More Nifty Fifties Air Guard

Mick

Mick

SOH-CM-2025
Here are two more Air Guard paints that I wanted for my classic era sim, a pair of nifty fifties hacks that belonged to my local Guard unit, the 131st Fighter Squadron of the Massachusetts ANG. There's a C-47 in three variations as its markings changed over the years, and two variations on a T-33. The C-47 is Manfred Jahn's and the T-33 is Piglet's. They're on the download list now.
 
Thank you Mick! More great memories for those of us from that era. Seems that every AF outfit had a couple C-47's and T-birds for support and proficiency (flight pay?) work. Any idea when the last Gooney or T-bird was retired from the regulars, AF reserve or ANG?

Thanks
Norm
 
Hey Norm,

I don't know how long the Gooney lasted, but the photo included with my skins is dated 1964.

I got the photo at this web site:

http://users.vermontel.net/~tomh/TEXT_FILES/104FW_Aircraft.html

Check it out; you'll love it! It's an album of photos of the 131st Fighter Squadron's aircraft from the F-47 through the F-15. You'll recognize some of the planes from some of my earlier skins, like the F-47s, F-51s and TB-25s.

The full progression was: F-47D, F-51H, F-94B, F-86H, F-84F, F-100D, A-10A and F-15C.

Some of my Mass. ANG paints have been based on other sources, but probably more than half are based on photos from this single site.

It's mostly planes of the 131st, but there are a few from the 101st down at the other end of the state, and a few shots of aircraft from other units that visited Westfield.

The 131st FS is based at Barnes Airport in Westfield (KBAF) and was known for years as the "Polish Guard." The squadron color has always been red. The other Mass. ANG squadron was the 101st, initially based at Boston-Logan and later at Otis AFB until they were disbanded in the latest round of unit decommissioning and base closures. They were known as the "Irish Guard" and used green as their squadron color. (Changed at some point to light blue.)

Until I found this site just this year I never knew that the 131st, my almost local ANG unit, had the F-84F for a while before they painted them in lizard camouflage. They had silver ones in what appears to be both natural metal and silver paint, and they even had some in overall "ADC" gray (whooda thunk it?!) I will definitely be spraying some paint on the AlphaSims F-84F, because they will be the aircraft in service in my FS JetAge sim, that will be set around 1960.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top