Academy 1/72 Corsair F4U-1A, Tommy’s Big Hog, Ondongo, 1943.

[speedgraflex]

Prop hub color depends upon the production date. Black would be common. As would be bare metal. Red would be a unit addition, for either a squadron color, or a leadership position within the squadron.

Thank you so much. I am leaning towards leaving the hub as bare metal. Jerry EagleCal did a painting / litho run signed by Captain Blackburn with a red nose and red outlines on the insignias. Interesting! I also found some cool black and white shots:

[speedgraflex]

Hellcats with red noses in the second row. Wrong. Corsairs! Carlos just corrected me. Thanks, buddy.

[Duke Maddog]

That last pic with all those aircraft is one helluva pic man! It almost looks like Pensacola back in the day. Wow!

[Stikpusher]

Hellcats with red noses in the second row. Wrong. Corsairs! Carlos just corrected me. Thanks, buddy.

Bruce, where did you find this photo? The tail code markings are throwing me off bigtime. The national insignia and tail codes indicate late 1945 thru 1947 before the red stripe was added to the national insignia bars. The single letter tail codes are from different carrier air groups and/or Naval Air Stations. And the 4F code on the F4U wings is a real screwball. The letter/number codes did not come along for NAS base codes until the 50’s!!! Yet obviously they are seen here.
The L coded Hellcats should be from NAS Los Alamitos, but this base is obviously not there. The T coded Hellcats should be from NAS Seattle, doesn’t looks like that part of the country either. 4F I can’t find anywhere as a NAS code, but it could be a Carrier Air Group code...

And in the upper right corner background look to be at least two Avengers in the Atlantic ASW scheme...

[speedgraflex]

Good morning! I have no idea. I think either Pinterest or Facebook. I will try to retrace my steps as I know there was a caption. Unfortunately I can find images, but I have to discipline myself to note the details. It was “paired” with this in my search:



That must mean I was searching for F4U-1s on a production line, vintage photos. Does the image help in any way? I apologize in advance.

[Stikpusher]

That image is in a blimp hangar. Those were up and down both coasts as bases for blimps that did anti submarine patrols. If you’ve ever been by Tustin at the old base there, two of those hangars still stand.

[speedgraflex]