Polka Dot Warrior: Spotted A*s Ape assembly ship Liberator
As an assembly ship in the 458th Bombardment Group in the Eighth, Spotted A*s Ape flew more than 60 missions, assembling her group's aircraft. It had its guns removed and formation lights in the letter “I” on her flanks and the red circle rimmed with lights—used for formation assembly when the weather or lighting conditions were poor.
The term “spotted a*s ape” was a colloquialism referring to a fictitious animal used as a descriptor of comparison to relate the speed or velocity of another object—as in “That Liberator was faster than a spotted a*s ape. On 9 March 1945, after wrangling her Group for raids over France and Germany, Spotted A*s Ape packed it in when her landing gear collapsed after a rough landing upon return to their home base at RAF Horsham St Faith and was subsequently scrapped.
I used Monogram's 1/48 as a platform for the conversion to this B-24H.The highlights of the conversion were formation lights and the nose art painting. As I was collecting reference material for this post, I saw that my nose art painting does not quite represent the tongue and that the cockpit framing is painted red. To be continued...
Wow. Thats really nice!
Thank you, Jay!
Very nice. Have loved that scheme since I saw Shep Paine's dio
Thank you, Gary.
His idea is very creative.
Looks great! Resembles the assembly ship in Sheperd Paine's diorama from way back when. My compliments!
Thank you, Jim.
That is definitely a Wild Child! Excellent and fun project.
Thank you, Greg!
Not wanting to paint a big olive drab B-24, I was inspired by the drawings in the Mighty Eight book.
Very cool paintjob, Rafi!
Thank you, Felix!
That's quite a unique scheme, Rafi @blackmopane
A very nice result. Well done.
Thank you, John.
Fantastic result, Rafi!
Wonderful!
Thank you, Spiros!
Really nice - the assembly ships were works of art themselves.
Thank you, Tom.
Nicely done! An unusual scheme.
Thank you, Robert!