The Great, Constantly Changing Picture Gallery, Troisième partie: la vengeance!

[Uncle Fester]

I'm not sure I appreciated just how big those planes are until I saw this perspective

There's one (P5M/SP-5B) in the Museum in Pensacola, along with a Catalina and the Coronado that took Nimitz to Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremony. It's nuts how huge some of those old flying boats were.

Another pic of the above boat (Currituck) tending Marlins in Cam Ranh Bay, June 1965.

 

[Griz882]

Now this is a full-sized flying boat! Martin JRM Mars.

 

[number9]

Holy shit!

 

[ChuckMK23]

 

[Flash]

Now this is a full-sized flying boat! Martin JRM Mars.

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Saw one of those take off from near their base at Sproat Lake on Vancouver Island while on vacation. I was driving along and I heard it before I even saw it and wondered what the hell was making the racket. I then saw it out of the corner of my eye and pulled over, watched it slooooowly start its take off run and finally get airborne. She was in Coulson red and white at the time, beautiful plane and beautiful area.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Saw one of those take off from near their base at Sproat Lake on Vancouver Island while on vacation. I was driving along and I heard it before I even saw it and wondered what the hell was making the racket. I then saw it out of the corner of my eye and pulled over, watched it slooooowly start its take off run and finally get airborne. She was in Coulson red and white at the time, beautiful plane and beautiful area.

Now that's some hard-core airplane pornography

 

[Flash]

Now that's some hard-core airplane pornography

It is, unfortunately it is not mine as I was awestruck and didn't think to grab my camera in time.

 

[Llarry]

Now this is a full-sized flying boat! Martin JRM Mars.

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Why did you edit out the two guys in a canoe pulling the Mars into the lake? <grin>

 

[GroundPounder]

Saw this on Reddit, Picture credit to John T. Jarrett USN
It was captioned as being from 22 Jan 24 on the USS George Washington

 

[Llarry]

The very first Grumman was not an aircraft, but was this amphibian float. They sure went on to bigger and better things!

 

[Llarry]

Speaking of Grumman, even before Pearl Harbor, they were turning out F4F Wildcats at a pretty good clip. I guess the factory was crowded, so they had to get clever in how they stored partially completed Wildcats. Could Lockheed Martin do the same with F-35s? Nah...

 

[Llarry]

The end of the colorful "yellow wing" livery of Navy and Marine aircraft came in December of 1940, when BuAer issued a directive that aircraft were to be painted grey. Before that, the aircraft were a riot of color: tail color denoting carrier, then cowling and fuselage stripes denoting squadron and section.

 

[Llarry]

In an effort at equal opportunity, I searched for but was unable to find a color photo of a VP aircraft. Here's a pretty nice model of a PBY-4 of VP-21:

 

[Uncle Fester]

The end of the colorful "yellow wing" livery of Navy and Marine aircraft came in December of 1940, when BuAer issued a directive that aircraft were to be painted grey. Before that, the aircraft were a riot of color: tail color denoting carrier, then cowling and fuselage stripes denoting squadron and section.

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The color scheme for the pre-war years looks clownish but was actually pretty logical, and good for identifying who was who in the zoo in an era when plane-to-plane comms could be iffy or nonexistent.

Squadrons were divided up into six three-aircraft sections. Each section had an assigned color, 1st section=red, 2nd=white, 3rd, blue, 4th=black, 5th=green, 6th=yellow. All aircraft in the section had a wing-top chevron in that color. Section lead also had the color on a fuselage band and the full cowling, left wing had the top half of the cowling, right wing the bottom half. Tail color indicated which carrier/CAG or Patrol Wing the aircraft belonged to.

The fuselage "side number" was squadron-type-a/c #.

So the lead (middle) F2F in the lower picture is a/c #4 from VF-2 off of Lexington. If you're joining up on someone, no radio, and nav by DR only, helps to immediately know who the other guy is.

 

[Griz882]

The color scheme for the pre-war years looks clownish but was actually pretty logical, and good for identifying who was who in the zoo in an era when plane-to-plane comms could be iffy or nonexistent.

Squadrons were divided up into six three-aircraft sections. Each section had an assigned color, 1st section=red, 2nd=white, 3rd, blue, 4th=black, 5th=green, 6th=yellow. All aircraft in the section had a wing-top chevron in that color. Section lead also had the color on a fuselage band and the full cowling, left wing had the top half of the cowling, right wing the bottom half. Tail color indicated which carrier/CAG or Patrol Wing the aircraft belonged to.

The fuselage "side number" was squadron-type-a/c #.

So the lead (middle) F2F in the lower picture is a/c #4 from VF-2 off of Lexington. If you're joining up on someone, no radio, and nav by DR only, helps to immediately know who the other guy is.

Great explanation…you beat me to it!