I was reading some more of my Military Air Transport Service book and came across this interesting picture ;

The book mentions about the 3rd Air Rescue Service operating H-19's , SA-16A's which were based on Cho-do Island and at Paengnyong-do which were bail out sites for war damaged or mechanically disabled aircraft and a couple of H-19's painted all black for clandestine operations .

The 581st ARCW , "Air Resupply Communication Service " also participated in these operations as in the pic I posted above . Besides the awesome looking all black SA-16A Albatross , there is an all black B-17 in the background which caught my interest !

I had a bit of a search on the net for some more additional info on an all black B-17 but I couldn't find all that much so far . I have an old Hasegawa 1/72 B-17 in the spares box along with a spare USAF decals in red I was thinking of using ;

I was wondering if anyone had any additional info on the black finished B-17 and what markings would have been on her ???

Hannants in the UK had the 1/72 Albatross listed as a future release , I put a back order in for 3 kits but I have no idea when they will become available ; Hopfully some time soon .

                                     John .

WOW John, you are a busy lil beaver!!! SWEEEEEEET!!!! Looking forward to seeing your builds progress!!!!!

The Osprey F4U Corsair book just arrived , along with the 1/72 Italeri F4U-5N kit

I'm thinking of cutting the engine cowl section of the newly arrived kit and extending the front fuselage with a 3mm piece from a spare F4U engine front section , this should come close to the proper fuselage length of the 5N version , I also have carefully cut the cowl flaps to pose them slightly open as well .

I have some 3mm plastic strip to add to the center wing section to make up the difference there as well .

I'm looking forward to reading some of the F4U book later tonight .

                                                      John .

That is going to be one cool Cat.  I like that scheme, and it will really stand out.  You have a knack for finding some of the most interesting and unique aircraft.

As for the Corsair, that antenna is for the -5N and 5NL, not on the -4B.  Hasegawa got that right, but they missed the radio altimeter antenna on the bottom of the fuselage.  It looks like an upside down T.

Cheers,

Greg

ps- I am looking forward to seeing some K1A1 pictures......

Greg , the Corsair looks perfect , well done

I also notice a antenna on the very tip of the tail on the Corsair , was this just for the 5N version as italeri and revell supply extra antenna's but there is no mention of using them on their builds ???

Kevin , thank's for the links On the USAF OA-10A Catalina sites , I printed out that color profile from wing pallete for reference .

Here is the 1/72 Airfix PBY-5 Catalina kit ...

As I mentioned before , I have done some interior airbrushing ; There are no panel lines at all on the clear parts , so I'll have to buy some paint masks , Airfix does include a nice boarding lader for one of the side fuselage blister windows , which you can pose open ....

I have a spare radar radome left over from the PBM-5 Mariner build I can use on the OA-10A , I may have do what Gregbbear mentioned about masking and painting the large yellow numbers on the bottom of the aircraft , I doubt if I could find decals that size to suit ?

Anyway I'll add this bird to the other two flying boats I'm working on , the PBM-5 Mariner and Short Sunderland III ; Should make a nice trio when finished

                         John .

Thanks Gamera and Kevin!  I appreciate it.  This is the first GB that I have completed.  If I could ever finish my phantom.....

Kevin, I used Tamiya X-18 Semi-gloss black, On the last coat, I used some lightened with a little bit of white.  After the decals, I used Testors  Flat Laquer in a spray can.  It worked out better than I could of hoped for.  It seems that the Tamiya acrylic is real delicate though.  I think I'm going to go with your method on my 1/72 twin mustang though.

As for Marine birds, I am in total agreement, and Corsairs in particular.  At some point, it would be nice to have an all Marine GB.  However, I am trying to broaden my horizons by building some USAF mustangs.

Cheers,

Greg

Greg, Awesome looking corsair, I HAVE to do one in black! The Corsair is my favorite aircraft, of course it has nothing to do with it being a USMC bird!

They just look neat and the black is different. I'll have to go back and read your build on it, to see how you scaled the black down, I usually use a very very dark gray.

Nice work!!!

Kevin

John, The Catalina did serve in USAF in Korea, you can find mention of it on the Korean War Project 3rd Air Rescue Group web site.

The colors sound like they should be the same as:

Unit: USAF Air Rescue Service
Serial: 44-33924 (08-924)
San Francisco on 23 June 1948.  Postwar air sea rescue colors are Matte Sea Gray upper surfaces over Gloss White lower surfaces.

Try this link to see a drawing of the bird above:

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/h/581/3/1/3

I think the colors remained the same through the 50s except for the arctic areas with the Insignia red markings applied.

the C-97 looks great , I just got the KC-97 Tanker version of same kit. Just looked at last night, seems to fit OK except for around the nose glass and maybe the wings, strange way the wings attach, I did notice a gap around the wing to fuselage joint, they sort of go into the fuselage.

If I ever get caught up I may attempt to build it also.

Good luck!

Kevin

Wow, great work all around but I esp love your corsair Greg! She is a beauty!

I think construction on the K1A1 is done, sprayed her with Mr. Surfacer 1000 the other night as a primer and found a few problems I'm correcting. Should have some photos soonish.

Dang John!  You keep coming up with some neat stuff.

Here are some quick shots I took of my finished Corsair.

Honestly, I had to stuggle there at the end.  I had a hard time getting a lot of the little things to stay on/fit.  I'm glad to have one of my all time favorites done, though.

Cheers,

Greg

Nice, huge kit, John!

If you can find it was in thw Korean War, a Catalina would look awesome!!!

Greg , I can't wait to see your 1/48 Night Corsair in all her glory ;

I picked up some 1/72 resin seats for the F4U Corsair , with some nicely molded on seatbelts ; I've also been looking around for some 250lbs and 500lbs bombs for the F4U fleet , Hannants in the UK had some nice resin ones but for international orders I have to fill the shopping cart with 30 UK pounds of items . I guess I'll go back and look at their stock of books and see what I can find on Korean War aircraft and fill the shopping cart that way and pick up some resin bombs along the way as well .

On another note ;

I was reading some more of my other Korean War aircraft books and there is mention of the PBY-5 Catalina's in use by the USAF , which designated them OA-10 Catalina . I have an old Airfix PBY-5 in the stash , with some interior green airbrushed to a few interior pieces but nothing glued together as yet . I was wondering if anyone knew what color scheme the USAF OA-10's were that operated in the Korean War ???

                                      John .

John, is that the Osprey book "Corsair Units of the Korean War"?  If so, that is a great book.  I look forward in interest to you correcting the Italeri -5N.  I want to do that myself at some point.  I'd like to have a little brother for my 1/48.  As I am trying to put the finishing touches on my Corsair, it seems that for every piece I put on, I knock two more off!  I'll be posting finished pictures in the next couple of days.

After that, Dear (GB) Leader, please put me down for a Monogram F-82G Twin Mustang, and a Tamiya F-51D Mustang, both in 1/72.

Cheers,

Greg

Helo H-34

Up until recently I never use to take much notice of the F4U Corsair but I must admit , the little bent wing bird is really growing on me .

Hehehe they tend to do that John, dunno what it is.

I was browsing the internet at some of the online Hobby stores here in Australia and saw the 1/72 Italeri F4U-5N kit listed . I realize that this is probably the same as Revell's F4U-5 kit , which is the same mold as Italeri's F4U-4B kit . However the Italeri 5N kit has the WF tail codes in white and the aircraft finished in gloss sea blue  which I thought would go nicely along side the Flat Black High planes/Italeri kit bash 5N Night Corsair I currently working on with WF makings in red .

I have a spare engine cowl front section left over from the Night Corsair kit bash build , so I'll use that on the newly purchased F4U-5N kit and extend the front section ;

I also saw the Osprey book , Modeling the F4U Corsair , so I ordered that as well .

Last week I ordered the F4U corsair units over Korea book from Amazon books and hopfully that should arrive shortly . Up until recently I never use to take much notice of the F4U Corsair but I must admit , the little bent wing bird is really growing on me .

                                                    John .

I was reading some more through my Military Air Transport book last night and came across the Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter . According to the book , some C-97C operated as MC-97C , equiped as Medevac Transports .

MATS accepted these aircraft between Feb and Dec 1951 and used them on Pacific Airlift Flights during the Korean War , returning casualties from Japan to California for further treatment .

I have a 1/72 Academy C-97A/C/G in my main stash ...

The paint instructions have the C-97C in an overall silver finish with a orange nose , rear fuselage tail band wingtips and tail planes ...

Another addition to the Korean War stash

                                    John .

BTW , Kevin I saw that 1/48 B-1 kit at the LHS yesterday , that's some dang "big box"!!!!!

Fantastic work everyone!!!!  Sorry I haven't posted here in a little while.  That 1/48 B-1b has been taking up the entire work bench.  I finally got the entire fuselage together so I am able to move it out of the way easily so I can get to work on the HRS-2.  I got a few more bits painted but I don't have any pics yet.  I will post some ASAP!!

Once again, Nice job all!!!!

Hey Greg, thanx for those kind words and you can rest assured I will "beat it into submition" if I need to

I have just not found the energy to work on it this week, working on full size has kept me to buzy.I am glad your mate liked SA, it really is a diverce and sometimes complex place, but we make it work somehow!

I must say I rank  very much as an "amature" when I look at the lads on this site.................maybe one day I can build half as well as some do, till then I try and try again LOL!

Theuns

No worries John!!

Lt Comdr Ritchie , Your eye sight is much better than mine , as it turns out your 100% correct about the SC-46D Commando , it is indeed Olive Drab .

If I had bothered to read further along in the book , there is a small section on the C-46 operating during the Korean War ....

I usally airbrush with Gunze Acrylics but their Olive Drab tends to look a lighter shade of OD , so I think I'll try Tamiya's Olive Drab .

Thanks for the help 'Sim'

                                                 John

John I'm not so sure that SC-46 is black. Judging by the dark blue of the Natnl Insig it looks more like an OD green maybe. If it was black I'd think the blue would either show up as lighter than the base or blend in a bit more.Just my You are also getting quite a collection of very nice books to go with your nice builds!!!

The " Military Air Transport Service " book I ordered through Amazon books arrived to day ; There are some nice photo's of aircraft used from 1948-1966 , I came across these two interesting pic's...

A Curtis SC-46D Commando 44-78542 as flown in the early 1950s by the 3rd Rescue Squadron , Misawa Japan . The Commando appears to be black all over with the large yellow fuselage band .

In the Helicopter Chapter there are some nice photo's of the Sikorsky H-19 ; The top pic show's a H-19A of the 581st Air Resupply Squadron in Korea , the "Air Resupply " markings were removed after a few days ;

The second pic from the top is depicted as a YH-19 , 49-2016 flown also by the 3rd Air Rescue Squadron in Korea , shown at K-13 in 1951 . The H-19 appears to be black all over as well ?

While I've been putting my C-46 Commando together , I've been trying to decide what color scheme to do , I think I'll go with the black scheme with the yellow bands and an all over black H-19 ;

Certainly a little different !!!

                                                 John .

Sorry about the paint trouble Theuns.  I don't think people outside the hobby understand how much work, knowledge and skill goes into a build.  I'm sure you will overcome it, you are a way better builder than I.  As an aside, a friend of mine visited South Africa last month.  He had a good time and really enjoyed your country.

John, that Skyraider is nice.  They are the unsung heroes of the Korean War.  When everyone else failed, they sent in the Skyraiders, and the job got done.  I just finished reading a book called "Crismson Sky".  Excellent book for sure.  It has a lot of personal accounts of those who flew there.  Although I had heard it mentioned before, it had a better account of the Skyraider's torpedoeing of a hydro-electric damn.  B-29's, 2,000 pound bombs and more, couldn't do the job, but the Skyraider did.

Cheers,

Greg

John , thanks for the links to those sites ;

The walk-around pics of the A-1E are really great , especially the wing fold shots . I picked up Airwaves PE wing fold set for the Skyraider but I really needed some nice close ups like you took to see exactly where the support arms are positioned when the wings are folded . I copied a couple of pic's into the computer .

Hannants had a 1/72 RVHP resin conversion for a AD-5N Skyraider VC-33 1952 with the SS tail makings included , however its about $50 AUS , way too expensive for me .

After spending the better part of sunday searching the net for images of the Korean War Skyraider , I ended up looking at Amazon Books and saw that Warbird Tech Skyraider book , so I ordred it along with another Air War over korea pictorial book ; Squadron.com had the Bert Kinzey AD Skyraider in detail and scale as well as the Skyraider walk around book , both were under $15 each , so I ordered those two as well .

The Internet is okay for researching stuff but after 20 minutes or so , I get tired of looking at the screen , I much prefer reference books  .

Thank's again for the links , I didn't see that Abledogs web site before , there are some really great pic's of the Skyraider on that site .

Kind regards ,

                          John .

John, I don't know if the markings are correct on that dark blue AD-5, I know one squadron flew them in Korea with the SS tail code, there is a color photo of it in the Warbird Tech book on the AD.  Here is a link to my photo page on the AD-5/A-1E, and a link to a good AD reference page:

http://www.yolo.net/~jeaton/Propplanes/a1e/a1e.htm

http://www.abledogs.com/

All round excellent work guys!!!!!

I will post pix asap.This week will be a nightmare as far as work is going.I need to spray 2 Aeronca 11AC wings before the weekend, work has to come before play sometimes LOL!!

I did first paint the yellow, then masked that off and did the whole plane gloss black.I was going to then mask off the black bands and do the silver, but was to dissapointed with the results.

Maybe I will see if the problem can be fixed with some very fine hand "pin striping" Otherwize it will be a do-over.

Theuns

Sad times struck my F-86f build here in SA ! I tried to not use the supplied ID band decals but rather to mask them off and paint them on.This turned out to be a desaster as the slightest imperfection between the yellow and black shows up like a huge mistake :-(

So, this means I need to sand the paint down, re-scribe all the pannellines and try again, this time with the decals as ID bands.

So we learn hey. I have to say , the Sabre in all over gloss black looks absolutely fantastic, wery menacing LOL!

Hopefully I will have better luck in round two.

Theuns

Fantastic work guys!

The K1A1 has stalled while I look for some good pictures of the turret rack for the last PE parts. Will get photos posted if I ever get a workable computer again.