't look too closely it isn't too bad.

Fred

It looks more like a sheet-like wrap that is heat-shrunk onto the plane.  On the pic of the Mustang with the broken tail you can see where it's drapped over the block (which I assume is to immobilize the control surfaces). It's not something that is brushed or sprayed on.

But on those planes on the tanker, I think I can see some insignia showing through, so maybe they sprayed some coating on earlier in the war.

My father was on a Liberty that was modified as an aircraft transport, the Frank O. Peterson. I think they had larger hatches and a different cargo gear layout. The Smithsonian has plans and someday I'll modify a Trumpeter Liberty.

P'raps this unusual colour photo gives a clue?  Can't remember where I found it but the caption states;

"A Mustang II (USAAF designation P-51A) destined for the RAF being crated and readied for shipment at the NAA plant Inglewood, CA."

(Note the separated wing assembly standing behind) 

I dunno what this material being draped over the fuselage is, but it resembles a semi-translucent greyish plastic to me.  Plastics were in their infancy about that time however.  Note that the worker on the right seems to be drawing the material tight across the cowling.  If you blow this image up you can see the fuselage behind the wing is already covered.

I see on the photo of the damaged Mustang above that the aircraft's Bureau number seems to be stencilled on the covering near that pyramid shape just ahead of the where the fin orta be.  I wonder if it was stencilled after application of the covering (awkward) or beforehand, because it seems to rule out a 'sprayed' application.

Of course this aircraft is apparently being crated and therefore may have been protected differently to those carried in the open.  It does show that markings were already applied though. 

Michael 

I'm thinking it's some kind of sprayed-on covering IF the plane is out on the open on the deck - it's too early for shrink-wrap plastic (pretty sure that didn't appear until the 1960s), I can't believe they'ed use that much of the new, and expensive, "plastic" wrap then available to cover airplanes, and cosmoline, well, that's grease! OK for guns and other big hunks of metal, but not delicate things like airplanes.

I've asked my Dad, but he doesn't ever remember his Victory ships carrying planes. Just about everything else, though. I'm thinking of using a dark blue-blackish color, with maybe khaki "tarps" over the engines and cockpit glass, for a little contrast. This is 1/700 scale, so it's not like you'll be able to see much anyway. 

Thank you for that last idea, I tried to find some but the only ones available were still too big.  Thank you to everybody else who put up ideas too.  Hand-painting seems to be the front-runner at this stage followed by a stamp of some sort.

Compliments of the season to one and all;

Michael