Today I added the "tape" decals on the #740 Corsair. I used all of the pictures I had available to properly depict this Corsair as it appeared when it was photographed. I'm sure it looked a little bit different at times, depending on when or where the pictures were taken.
This set of pictures shows the overall taped seams as they appeared in the pictures I was talking about above. You will notice there is only one tape line ahead of the windshield. This is really odd, and something we normally don't see. I'm guessing they either ran out of tape, or what they had applied here on the main fuselage gas tank had been blown off in the slip steam. It's also possible some new tape was being added, but they only got this far and a mission came up before it could be completed. It's hard to say for sure, as I have seen all kinds of different tape patterns used on Corsairs.
This shows the underwing taped seams on #740. There was an outer fuel tank mounted internally in the wings in these early Corsairs. The pilots were not too fond of them, especially when they were empty containing only a little bit of fuel and a lot of gasoline vapors.
They used tape on the wings in the same way they used it on the fuselage just ahead of the cockpit on the main tank.
Here again, this Corsair doesn't show tape on all of the gas tank seams on the top side of the wing. Odd, to say the least. Even more strange is how there's a single run of tape that starts at the leading edge of the wing, and stops almost at the landing light. On the real Corsair, there was no metal seam here. There was fabric on the outer wing behind here, so this actually might be a field expedient method or impromptu fix that was obviously not an approved method. I have no explanation for this one... Your guess is as good as mine here.
I can remember seeing something similar on the fuselage sides on several Vought built Vindicators that were at Midway Island during the attack by the Japanese... so maybe this is something similar in nature. Only to have a time machine. 🙂
The Corsair had a CO bottle mounted next to the pilots seat, that was used to purge out these gasoline vapors and help reduce the risk of fire once they were empty.
Here you can also see how I used a Molotow chrome pen to paint the landing light.
This last set of pictures shows how the underside of the wings look on Boyington's other Corsair, #883. It too has had the landing light painted with the Molotow pen.
I will be spraying on a sealer tomorrow.
As always, comments are encouraged.
Thanks for stopping by and good night.
