P-36, 27th Pursuit Squadron Info Needed

[TimDarrah]

Might anyone know of a good source of camo schemes used by the 27th Pursuit Squadron's P-36s at the 1939 Cleveland Air Races?

 

I've always been interested in those schemes and want to try to do some..

 

I have the "newish" Scale Aircraft Modelling Colours Combat Colours #3 The Curtis P-36 and P-40 in USAAC/USAAF 1939 to 1945 and the Aviation Workshop's On Target Special Wings of Stars, US Army Air Corps 1919-1941. Both have just one 4 view drawing and several side views, but I'd like more info.

 

I looked at Amazon and Google with very little success.

 

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.

 

Tim

[Nick Filippone]

Tim, Hi! Wings Palette shows several 27th PS P-36 schemes that might be what you are looking for. Regards, Nick

Edited May 30, 2017 by Nick Filippone

[TimDarrah]

Nick,

 

Thanks, I'll have to look that up.

 

Tim

[ghodges]

Tim: Get "Air Force Colors, Vol. 1" by Dana Bell. It has a lot of color profiles of USAAC planes in the temporary camo colors, including a P-36 in the Cleveland Races scheme. Also, Check the USAF Museum pictures as their P-36 was in that scheme for decades (60's-90's) and there should be some color shots of it from back then.

 

Keep in mind that all of those temporary camo colors were water based paints and generally not matched to any specific Air Corp colors. The P-36 you asked about appears to be in a 5 color scheme of dark/pumpkin orange, dark OD, very light gray (or white), violet/light purple, and medium bronze green (not as dark as the interior or anti-glare panel bronze green).

 

Also check on temporary camo colors from the early and mid-30s (before the races) as with the strict budgets of the times, there's a good chance the USAAC was still using left over paint stocks from then for some of those colors. If you find reference to a color then that looks like it was on the P-36 later, I'd go with it.

 

Hope this helps!

 

GIL