PBY Paints

Early pby-5 non-amphibs and mick's new skins

Mick,

First, many thanks for this re-surgence of interest in and outstanding input into the maritime recon classic of WWII. Your re-paints have got the old bird out of my hangar for the first time in a few years!

In my ALPHA Catalina installations I have the PBY-5 which is not amphibious and the PBY-5A models which are. Whilst your early WWII re-paints work for the PBY-5 model, I was wondering if it is possible to get these great early WWII re-paints onto one of the PBY-5A amphibious models?

Regardless of the above query, I have really enjoyed exercising this aircraft clad in you professional skins - thanks again.

Mal
 
HorusJ said:
The owner of the real bird is Jim Slattery of San Diego,CA.He also owns some other vintage aircraft including a B-23 Dragon once owned by Howard Hughes.
Thanks again for you fantastic work!:encouragement:
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Thank you! I like to know a little about the planes I paint and fly in FS.

And he also has a B-23! Now there's something you don't see every day! Heck, you didn't see one of those every day even when they were new!
 
vonernsk said:
... I was wondering if it is possible to get these great early WWII re-paints onto one of the PBY-5A amphibious models?...
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Well, it might be possible, but it would be an awful lot of work, and depending on what model you used, when you were finished you might find that your efforts were in vain.

As you can see, there's only one texture folder as the plane comes out of the box, and browsing through the Alpha Sims texture folder you can see that the way they do it is by having a different model for each paint, with each of those models calling up a different sub-set of external textures from the texture folder. Some of the models have different features - flying boat or amphibian, nose turret or not, waist blisters or not, while others are identical except for which textures they wear. This allows them to have just one copy of each of the many common textures that all the paints use.

One might think, as I did at first, that all you have to do is re-name a set of textures to match those used by a different model, then put your re-named files in a new texture folder along with copies of the common textures. But it doesn't work that way. The different sub-sets of external textures differ in more than their file names. Some of the textures aren't the same size or shape (different aspect ratio - ratio of width to height) as the corresponding textures of other sub-sets. If you just change the file names, those textures will look very strange on the new model, either stretched in one direction or compressed in another. So besides changing the file names, you'd have to alter the sizes and shapes of some of the texture files.

There are other pitfalls as well. For example, some bits of some models are apparently not textured, and have their color in the model material. For one example, it appears that the waist blister frames and wing struts of the model that uses the "USAFBlue" texture set will always be blue, no matter what you do with the textures. The "RAF" texture set doesn't have working texture files for the bottoms of the horizontal stabilizers - those parts take their color from the stabilizer bottom textures of the USAFBlue texture sub-set. There are other oddities that escape me at the moment.

Another factor is reflectivity, or the lack of it. The flying boat model is reflective and most of the amphibian models are not. So if you adapt a texture from a flying boat onto an amphibian model, it will become translucent unless you change the alpha channel to pure white - a simple but boring task that would have to be done individually and tediously for each of twenty-plus textures.

All in all, it would be a lot of work to put a texture set onto a model that it isn't authentic for, when we already have a model that it is authentic for. And a lot of work to put into a job that might not pan out in the end.

I found that it was a lot of work to adapt my Miss Pickup textures that I made for the modern warbird model to work on a model in military configuration, and that paint has almost no markings - it's just plain white with national insignia and nose art. But I still had to change the aspect rations of several textures to get the panel lines to go in the right place, and change the aspect ratio of the fuselage insignia and the artwork. And I had to do it twice, because the first time I did it, I found that I couldn't get a few external bits to look white, so I had to do it all over again to use a different model. You might do all the work to transfer a flying boat paint to work with an amphibian, only to find, when you were finished, that the blister framing or the wing struts or some other bit were the wrong color and couldn't be changed.

I can't guess whether AlphaSims did the texture mapping that way to make it difficult to repaint their plane, or if it was an unintended result of having different people working on different models, or one person working on different models at different times. Whatever the reason, I'll bet that this is a big part of the reason why this plane has been, as someone put it, "underpainted."

If there had been any amphibians in pre-war colors, I would have painted them for sure! But alas, the amphibian didn't enter service until after the advent of camouflage.

I wanted a pre-WW2 amphibian for Golden Wings, so I downloaded someone else's paint of a Battle of Midway amphibian and added the rudder stripes and the red centers to the national insignia. That's probably what the plane looked like around the time of the attack on Pearl harbor.
 
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p3aewguy said:
Thanks Mick! I think that was the only one I had issue with. I downloaded all of them except the new Coast Guard paint (not realistic to me).

Dave
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OK, now I've gone back and checked all the uploads, and that was the only one with any problems. But the fix is temporary, as Jamie is working on a new model that will allow a reflective sheen and not mess up the look of the spinning props or the VC panel (which I hadn't even known about.) In fact, if you're not worried about rain effects, you can download a WIP copy of his new model using the link in his post.

Actually, the modern Coast Guard paint isn't the only one that isn't realistic. Neither is the other warbird I painted. I figure that the paint jobs aren't realistic on the real warbirds, in that they don't look like the planes did when they were in service, but the models are realistic reproductions of the warbirds. I like 'em because they look good.
 
Alpha pby-5 paints

Mick,

Thanks for the prompt and very comprehensive reply to my query regarding your pre-WWII paints in the PBY-5A models. My personal inspection of the way that ALPHA had organised their original paints, indicated the inherent sweat that would be involved in producing even a simple paint on these models and your detailed examination of the way these paints are organised confirms that completely.

No matter, really enjoying what you have done and achieved with this model.

Rgds and thanks again.
Mal
 
Mick said:

Actually, the modern Coast Guard paint isn't the only one that isn't realistic. Neither is the other warbird I painted. I figure that the paint jobs aren't realistic on the real warbirds, in that they don't look like the planes did when they were in service, but the models are realistic reproductions of the warbirds. I like 'em because they look good.
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In a similar vein I remember the late Charles Church, when asked why he had had his Spitfire painted in non-authentic scheme
replied " because I can afford it ".


ttfn

Pete
 
Hi Mick, thanks for all the paints. I've had a blast installing and checking them out.

I changed the alphas to white on the CG50 paint, I'll have to download it again to try out Jamie's new model.

Is there any chance you could be persuaded to upload your prewar camo paint? Sounds like something I'd enjoy.

Thanks,

PF
 
The most frustrating part of the original Alpha release was/is the bloody 'Yagi' antenna stuck on every aircraft!
Like Mick, I tweaked and repacked textures ad infinitum but finally gave up in disgust.
Then again, it was the 'cheap and cheerful' Alpha era, and a half decent Cat was better than no Cat.
:ernaehrung004:
 
JDTinballs said:
......maybe try again tomorrow.
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Unfortunately I don't think I'll get the chance tonight, preparing for a Cancer research party we are throwing tomorrow night. My 9 and 7 year old daughters are running/walking 5k soon in the 'race for life' and my 9 year old is 'donating' her birthday party with the guests bringing donations instead of presents (she doesn't need any more toys/games/books, believe me!!). Lots to organise and that means tomorrows out too, sorry chaps.

TTFN,
Jamie
 
pfflyers said:
... Is there any chance you could be persuaded to upload your prewar camo paint? Sounds like something I'd enjoy...
Click to expand...

I don't feel free to release it on this site (or any other public site) because it's someone else's repaint with just a few very minor changes. But if you'll send me a PM I'd be happy to share the texture files that I modified.

The whole paint is probably too big to attach to an e-mail, but you can get the repaint and drop my modified textures into the texture folder. You can get the paint at AvSim. It's "[FONT=verdana, sans-serif]Alphasim PBY Catalina "Patrol Squadron 24" by [/FONT]Albert Vermeule:

http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=79094

If the link doesn't grab it for you, just search AvSim for "Albert Vermeule" and it should come up at the top of the list.
 
wombat666 said:
The most frustrating part of the original Alpha release was/is the bloody 'Yagi' antenna stuck on every aircraft!
Like Mick, I tweaked and repacked textures ad infinitum but finally gave up in disgust.
Then again, it was the 'cheap and cheerful' Alpha era, and a half decent Cat was better than no Cat.
Click to expand...

Yeah, those antennae are especially annoying on the flying boat, because by the time they were added, the war was on, and the flying boats were rapidly giving way to the amphibians. And they were gone by the end of the war, while the amphibious Cat stayed active for years after that. So for most paints of planes from most times, they're inappropriate. But since I don't have the time or motivation to learn how to make my own models, I accept that the only way to see some paint jobs I like is to paint them onto a model that isn't the correct version, or has or lacks some feature.

In plastic I would make the model as authentic as the paint job. But in plastic I would never have the shelf space for fifteen or twenty 1/72 scale PBYs, even if I lived long enough to build and paint them all.

I wish they'd made a model with the radar on the pylon above the flight deck. And an old, round-tailed flying boat without waist blisters. I could spend years painting those in the colors of all the units that flew them before the advent of camouflage! And a -6 with the tall Nomad tail. But I can't complain; they gave it away for free, and I'm having fun with it.

Mike Stone's PBY is so easy to paint, but it has no VC and it only comes as an amphibian. I use it for AI and as a static scenery object, but I'd rather fly with a VC.
 
Hi Folks,
Throwing something into the pot. Been working on this on and off for a while. As said, many thanks to Alpha for making the Cat freeware, very generous of them!

I wanted the most common Cat used by RAF-Coastal Command/RAAF/RNAF/RCAF, basically Mk's Ia, Ib, II, IIa and IVa with and without radar aerials, also I was gob-smacked at how Alpha had aranged the tex mapping, so many texs and yet they didn't fit all the models??!

Alpha made their RAF CC Cat version as an amphibian MkIIIa (PBY-5A), of which only 12 were built for the RAF, and the tex mapping was specific to this model, so both not really useful.

I've now made it into a basic Cat, re-shaped the engines, made the front gun position into a CC turret with a single mg (did the USAAF/USMC use many PBY-5's?). Had to re-animate everything, and although Alpha had made the doors/cockpit canopy open, they didn't make the rear blisters open or the nice mg's inside swivel out, which I've now done.

Still lots to do, I'm going to put gun crew in, animate the VC, the tex mapping to be sorted (although now a bit of a mix of RAF and USAAF-Blackcat, not a problem to paint). I can make this into a MkI which is a PBY-5 (six mg's), and put a radome above the cockpit (were PBY-5A's ever fitted with radomes or only the taller tailed PBY-6A?)....and no time lines on these.

Cheers

Shessi
 
Wow! Great! I'll be looking forward to the fruits of your efforts!

It sounds like I'll have to re-do some of my paint jobs, but it should be worth it. Sounds like it should be easier than the original jobs, too.

I don't suppose you'd be interested in making a model with the old, round tail and the flush waist gun hatches? That would open the door for a lot of very colorful paint jobs. There were squadrons with solid tail colors, single horizontal bands, double horizontal bands, vertical stripes - some of 'em even had checkers!

To answer your question, I'm quite certain that neither the U.S. Army / Air Force nor the Marines ever used the -5 flying boat.

The Marines used the -5A amphibian, apparently in surprisingly small numbers. In U.S. Marine Corps Aircraft 1914 - 1959, Bill Larkins tells us that the Corps had 20 -5As in late 1941, and he presents a photo of one in early 1942 colors and markings. The plane has no unit or service markings at all, except probably a tiny stenciled text block with the service branch, type designation and Bureau Number on the fin, below the stabilizers, invisible in the photo. It can be assumed that Marine planes were indistinguishable from the Navy's, as was typical for Marine aircraft of that era.

Larkins makes no mention of any Marine PBYs for any other years, though we might safely assume that some of those twenty that the Corps had in 1941 were on strength for a while after that. Any post-war Marine PBYs would have worn the overall Dark Sea Blue scheme and carried prominent MARINES titles. Surely photos would have been taken and would have survived, but Larkins, who attempted to show a picture of every type in the markings of every unit that flew it during every time frame when they flew it, includes no photos of post-war Marine PBYs. Knowing Larkins' thoroughness, I think this strongly suggests that there weren't any.

The Army Air Forces used the -5A amphibian, which they called the OV-10A, in large numbers, and quite a few remained in U.S. Air Force service through the late 1940s and, I believe, into the fifties. Many USAAF planes came from Canadian production and were painted as RCAF Cansos in overall white. The Army accepted their planes in whatever colors they were delivered in and didn't bother to repaint them, and that's why there were a lot of all white OV-10As even though overall white wasn't a prescribed USAAF color scheme.

Anyway, it appears that the -5 flying boat, like all the earlier versions, was strictly a Navy plane in American service.
 
JDTinballs said:
...My 9 and 7 year old daughters are running/walking 5k soon in the 'race for life' and my 9 year old is 'donating' her birthday party with the guests bringing donations instead of presents ...
Jamie
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Wow, that's really nice of your girls, especially the one who's donating her birthday party!

You must be very proud of them!
 
Shessi said:
Hi Folks,
Throwing something into the pot. Been working on this on and off for a while. As said, many thanks to Alpha for making the Cat freeware, very generous of them!

I wanted the most common Cat used by RAF-Coastal Command/RAAF/RNAF/RCAF, basically Mk's Ia, Ib, II, IIa and IVa with and without radar aerials, also I was gob-smacked at how Alpha had aranged the tex mapping, so many texs and yet they didn't fit all the models??!

Alpha made their RAF CC Cat version as an amphibian MkIIIa (PBY-5A), of which only 12 were built for the RAF, and the tex mapping was specific to this model, so both not really useful.

I've now made it into a basic Cat, re-shaped the engines, made the front gun position into a CC turret with a single mg (did the USAAF/USMC use many PBY-5's?). Had to re-animate everything, and although Alpha had made the doors/cockpit canopy open, they didn't make the rear blisters open or the nice mg's inside swivel out, which I've now done.

Still lots to do, I'm going to put gun crew in, animate the VC, the tex mapping to be sorted (although now a bit of a mix of RAF and USAAF-Blackcat, not a problem to paint). I can make this into a MkI which is a PBY-5 (six mg's), and put a radome above the cockpit (were PBY-5A's ever fitted with radomes or only the taller tailed PBY-6A?)....and no time lines on these.

Cheers

Shessi
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Veerrry Nice! Great job Shessi! I look forward to this release.

Dave
 
Shessi said:
... were PBY-5A's ever fitted with radomes or only the taller tailed PBY-6A?)...
Click to expand...

I missed this question at first, but the answer is YES, many -5As were fitted with radomes on pylons over the flight deck. It was definitely not limited to the -6. That rig was standard by the post-war period, but it was introduced some time before the end of the war. There's a photo in the "In Action" booklet of a late-war -5A "black cat" with the pylon radome. And post-war photos of -5s invariably show the pylon radome.

All of my post-WW2 paints should go on a model with that radome.

By the way, there's another late war modification that's of relevance here, and that's the new "eyeball" style nose turret. The AlphaSim flying boat and armed amphibian models all have that turret, and it's definitely not appropriate for pre-war or early war aircraft. (It's easy not to notice because the model's glass is so completely transparent that you really have to look to see the bulge in the top of the turret, and you have to look at it from the very front to see the round shape of the gun aperture.) The "eyeball" turret was introduced some time during the war, as there are photos of both flying boats and amphibians in mid- or late war markings with the new turret. But the old, flat-topped turret is the only one that's appropriate for pre-war and early war aircraft.
 
Regarding USMC use of the PBY:


Major Jack Randolph Cram (USMC), was the personal pilot of Marine General Roy Geiger's PBY-5A, the "Blue Goose." On 15 October 1942, he won the Navy Cross and permanent nickname "Mad Jack" in operations at Guadalcanal. In two previous days of shelling, Japanese battleships and destroyers had all but destroyed Henderson Field and more than half of the Marines' aircraft remaining on the island. Twelve miles up the beach, Japanese transport ships were preparing to disembark troops to retake Guadalcanal. At 0700 on the fifteenth, 30 Zeros circled at 15,000 feet over the invasion area.

The Marines could scrape together only 12 Dauntless dive-bombers and 8 Wildcats to meet the threat. Cram volunteered the " Blue Goose" for the attack. Normally, the PBY was used only for transport, patrol, or reconnaissance missions, but Cram was not concerned that a PBY had never made a daylight torpedo attack. He mounted two 2,000-pound torpedoes on the wings and rigged wires from the cockpit to release them. Without a copilot and with only five minutes of instruction on torpedo bombing, he launched the "Blue Goose" for the attack. One mile from the enemy fleet, he put the aircraft into a dive and although the PBY-5A was built for a maximum speed of 160 miles per hour, Cram saw 270 mph before he leveled off at 75 feet.

While taking fire from Japanese transports and destroyers, Cram released his torpedoes--both were hits. After he pulled off from the sinking transport, five Zeros attacked the "Blue Goose." Members of the crew--Metz, Hoffman, Anderson, Kirby, and Horton--fought back with .30-caliber machine guns. Cram still had one Zero on his tail when he arrived at Henderson Field, but luckily, a marine in an F4F was gear down in the pattern and saw Cram's plight. The Wildcat pilot extended his turn to final approach and shot down the Zero just as Cram landed. Upon inspection, the "Blue Goose" had more than 160 holes in it. The unorthodox attack by the Marine strike force sank three transports and damaged several others. After Guadalcanal, Major Cram went on to command VMB-612, an experimental night bomber squadron. Brigadier General Jack Cram retired in 1959.
 
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