Piper L-4 Grasshopper Skin Sets by Mick

Researching post war Grasshoppers was interesting. I could only find solid evidence for three U.S. military planes, if you discount half a dozen other silver ones with just slightly different markings than the Tinker Field plane. But that's better than I did for the WW2 sets, where hardly any of the references I could find were really reliable. Aside from a vintage photo of the very early plane with the meatball stars it was mostly plastic model decal sheets likely based on black & white photos, and sometimes artists who painted the same plane interpreted the colors very differently.

I wasn't surprised to see that quite a few owners of regular J-3 Cubs have painted their planes to look like L-4s and NEs. I was surprised to see that a number of L-4owners have painted their planes to look like regular J-3 Cubs. Most of them look exactly alike except for their registrations. I picked the Swiss one because of the tail band. And I couldn't resist the one dressed as a Marine Corps Stinson. It's bogus but it's pretty! So the plane might not be authentic as a real L-4 but the skin is an authentic reproduction of the warbird.

If you happened to put the Alaska Air Command plane from the floatplane set on wheels you may have noticed that the hubcaps weren't white to match the main color of the plane, and the bottoms of the landing gear legs were dark OD. You can just substitute the two main fuselage textures to make everything the right color.
 
Mick,
Thanks for the great repaints and background info. You turned up lots of interesting info. There were once so many Cubs flying post war and being rebuilt or recovered that you might see almost any combination. Some interesting free-style mods cropped up. Feds were a bit more liberal about approvals.

I once flew a cream Cub with a red stripe that had a glider (TG-8?) serial number. A lot of the glider birds were converted to powered Cubs. Piper had an extensive service instruction on how to cut the glider front end off and fab/weld a new front end to it.

Thanks again,
normb
 
Piper L-4 "Lil' Mo IV"

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A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category FS 2004 Military skins - World War II

Description: A skin for Allen's Piper L-4 Grashopper

I thought I was finished painting L-4s until I stumbled onto a photo of Lil' Mo IV, a Grasshopper warbird with an attractive livery that surely never appeared on an L-4 over Normandy on D-Day.

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit Piper L-4 "Lil' Mo IV"
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.
 
Thanks another great paint job. In my world you can never have enough Cubs (or other "L-Birds")!

How about the Bazooka Charlie Cub? Flown against tanks and transporters with bazookas attached to the wing struts. Collins Foundation has had the original bird restored. I forget the pilots name but he had quite a war record. Now that there are CFS2 L-4's available maybe someone could fab a weapons file (?) add the bazookas or mod an Allen bird.

Thanks again.
normb
 
You were way ahead of me! How could I miss it? Wealth of good things I guess.

I only became aware of the plane and the pilot recently. What a warrior he was. Going against tanks and other armored stuff with a dope and fabric covered 65HP flivver.

Thanks
 
Allen said:
"Rosie the Rocketer" is one of the "stock" texture for my L-4.
Click to expand...

Yes indeed! That's why I didn't paint any other D-Day Grasshoppers. I couldn't find any that were as interesting and nifty as Rosie. They would've looked boring by comparison.
 
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