From: asrgf@wombat.newcastle.edu.au
Subject: Re: Why didn't Luftwaffe paint propeller tips?
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 14:29:03 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.220637.12699@ultra.com>, marc@mercutio.ultra.com (Marc Kwiatkowski {Host Software-AIX}) writes:
> In article <gunnar.726605609@beppe> gunnar@beppe.ericsson.se (Gunnar Forsgren) writes:
> 
>>cwilliam@bbn.com (Christopher Williams) writes:
> 
>>>Anybody know?  I've looked at thousands of photos of WWII aircraft, and
>>>it appears that the Luftwaffe is the only air force that didn't paint
>>>some sort of bright warning color on their propeller tips.
> 
>>This is a highly interesting topic which true answer could possible
>>shed a new light on why World War II developed as it did.
>>Did the fact that the German pilots were not allowed to express
>>human feelings on the outside of their aircraft have a positive
>>psychological effect on the performance of their aircraft ?
>>Or was it possibly the opposite way around ?
> 
> I tried to raise this issue in the bare-metal P51 thread.  I guess I'll
> try again here.  It seems to me that it wasn't a matter of Axis airplanes
> following a fairly rigid paint-scheme and Allied airplanes choosing whatever
> they wanted.  As far as I can tell, among the Allied powers the only groups


> that had racy and varying paint and nose art were the USAAC bomber and
> fighter escorts in Europe, the Marine fighter and CAS planes in the Pacific,
> and the Flying Tigers - essentially a mercenary outfit - in China.
> The RAF, the Royal Navy, and the US. Navy all had pretty uniform looking
> airplanes.  While some US. Navy airplanes were personalized, (ie.
> Mimsi I, II, and III), none, had nose art comparable to those USAAC planes
> in the European Theater.  There are some exceptions.  Brazillian
> and Indian squadrons seemed to get pretty creative.  
> 
> So, my questions are, is this observation correct, or are there examples
> of US Navy or RAF squadrons who painted their planes as they saw fit?
> And if it is true that only the USAAC and US Marines had relaxed policies
> on airplane markings, what was the reason?  The same still seems true
> today regarding US airplanes.  The Navy's F-14s and F-18s have some 
> personalization, but it seems pretty uniform and unsuggestive.  While
> USAF F-16s in Desert Storm had all manner of nose art.  Most of it pretty
> tasteless in my opinion.
> 
> 

In general your observations are not true. R.A.A.F. P-40' in the middle
east had the shark's mouth painted on them well before the "Flying Tigers".
Aircraft were painted with personal markings. They may have coppied this
from the R.A.F. 

R.A.A.F. aircraft in New Guinea are also show in pictures as being highly
personalised, e.g. "P for Polly" an existing P-40 now in the Australian
War Museum. I have also seen pictures of "nose art" on a USAAC c-47 in a
local newspaper. It run off a local runway in 1942 and scandalised onlookers
and the local church heavies. A complaint was made to the authorities abou it!
 
> -- 
> Marc P. Kwiatkowski                  /|/|            Ultra Network Technologies
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