F3F-1 Livery?

Pre-war USN markings aren't really my bag, but I'll give this a shot. I don't have too awful much in the way of images of aircraft in the markings that you'd like to build; I can only offer general information regarding your specific subject. This is mostly taken from the following:

Navy Air Colors - United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Aircraft Camouflage and Markings - Vol. 1 1911-1945 by Tomas E. Doll, Berkely R. Jackson and William A. Riley, published by Squadron/Signal in 1983


If you wanna do a white-tailed F3F then, yes, that would be a bird from Saratoga (CV-3). As to the color on the cowl, the color used indicated which section the aircraft belonged to within the squadron. Green indicated the 5th section. here's the list of colors for each section:

Section 1 - A/C # 1-3: Red
Section 2 - A/C # 4-6: White
Section 3 - A/C # 7-9: Blue
Section 4 - A/C # 10-12: Black
Section 5 - A/C # 13-15: Green
Section 6 - A/C # 16-18: Yellow

The section colors would have been applied as follows:

Section Leaders - A/C numbered 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16: Entire cowl painted in section color. Each of these aircraft usually had a fuselage band in the section color.

Section Right Wing - A/C numbered 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17: Upper half of cowl painted in section color.

Section Left Wing - A/C numbered 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18: Lower half of cowl painted in section color.

I believe that all aircraft would have carried chevrons in the section color on the top of the upper wing.


The fighter unit assigned to Saratoga around the timeframe you'll be working in was VF-3 (formerly VF-6B). The modern-day unit which can trace its lineage back to this unit is VF-31 The Tomcatters.

Here's a shot of an F3F-1 assigned to VF-6B, albeit the 4th section:


Direct Link

The 4th section color was black but the cowl, obviously, does not appear to be black. However, the image looks as though it has been doctored in this area. This last bit of info really doesn't help you for your specific subject, I know, but it's in my nature to notice this stuff and make note of it!


You mentioned the Red Rippers. This unit, at the time, was designated VF-4 (formerly VF-5B and later VF-41). VF-4 was normally assigned to the Ranger (CV-4) and would have had green-tailed aircraft.

VF-3 was temporarily attached to the Enterprise (CV-5) air group as VF-7B during the group's formation, so it's possible that the Red Rippers may have been temporarily assigned to Sara at some point, but I really couldn't say for sure. I only mention this because it illustrates the fact that there are always exceptions to 'the rule'.


Fade to Black...

Back to this same tired subject, can anyone tell me anything about the deployment of F3F-1 in VF-6? What ship with what tail color? Or where I might find a photo? I'd like to use that shooting star logo on my build simply because I haven't seen it used anywhere else on this AM kit. Of course, that would leave me with trying to figure out correct BuNos. I am disappointed with Accurate Miniatures on this issue. They make so few errors, it feels almost ungrateful. But they put all these fine markings on the sheet and then tell you to look it up somewhere. For thirty bucks a pop, they could have done a little more research themselves. I can't get the Squadron In Action book. Everyone seems to be out of stock.
Tom

Tom

Squadron's Grumman Biplanes in Action, it will probably have the info you are looking for. See if your LHS has it (or will order it for you) or order it directly from Squadron (they still list it as available in their catalog)