A question

huub vink

huub vink

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Staff member
The picture below is taken at K-13 Suwon Air Base in Korea. Yes indeed, the Air Base for which Ian recently released his FS9 version.

My question is does anybody know what the unit badge at the tail looked like. I have gone though a lot of documentation for what I have been reading, I conclude there were actually not that many unit using the C-47 in the Korean War, however none of the units had a unit badge which even only looks a bit like the one in the picture.

All help is appreciated!

Huub

Amrrl3N.jpg
 
I cant help with the unit badge, but the tail flash belongs to the 8th Fighter Bomber wing supporting the wing's F-86F's. i have a photo of an aircraft without badge 348061, and flew between Suwon and their maintenance facility in Japan
 
Hi Huub,
Looking around, I found that C-47's with the 315 serial numbers seem to be ac that have been transfered to other forces. A C-47 which was a an AC47D was transfered to the Phillipine Air Force and was given serial 315584, a C-47 transfered to the French AF had serial No 315545, and there are many more 315 serial numbers to the RAF, Norway, Germany etc. I know it has USAF all over it, but you wouldn't want to get mis-identified!

Or. if this is not the case, Ian suggestion of 8th the FB wing looks good, and it may be that the unit badge is just a harmony/good luck yin-yang symbol?

Cheers

Shessi
 
I dont think its anything to do with troop transport, i think its a squadron hack, and the badge is very faded and dirty, is just a ying-yang like symbol like Shessi pointed out, ive seen a few profile's and decal sites online where the same symbol is used, see below. It may be unique to that ac and painted on by the crew, the rest of the fleet may not have it.

note the same flash's on the F80 tail
PS Willy did loads of repaints for the Alpha F80, for FSX but easily converted back, im going to check the library :)
 

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Interesting! Its seems the striping, or similar, was quite commonly used during the Korean War.

n7HQCAt.jpg


North American F-86F-30-NA Sabres of the 8th Fighter-Bomber Group, Korea, 1953. Serial 52-4877 in front in Wing Commander's colors, 52-4473 alongside.

5RHn2p9.jpg


F-86F Sabre ROC Air Force Hero:Captain Yi-Chiang Chin .He had two victory and the world first used AIM9B shut down enemy fighter in the air-war,Sep 24,1958.

I don't know where these colours stand for or come from. Several countries have red, yellow and blue in their flag but none in the Korean region.

I went along the path Pete is pointing at, but it doesn't contain any clues. I'm also not convinced the unit badge is a faded ying-yang symbol. The Korean Ying-Yang is red and blue and split horizontally and not yellow and blue and split under an angle.

Thanks so far, it could be a nice subject for Manfred Jahn's C-47,


Huub
 
huub vink said:
Interesting! Its seems the striping, or similar, was quite commonly used during the Korean War.

n7HQCAt.jpg


North American F-86F-30-NA Sabres of the 8th Fighter-Bomber Group, Korea, 1953. Serial 52-4877 in front in Wing Commander's colors, 52-4473 alongside.

5RHn2p9.jpg


F-86F Sabre ROC Air Force Hero:Captain Yi-Chiang Chin .He had two victory and the world first used AIM9B shut down enemy fighter in the air-war,Sep 24,1958.

I don't know where these colours stand for or come from. Several countries have red, yellow and blue in their flag but none in the Korean region.

I went along the path Pete is pointing at, but it doesn't contain any clues. I'm also not convinced the unit badge is a faded ying-yang symbol. The Korean Ying-Yang is red and blue and split horizontally and not yellow and blue and split under an angle.

Thanks so far, it could be a nice subject for Manfred Jahn's C-47,


Huub
Click to expand...

The stripes all together indicate the wing leaders tail, individual squadrons have only 1 colour stripe on their tail,( red , yellow or blue) as evidenced by your first picture, all those jets are same unit.It was a practice started in ww2.
And prior to that the RAF, where individual flights were allocated red,yellow and blue ident colours within a squadron, and likewise each squadron within a station had its colour ident on the ' sector clock' so that controllers could easily identify which squadron was at readiness for the next hour

https://www.flightstore.co.uk/aviat...61/operators-room-sector-clock-14-dial-p10229


I'm wondering if the badge is the 1st Troop carrier command one see here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Tro...rrier Command,for the theater airlift mission.
Ttfn

Pete
 
Now you have me puzzled even more. The Sabres in the pictures above are definitely not from the same unit and not even from the same Air Force (USAF and ROCAF). I agree the colours could have something to do with the rank as this can be seen on the P-36 below as well (Red for A-flight, yellow for B-flight and blue for C-flight and the boss of all flights carries all colours)

But when it has something to do with the rank, what do these colours/stripes do on a slightly obsolete C-47?

As said, a mildly puzzled
Huub

DOupJ1u.jpg
 
huub vink said:
Now you have me puzzled even more. The Sabres in the pictures above are definitely not from the same unit and not even from the same Air Force (USAF and ROCAF). I agree the colours could have something to do with the rank as this can be seen on the P-36 below as well (Red for A-flight, yellow for B-flight and blue for C-flight and the boss of all flights carries all colours)

But when it has something to do with the rank, what do these colours/stripes do on a slightly obsolete C-47?

As said, a mildly puzzled
Huub

DOupJ1u.jpg
Click to expand...

It's not rank per se huub but the position that the person holds as wing / group leader, as for the Sabres, ROCAF based their formations ( squadrons / wings etc) on those of USAAF / USAF simples really.

I'm guessing that the stripes on the C 47 were to identify it as the bird of the wing leader ( same as fighters) when in
a mass formation of aeroplanes

As for the badge..

Ttfn

Pete
 
Im sticking to my guns on my theory, ive been digging around on profile site's and there seems to be a "UN Force's in Korea" emblem, a ying yang split horizontally, sometimes yellow and blue or yellow and red, and seems a very simple design with no lettering i can see. ive only seen it so far on F-80's, an ac mainly used by the 8th FB SQ. Frustratingly, cant find any decent photo's to post. If it was some kind of unit badge, it would be easier to find online maybe
 
The colors on the fin are the same as the most common squadron colors within a group or wing. Planes with all three (or four) colors, if mission aircraft, are generally the group or wing commander's personal plane. All three colors might also appear on utility planes assigned to the group or wing. That suggests that the search should be for a group or wing insignia rather than a squadron insignia. I have no ideas that might narrow down the search more than that.
 
To add to the mystery, I tried tracking down the tail number on Joe Baugher's web site (http://joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1943_2.html) hoping to get some history.
All that came up is that it was a Douglas C-47A-85-DL Skytrain. The history for that tail number only lists as

(1943) "15519 (MSN 19985) to USAAF 05Apr44. ATC? no card" so we're back to square one. :dizzy:

The post above about the plane being a squadron hack makes sense to me. It could have been "loaned" out to the squadron from a depot somewhere? No idea about what it did or its final disposition.
 
Personally, don't think it would be a squadron hack,
fighter jocks would likely not be trained in multi engine techniques, a T6 or T33 as a hack yes, but not a C47.

There was only one US unit operating C47 in Korea,
1 Troop Carrier wing, according to wiki

Ttfn

Pete
 
Adding to this, I think it's possibly a maintenance location. You have four types of ac, a T33, F86, A26 and a C47, which you wouldn't have on a sqn or wing. And the T33, F86 and C47 have panels/cowlings off.

It's a huge base, any ideas where it is?

Shessi
 
Shessi said:
Adding to this, I think it's possibly a maintenance location. You have four types of ac, a T33, F86, A26 and a C47, which you wouldn't have on a sqn or wing. And the T33, F86 and C47 have panels/cowlings off.

It's a huge base, any ideas where it is?

Shessi
Click to expand...

As I said in the first post, the picture is taken at K13 Suwon Korea. (Yes the scenery Ian did....)

Motormouse said:
There was only one US unit operating C47 in Korea,
1 Troop Carrier wing, according to wiki
Click to expand...

Before I posted my question here I went over this wiki page as well (and looked at all the unit badges, shown and not shown in this article).

The units mentioned were units stationed in Korea. But you of course also had aircraft which just delivered supplies. The MATS aircraft for instance are not in this list.

Cheers,
Huub
 
Not all the pilots in a squadron have to be fighter pilots. :a1310:
I have a really good book about F-105s over Viet Nam named "100 Missions North" by Brig. Gen. Ken Bell.
Different war, but he mentions that the base at Takhli had a C-47 "hack" that was used to ferry parts and also used to take the pilots on R&R flights outside of Thailand.
It was usually flown by one of the senior (staff) officers in the base command.
So, there's that.. :wiggle:
 
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, ideas, views and comments. I learned a lot again, but still didn't really find the answer to my question. I thought it would make a nice colourful livery for Manfred Jahn's C-47. But luckily there are enough alternative models to fly in Korea and to be honest my to do list is already far to long! :biggrin-new:

Thanks again,
Huub

Another beauty to fly from Suwon Air base.

2SSbs9H.jpg
 
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