Shiny restaurations?

Richard Brooks wrote:

What can you recall?


Smoky black as you can and diffuse those searchlight beams. Don't
forget the carrots of course.


What you recall seems to differ from the record. A very shiny and smooth
gloss paint called Jet Black was developed for night camouflage. The Jet
Black finish was found to be "totally invisible in 80% of all passes made
through searchlights." The finish came to be known as "anti-searchlight
paint".

"Air Force Colors, Volume Two, ETO & MTO 1942-1945" by Dana Bell, page 47.



You'd probably do it much more different of course.


Of course.

Steven P. McNicoll said the following on 11/10/2009 22:13:
Richard Brooks wrote:
What can you recall?

Smoky black as you can and diffuse those searchlight beams. Don't
forget the carrots of course.


What you recall seems to differ from the record. A very shiny and smooth
gloss paint called Jet Black was developed for night camouflage. The Jet
Black finish was found to be "totally invisible in 80% of all passes made
through searchlights." The finish came to be known as "anti-searchlight
paint".

"Air Force Colors, Volume Two, ETO & MTO 1942-1945" by Dana Bell, page 47.


You'd probably do it much more different of course.


Of course.


Yours I think! What colour is unpolished bare aluminium, again?

Steven P. McNicoll said the following on 10/10/2009 19:59:
Even unpolished bare aluminum can glint.

Ahhh! Over here - Europe, the R.A.F. used something to DTD 308 Air
Ministry Standards with high carbon content.

On Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:27:27 +0200, Dennis wrote:

But I just don't understand why, after that much time, money, effort and
probably research one would end up with a thing that doesn't resemble
the original.
But it is indeed the choice of the owner.


Glossy finishes have better fuel economy. I would uggest that it is an
economy measure on restored warbirds. You already spent enough
restoring it.

Others have mentioned glossy black for nighttime. The Americans during
the war did testing off the coast of Florida. During these tests they
settled on glossy finish.

Bare metal was chosen by the American's for a few reasons. Less weight
allowed high performance. Higher altitude, faster speed (due to less
weight) - better fuel economy as well.

Camoflage was traded off. Because the Americans would almost always
have numerical superirority the camoflage value of paint was virtually
nil.

The greater number of eyes in the larger formations would offer enough
warning to spot the smaller enemy formations.

Therefore, lose the paint. Which would give you negligible camoflage
and you get performance benefits.

Waldo.

Richard Brooks wrote:

Yours I think! What colour is unpolished bare aluminium, again?


Silvery white.


Ahhh! Over here - Europe, the R.A.F. used something to DTD 308 Air
Ministry Standards with high carbon content.


Polished to resemble Jet Black.