Here’s some of the pictures that I took during the restoration of the Hellcat. This plane was meticulously restored. Granted it is a set of pictures I took during a restoration, but this Hellcat was done with the mission of keeping it as close to original as possible during the process.
This plane was delivered to the shop at about 75 percent original, (and it had not touched in some areas), so they were the first ones to work on it since it was built by Grumman during the War.
The wheels shown on the Hellcat here were the late War stamped type. This Hellcat originally used the cast "spoke" style you will also find on Corsairs. They ended up eventually finding a useable set of wheels, and before this restoration was completed, it was delivered as closely to how it would have looked when brand new. These stamped wheels you see in these photos were replaced with the cast spoke style. The tires were also swapped out at this time, and they have a diamond pattern tire tread now as well.
They used a computerized camera to color match the paint they uncovered when they stripped the original paint off. The shop also has a WW2 color paint chip book and between the two this Hellcat is likely to be as close to the original as it can be.
What was found is that Grumman used "Grumman Gray" in place of Zinc Chromate in most areas. Here you can see the wings after the metal work was done, and they were repainted using a computer generated scan to closely match the colors they uncovered.
These colors were then painted over again, using white and Non Speculative Dark Sea Blue. The areas ahead of the wing folds were painted Dark Blue.
The majority of the wing center section was built as a single unit, and it was painted using White on the areas that were visible from the landing gear bays and rear section of the wing folds. You will also see some small spots that used Zinc Chromate Green.
Here you can see how the inner wing was painted white from the wing fold hinges, to the trailing edge of the wing.
I took a closer photo showing this location back in 2017.
Once it was assembled, this is how it looked.
These last two pictures show the overall appearance of the aircraft with the wings folded. My understanding is that the Navy wanted these planes camouflaged like this so they would not be as visible while parked on deck and the wings were folded.
The upper portions of the outer wing panels were painted using Dark Sea Blue back to about halfway in between the main spar, and the the second wing spar.
When these Hellcats were delivered in overall Glossy Sea Blue, the entire exterior airframe was painted the same Dark Blue color. You would have found Grumman Gray inside the wings and fuselage, but it would not have been visible from the outside, even with the wings folded.
Now they were repainted on the exterior when camouflaged for use by the FAA. They would have been painted using FAA colors, possibly using "US approximations". I have also read that Grumman used paints that matched the FAA colors, where other companies did not. I'm not sure about that however.
I'm fairly certain the original Dark Blue and White inner areas on the wing folds and main landing gear wells would have remained the same colors as shown here.
If anything was repainted on the exterior, (using these FAA colors), chances are it would have been done so on the areas ahead of the wing fold hinges, since they were the most accessible.
Again I want to say that all bets are off once the aircraft went into service in the field. Anything could have happened from this point on as far as colors being used.
Hope this helps.
Cheers !
