Japanese WWII Aircraft Aotake Primer Coatings

Contrary to Western misconceptions during the 1930s and 1940s, the Japanese were ahead of many other nations within certain fields of innovation and technology.  Some people are aware of the vastly superior Japanese oxygen 'long lance' torpedoes, superior optics, long ranging submarines, and the venerable Zero fighter that out-maneuvered everything in the sky in 1941.  But few know about aotake.  This strikingly bright coating was developed as a corrosion preventative in the early 1930s for use in the aeronautical industry, and it is technically one of a family of zabon enamel coatings. Surrounded by salt water and employing the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, the Japanese were keenly aware of the importance of corrosion resistance.  The Japanese also possessed a somewhat unique attitude with respect to the design and construction of their aircraft.  Unlike other airplanes built for the air forces of other countries, Japanese aircraft were built to last.  Disadvantaged as Japan was in terms of industrial output, the Japanese Army and Navy were expected to make do with the machines they were given for several years - as opposed to several months in the cases of other air forces.  Japanese aircraft were built by hand, like Swiss watches.  While these standards were compromised as greater demands were placed upon the industry after the Pacific War started in earnest, the application of the aotake primer coatings continued until almost the end of the war.  Nothing preserved metal better in those days.

Aotake remains an unsung hero; superior to the American zinc chromate primers.  Studies were conducted during and after the war in the United States that confirmed this, and aircraft archaeologists since the war have often remarked on the far greater longevity of Japanese aircraft abandoned in the jungles of the South Pacific.  Charles Darby, the famous Australian wreck hunter, once said, "If you happened upon an aircraft in the bush that at once appeared amazingly intact, chances were that it was Japanese."

But it remains mysterious stuff.  There are few examples of it still around to study.  In spite of its longevity, 70 years or more has been long enough to virtually erase it from the remaining Pacific wrecks that remain unsalvaged.  Most Japanese aircraft that were restored for museums and private collections after the war were stripped and rebuilt in such a way that this original material was destroyed in the process (ironically, some of these aircraft today are internally coated with something akin to the inferior zinc chromate).  It's unfortunate, because few paints of wartime heritage could ever be described as genuinely 'pretty'.  Aotake is an exception.  In modern terms this coating might best be described as a candy coat.  It was a translucent clear coating that was tinted in the interests of making it visible for uniform application.  It possessed a high gloss, and due to its application over bright aluminum components it took on the appearance of a metallic-like bright blue or green that would look perfectly appropriate on the exterior of an American hot rod. Until the 1980s, aotake remained virtually unknown, like most details concerning Japanese WWII aircraft colors. But it is greatly misunderstood even today.

The coloring that was added to aotake did not have a specific standardized formula. While it could most often be described generally as 'blue/green' in appearance, it was very often more green than blue, more blue than green, yellow/green, and everything in between.  Furthermore, all of these shades could be encountered within the framework of the same individual aircraft; often adjacent or overlapping each other. Aotake was applied to individual pieces - large and small, panels and braces - both before they were assembled and after assembly. Aotake was applied throughout the fabrication and assembly process and thus the same piece of metal might receive anywhere from one coat to multiple coats of aotake - each coat not necessarily the same shade. Various components were coated by various subcontractors (the Japanese aviation industry was highly decentralized long before aerial bombing made it even more so), and even within subcontractors, different batches of aotake were of different shades.  When these thousands of parts were assembled, the end result was very much a patchwork of subtly different colors.

The following examples of applied aotake originated from the same aircraft - A6M3 Model 32 Zero, serial number 3148, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in September 1942:

      

After an aircraft was constructed, including its exterior sheet aluminum, the Japanese commonly over-sprayed the bright aotake with dull black paint.  But this was very much a hit and miss application. Obviously, much of the aircraft structure was difficult to access, and the black coating was very unevenly applied.  When surviving examples of these parts are studied today, bright areas of aotake that were protected and covered by other components during construction can be seen adjacent to areas of dull black:

  

The history and technical application of aotake might not be seen as especially critical archaeology, but when historians falsely attribute pieces of aircraft that were shot down over Pearl Harbor as originating from different machines due to different shades of aotake, for example, it's important to know the truth regarding the application of this material.  It's also important for those intending to rebuild a Japanese aircraft that is potentially invaluable, and it certainly offers scale modelers with yet another tool in their arsenals to create a uniquely accurate model.  Last but not least, we should give credit where credit is due: the Japanese got this one right!

- Ron Cole


  

Mission Impossible: Turning Dusk to Day in Eleven Hours

by Ron Cole


When I worked in LA as an industrial designer for Mattel, one of their art directors told me once that a model I'd spent days making was perfect except that it needed to be about 5% smaller.  Those of us accustomed to that sort of work and dealing with professional clients have all had similar experiences at one time or another.  Such deflating and anti-climactic 'reveals' after hours and hours of labor can be a blow leading to a domino effect of other delayed projects, marathons in the workshop (I worked 26 hours straight once), and cancelled recreational plans.  But they can also present thrilling challenges that provide a bit of spice to one's life, and a real sense of accomplishment when something that seemed impossible is successfully completed.

Case in point:  When So and So Aviation Magazine (that's not their real name) contacted me to do their cover art for their January/February 2014 edition, I was pretty excited.  With a circulation of over 400,000, the business marketing side of me saw how that kind of exposure would be fantastic for my business.  Of course with that came the added pressure of feeling like I had to do something particularly spectacular, but with almost two months of lead time I wasn't too worried about it.  My previous experience as a designer - where people say that it's not enough to be the best, you have to also be the fastest - had made me a very efficient artist.  All speed ahead.  I completed the painting in about three weeks:

They liked it when they received it, and in fact I'd shared numerous 'in progress' images of the piece as it evolved to make sure that the composition fit the page and that my overall direction was what they were looking for.  I sent them the high resolution file, felt proud, and moved onto other commissions.

At about the time I was eagerly expecting to see the magazine released, I received a call from one of their art people.  The head art director liked the painting, but felt that the color palate was all wrong for a magazine cover.  It wouldn't 'pop' enough on the shelf.  (Ironically, I knew exactly what he was talking about.  I'd constructed a prototype scale motorcycle for a company once, painted it dark metallic orange, and while they loved it in almost every way - they rejected it because of the color.)  I was thinking, Okay, I'll tweak the colors; maybe brighten it a bit.

No.

They asked me if I could produce a 'daylight version' of the same painting - and they needed it in three days. In my head, I heard Stewie Griffin cry, "Say whaaaaaat???" But by the end of the phone call my somewhat sheepish assurances that I could do it had become more resolute.  I was trying to work out in my head how it could be done while we spoke.  I could do it - almost certainly.

Of course what remained entirely uncertain was how good the results would be.  Changing the light source in a finished painting is demanding enough all by itself.  This would be a whole new color palate and an entirely different background.  I thought I'd been so slick when I made the aircraft in my composition sport a high gloss reflective finish, and now that finish would have to reflect a completely different environment.  This was hardly going to be the 'particularly spectacular' cover I'd spent three weeks painting in the first place.

Thank God for my weird artistic process.  Having been an old-school acrylic on canvas painter in my youth, and a digital painter who produced architectural work for develops later in life, I'd combobulated a way to play to the strengths of both media.  One side effect of the process is that all of my work exists as high resolution .psd files with most elements in each composition saved on separate layers.

While hardly representative of the way I normally paint a painting, I think that the process through which I accomplished this drastic and last minute revision is worth describing.  

Step One: The background would be a total loss, no avoiding that.  It depicted a set sun located roughly behind the aircraft carrier Bunker Hill.  Any daylight composition would have to put the sun somewhere out of frame above everything, or behind the viewer.  All of the layers that related to the sky and clouds were deleted.  The ocean surface ultimately reflected the sky and its color palate - so all of its layers were deleted. So much for all of those hours spent, so sad.

Step Two:  Say 'goodbye' to all of the remaining color.  In the digital realm it's usually easy to change colors, but you can't just press a button and get what you want.  In this case I spent a good hour trying to see if I could manipulate the original color palate of the aircraft and other elements bit by bit, but it was obvious that this method would be more trouble than it was worth.  Somewhat reluctantly, I flattened all of the remaining layers (minus the sky and water) and turned them black and white:

  
Talk about a regression!  At this point I was essentially dealing with a very complicated colorization project, the likes of which I've done with old Civil War and WWII period photographs - except with a lot of new painting inevitably involved.

Step Three:  Paint a new sky and ocean surface.  I cheated here - sort of.  I seldom have any reason to be thankful for the fact that I leave many painting projects unfinished and languishing about for years.  In this case it was a blessing, as I was lucky enough to find a mostly completed sky with a light source appropriate for my needs.  The sun was just out of frame to the upper left, which was perfect.  It would justify a somewhat back-lit aircraft, and the sun's partial obstruction by thin clouds would diffuse the light and eliminate the need to paint hard shadows over everything.  Wonderful!  All I had to do from scratch was paint a new ocean surface, and slip the whole canvas behind all of the foreground elements:

  
Welcome to our new color palate!  But it was not now just a matter of re-introducing these colors to all of the things that had been previously orange.  The digital realm allows me to do that, insofar I can mask off areas of pixels or choose pixels of similar value and color them - but the end results never look realistic; they look like a colorized old picture.  The reason for this effect is because in the real world there are frequencies of light bouncing off of everything from all sorts of primary and secondary light sources, and in that process those frequencies of light - those combinations of colors - become separated.  What our human eyes seem to interpret as a specific shade of blue, for example, is in reality a hundred slightly different hues.  Digital colorization does not replicate that (the third aircraft from the top reveals what it looks like to apply simple colorization techniques):

  
Step Four:  The only thing left to do was to paint, keeping in mind the inherent attributes of the different surfaces being rendered.  Glossy blue will exchange a potion of its color value with the color value of what's being reflected off of it, while the values of non-reflective surfaces will still be changed by ambient light, though not in the same way . . . all things that I believe are best learned by simply observing the real world. But the painting at this point more resembled a complex paint-by-numbers exercise; employing semi-opaque color so as not to obliterate the original forms.  Some additional changes were made.  The soft shadows left behind from the previous light source were painted over.  The clouds that were previously reflected in the aircraft were changed to match the new background.  The lights of the aircraft were turned off.  Details, like the pilot, that had been cast in darkness from being more directly back-lit were brightened.  Lights were turned off and the bright exhaust flames were painted to look more subdued.  I moved some things around.

The end result, eleven hours later, looked pretty good:

Overall I'm very happy with the result - somewhat to my surprise and very much to my relief.  I was able to pull off an unprecedented last minute revision with essentially two days to spare.  What I have to thank for it, primarily, besides finding a good background that saved quite a bit of time, was the use of digital media.  As an old-school artist who once hated the so-called 'subversion' of all that was 'genuine' about the art of painting, I used to fear what I did not then understand.  Today I cannot imagine doing what I do for a living without it, because while I still believe that there is great value in the works of chemical pigments and animal hair brushes, the industry that we work in today is far more demanding than any paint on canvas alone can adapt to.

If I'd painted this painting originally on a stretched piece of canvas - I would have, without any question, lost this magazine cover.  Period.


- Ron Cole

The Ruthlessness of Airplane Art

by Ron Cole

It was in the first minute of the first class of the first day of college.  My Business professor, before he even introduced himself, virtually shouted the following declaration that has stuck with me for all of these years:

"Business is war!"

After that class I was thankful that my career path would probably never put me into the position of being an entrepreneur.  I didn't think I'd have it in me.  It wasn't that I thought that I lacked the smarts or skills for it, but it was never in my nature to live my life like that; in a state of perpetual warfare with equally ruthless competitors; conjuring the sort of Devil within that was evidently a primary ingredient to success in modern free market capitalism.  I look for the best in people, not for a way to run them over.  I did not want to do anything with my life where that would be regarded as a weakness.

My career post-college was as an industrial designer, mostly in the toy industry.  If you bought anything 'Hot Wheels' or 'Barbie, My Scenes' between 2001 and 2007, then you are familiar with my work.  My favorite part of that period of my career was that I focused on helping people have fun.  Of course the business end of it was always there.  Mattell, the company I worked with most regularly, was more conscious of secrecy than IBM had been when my father worked there.  I was clearly in a business that was on guard against the ruthless warfare inherent within it; always going to every conceivable extreme to make sure they never surrendered an advantage to the enemy - their competition.

But I was happily working apart from that realm.  A rear echelon guy.

To help keep my wife in school we both started a small eBay business selling designer shoes.  I kind of happened upon the idea by accident, and to make a long story short we found ourselves a great secondary source of income.  After a while its profits vastly exceeded my regular income, and we discovered that we were among the most successful eBayers then selling online.

And that's when it happened.  That's when we became big enough to become a target.  One of the shoe designers, who's daughter actually went to the same private school as our own son, contacted eBay and falsely claimed that the shoes we were selling were counterfeit.  EBay took her word for it and de-listed everything that we were selling of her brand.  Every time we provided evidence to the contrary, and eBay then allowed us to resume selling them, she'd do it again and the process kept repeating itself.  The disruptions caused our sales to drop almost 15% for several months, and the effort and anxiety expended to combat it all was sometimes overwhelming.  Surely she knew what she was doing.  She was fighting her war.

Aviation Art: Just Another Battlefield? 

I more or less fell backward into being a professional aviation artist.  I had a jumble of experiences and some talent that collided with my life-long interest in historical aviation and military history.  I used to build scale model aircraft.  When we left Los Angeles to facilitate my wife's higher education and her career, I was left adrift to find a new means of income that didn't rely on living next to Mattell's corporate offices or access to designer shoe trunk sales - all of which stayed in LA.  I'd already discovered that I could run a profitable small business.  From out of this potpourri of ingredients fell my new career as an aviation artist.  My business grew quickly.

And that's when it happened.

I might have expected to be attacked by our old relentless nemesis from the designer shoe world (she was that driven by spite, in my opinion).  At the risk of sounding naive, I simply didn't think that the genre' of aviation art - made up in large part by professional and semi-professional gentleman (and some very talented ladies, too) who almost always treat each other as respected peers, if not friends - would give birth to the ruthlessness of the business war.

As had happened in the shoe business, the attack came from a surprisingly successful and well known person; the kind of individual you'd think would be above resorting to dirty tactics to subvert their competition.

They contacted one of my clients and business partners, a non-profit aviation museum in England. This fellow artist advised them, with feigned but apparently genuine-sounding concern, that I was a fraud who stole all of my 'so-called artwork' from other artists and sold it as my own.  No evidence was provided.  The museum contacted me and told me all about it, except that they didn't reveal his name to me. While they clearly did not take him or his accusations seriously, they also did not want to be in the middle of a fight.  All I could do was take measures through my own marketing channels and online to indirectly combat the accusation.  I revealed 'snap shots' of my works in progress that proved the accusations false, and I fumed and brooded and worried endlessly that some mysterious person was trying to hurt me in the most insidious and back-handed way possible.  In addition to being concerned for my own business, I also wondered who else this unscrupulous aviation artist was trying to maliciously undermine.

There are several very troubling aspects to this form of attack.  It's extremely hard to detect.  An artist relies exclusively upon his client or partner to bring it to his attention.  Very often the artist/client relationship is fleeting by nature and isn't based upon a long social history.  In today's cynical world any hint of potential scandal can scare off otherwise fair and objective businesses and individuals before any explanation is even sought.  Even when a relationship weathers the storm, even when your partner sticks by you and your work -  does there still remain a seed of doubt that effects the relationship?  How many clients, or potential clients, have aviation artists lost due to back door attacks of this nature?

If you're an aviation artist and this guy regards you as competition, you might already be a victim and not even know it.

After a long period of hearing nothing, another client of mine was contacted - not once but twice - over the course of the Christmas holidays of 2013.

This time I was lucky, because my client also happened to be a good friend of mine who knew me very well. I received this person's communications filled with completely invented accusations.  He claimed that I was a fraud, again, this time insisting that I stole copyrighted photographs, mirrored them, added a 'simple' Photoshop effect, and sold them as 'art'.  In his second communication, after he'd failed to receive a response to the first, he went so far as to try and intimidate my client by suggesting they could be held civilly liable for doing business with me.  Most important of all, however: I got his real name.

And I was shocked.

I did send him a long letter that I hope appealed to his sense of decency.  I explained that I respected his work, which remains true.  I congratulated him on a new commission that he'd just had published.  I warned him in the strongest possible terms that if he ever tried to spread false rumors, or subvert my business by contacting my clients with invented accusations again - I would sue him for Business Defamation and refuse any settlement on principle.

It should never have to come to that.

It is because I refuse to fight this 'war' like a vengeful combatant that I refrain from revealing his identity at this point.  I thought long and hard about that, though, because the only thing more shocking than who he is, is the fact that I do not know him. That makes it all even more disturbing to me, and the temptation to reveal his identity and sound an alarm within our community was great.  This article is the end result of a compromise that I think strikes a fair balance.

I write this as an appeal to the aviation art community.  We can choose what our genre' will tolerate.  We can establish the rules of war for ourselves, and let it be known that, even in some instance when an accusation might have some kind of merit - there is a right way and a wrong way of doing things in the aviation art world.  As for me, I'm going to continue to do what I love to do more than anything I've done with my life so far - I'm going to keep painting pretty airplanes for a living.

- RC


   

Japanese A6M3 Model 32 Zero (3148) Forensics: Part I

We're a little crazy - those of us who are so obsessed with the combat aircraft of Japan during WWII that we dive into our research so deeply that it can only be compared with the work of Egyptologists meticulously dissecting a 4000-year-old mummy.  It's a sickness.  I don't know how I caught it.  All I know is that I've exhibited its symptoms since I was a kid.  I also know that, as an adult, I've witnessed mature and otherwise respectable men almost come to physical blows over differences in interpretation of our research.  I suppose such things happen in every genre' where people become passionate - and, oh yeah, where egos are usually at the helm.  I once found myself in the middle of an online fight over whether Japanese aircraft navigation lights were constructed with a clear light bulb within a translucent colored housing, or a colored light bulb within a clear housing.  People reverted to calling each other names.

I learned to steer clear of certain forums after that.  However: Clear bulb with a colored housing.  And the Japanese didn't use translucent green, they used blue because their 'white' lights were actually yellow.  A little crazy, but I love the subject and the research nonetheless.  

Recently I acquired a significant collection of very rare original parts from a Japanese A6M3 Model 32 Zero - known to the Allies during the war as 'Hamp'.  A very rare aircraft, of which only 343 were ever built, this one having been constructed in September 1942 by Mitsubishi (they were the sole manufacturers of this particular variant).  The Model 32 is most notable for its clipped wing tips, a feature believed by the Allies at the time to provide the aircraft with better low-altitude performance, but was in reality a simple cost saving measure by the Japanese (replacing the Model 22's complex folding wing tips).  Since then I've had a field day studying these parts.

Nothing riles both the appetite and the passions of a Japanese aircraft nut so much as color information, and in spite of over 40 years in the tropics (these parts were recovered from Taroa in the 1980s) there was much to be gleaned from them.

Probably the most elusive color to identify and match among all of the pigments employed by the Japanese has always been the gray used to paint the early Navy fighters.  This is the color that all of the Zeros were painted that attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 (unlike those portrayed in the Hollywood movie).  Because the Japanese stopped using it in 1943 and began using a very different gray, authentic samples of the early war color have been extremely hard to come by.  For decades historians reverted to eye witness explanations from veterans, and as a consequence came to accept a chalky white color.  Though that shade is still championed by some, who seem inclined to have their declarations in support of it carved upon their gravestones, more recent discoveries of this color on actual pieces of these aircraft reveal something very different and somewhat counter-intuitive.

It has been described as 'olive gray' and 'gray brown'.  Technically it is very close to Federal Standards color number 34201, and it had a high gloss as applied at Mitsubishi factories.  I was happy to discover examples of this paint on samples of material from opposite ends of the same aircraft: from the tail and from the inside of the port wheel well.  The latter example (shown above) was a surprise due to the fact that it has been assumed that the wheel wells of the Zero - all makes and models - were left in the well-known 'Aotake' blue/green primer that commonly adored the internals of most all wartime Japanese aircraft.  The wheel wells being an 'internal' area, it was a reasonable assumption.  But false, at least in the case of this aircraft.  The evidence reveals that the components were painted with primer before assembly, and then received a thick spray-painted coat of gray along with the exterior of the aircraft.  The method and even direction of application can be ascertained, as certain areas that were hard to reach behind structural frames were partly missed, while the paint built up thickly in other areas.  Most importantly, however, the unique color of 'olive gray' so described in recent studies is precisely verified in these examples.

It's a weird color in relation to other 'grays' applied to other military aircraft through the ages, and I suppose for that reason alone it was more logical to adhere to the proven false belief that it was a more logical average 'chalky' gray.  Again, however, an exterior aluminum panel (above), that was once partly covered by a fairing, does reveal the same gray that was encountered in the wheel well.

It's worth repeating that this paint originally was of a high gloss.  It did weather to a dull finish rather quickly if neglected, but many Japanese pilots have testified to the fact that their ground crews took great pride in maintaining this glossy finish. These aircraft were the Samurai swords of the mid-20th Century. They were regarded as the property of the Emperor, bequeathed into the able hands of his subjects in the interests of the Empire.  They were not neglected.  It's also a fact that the Japanese paint and primers used in the construction of these aircraft were the best in the world at the time.  Allied studies during and shortly after the war did not shy away from giving credit where credit was due in this case.  It's also true that, as Charles Darby noted in his 1979 book, 'Pacific Aircraft Wrecks and Where to Find Them', Japanese aircraft tended to far outlast their Allied contemporaries abandoned in the bush and surrendered to the tropical elements. During the war all of this translated into aircraft that stood up better, looked better, resisted chipping and other signs of wear and tear better than anything in the air at the time.  While one might otherwise expect a war-weary looking machine after a short time, Japanese machines were simply better built and better maintained by the men responsible for them.  While these standards of Japanese manufacture and maintenance began to go into decline after 1943 - they held almost religiously true until the fates of war forced a change in priorities.  

- Ron Cole

The Story of a Zero - Japanese Zero A6M3 Mod. 32

In September 1942 a Zero fighter to replace the venerable A6M2 model (which had scorched Pacific skies since Pearl Harbor) rolled off of Mitsubishi's assembly lines and took an ox cart ride to its nearest aerodrome.  This version of the Zero, the A6M3 Model 32, was a big deal from the perspective of the designers and the Navy.  It had a more powerful engine, and it employed some modifications to make production easier and cheaper.  When it came to the folding wingtips of the previous model, for example, Mitsubishi cut them off and stuck an aluminum fairing at each wing tip.  Japanese pilots were not happy with such 'efficiency' measures and grumbled their displeasure across the Pacific.  Allied intelligence contemplated the significance of the clipped wings, theorizing that they might improve low altitude performance.  The Japanese wished!  But the Model 32 was merely a stop-gap machine - a slight improvement over its predecessor until the 'real' replacement was ready to enter production.  That aircraft, the A6M5, would boast an even more powerful engine and an entirely redesigned wing.  Thus Mitsubishi only produced 343 Model 32 aircraft, all from their same production line.

But our little plane that rolled out of the factory in September (and depicted above) was nevertheless destined for a unique life.  Her official name was just a number: 3148.  Whether her sponsors knew her by another, possibly more endearing name, is quite probable but lost to history.  3148's construction was paid for by funds raised by the Manchurian Secondary Schools, and was 'gifted' by schoolchildren to the Japanese Navy.  There would have been a ceremony at the time, with various VIPs from both the Navy and Mitsubishi present, as well as a Shinto priest on hand to bless the aircraft.  A series of ceremonial bowls would have been given to the school and to other key participants in the sponsorship.  The aircraft was adorned with special markings on its fuselage - behind the hinomaru insignia - denoting it as a sponsored aircraft and by whom.  Thus 3148 was a loved and appreciated machine of the sky from the very start.

Just as an enlisted man's life changes after going off to sea, so did the life of 3148.  She was assigned, without any fanfare this time, to the 252nd Kokutai (Navy Air Group) and sent off to the remote Marshall Island airfield of Taroa.  As assignments go, Taroa was regarded at the time as a key outpost that guarded the outermost defensive line of Japan's Pacific empire, but it was also largely ignored by the belligerents until 1944. Therefore, at a time when brand new Zeros were arriving at the front just in time to be destroyed in fierce, increasingly one-sided, battles - 3148 of the Manchurian Middle Schools was living a somewhat charmed life.  Even the Japanese Navy personnel at Taroa came to like the place at that time.  They cared for 3148, and the other aircraft at Taroa, much as fireman do their fire engines during downtime.

But the war did come.  On April 18, 1943, for example, it was very likely Zero fighters from Taroa (and quite possibly 3148) that stumbled upon a lone B-24D and shot it so full of holes that it never flew again, though it miraculously made it back to its base.  Unknown to the Japanese they'd shot up the aircraft of USAAF Lt. Louis Zamperini, an American Olympian who would go on to be the subject of a best selling book, 'Unbroken', and in 2014 a Hollywood film of the same name.

I have portrayed that April 1943 action in my painting above.

As the war in the Pacific increasingly encroached upon Taroa, the life of 3148 became more hazardous. By then one of Japan's best fighter pilots, Isamu Miyazaki, was flying out of the field.  He almost certainly flew 3148 himself at various times in combat.  Taroa was bombed.  Taroa was strafed by carrier-born Hellcat fighters. The respite that the tiny field had enjoyed came to an end.  In the case of Zero 3148, donated by schoolchildren at considerable expense and sacrifice and sent away to war with blessings and to shouts of 'Banzai!' - she was mortally wounded, not in aerial combat, but by bomb splinters that damaged her on the ground and wrecked her vitals beyond that which could be repaired locally.

Though Taroa was never invaded by the Allies, it was cut off from resupply and all of her aircraft were rendered unserviceable.  The war ended, and Taroa was forgotten.

      
Flash forward to the mid-1980s.  The terrible scrap drives of the '60s and '70s, which had decimated the vast majority of surviving WWII aircraft in the Pacific, were over.  They'd been replaced by a fast growing interest in the commercial investment opportunities provided by salvageable 'warbirds' still hiding in the jungles.  Once thought of in terms of their scrap value, something like a Japanese Zero in decent condition could turn into a million dollar restoration and a five million dollar sale at an aircraft auction.  These aircraft became big money, and while that sort of gold rush had its downsides, it probably saved 3148 from certain doom at the hands of aluminum exfoliation; from turning to dust. She was picked to be salvaged and was brought to the United States.  She changed hands many times as some restoration shops were either not up to the task or ran short of funds - familiar stories in the world of high end classic cars and collectible airplanes alike.

But by 2013 she was in the experienced hands of Legend Flyers, the company responsible for building several Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter jets from scratch.  They could do anything, and did!

 

           
A6M3 Model 32 Zero 3148 hasn't looked this good in a very long time!

My own relationship with this aircraft started in mid-2013.  Legend Flyers approached me to commission a painting of their unique two-seat Me 262 'Vera' that was captured in 1945 and test flown as one of Watson's Whizzers.  They restored that aircraft for static display and used its parts as patters for their 'new builds'. When my painting was completed they paid me generously in parts: specifically a full original engine nacelle panel from the Me 262:

I'm still in the process of restoring it and intend to paint it with its original colors and red stenciling, while leaving the inside all original.

Then they asked me if we could make a similar trade for the Zero.  I've loved the Zero fighter since I was a kid!  They sent me some amazing parts from her original airframe:

Some of these pieces I've put into some unbelievably rare and one-of-a-kind displays with my original artwork:

Soon, this Zero will be on display for countless people to see and enjoy.  In the meantime it means a great deal to me that I can possess pieces of this great historical machine, and be in a position as an aviation artist to share these pieces with others out there who can appreciate what a special aircraft old 3148 was, and is.

- Ron Cole

WWII Aircraft Parts: The Mother Load is Coming!

By now most people know that I offer my original artwork in wall hanging displays with authentic fragments of historic WWII aircraft.  That has become 'my thing' and sets me apart from other aviation artists.  No one else is doing this.  I'm often asked where I obtain these parts, since it's not everyday someone comes across a Messerschmitt Me 262 crash site, or wrecked P-51 Mustang in a field somewhere.

There is no one answer, of course.  In some cases I've worked with museums.  The Wings Museum of Surrey, England, for example, sent me parts of several Japanese aircraft that they had recovered from the Kurile Islands in 2006 - in exchange for commissioned artwork.  Tom Reilly sent me pieces of a B-17 G Flying Fortress and XP-82 Twin Mustang in exchange for other artwork.  I even buy parts off of eBay Germany, which is a completely separate auction site from eBay USA.  These various contacts have led to other contacts, many of whom reside in places like Poland and the Ukraine, where people spend their weekends out in the bush with metal detectors and email me within hours of their finds.

But lately I have one man in particular to thank for keeping me supplied and able to offer my displays now and well into the future, and his name is Christiaan Vanhee.  I've known Chris for several years now.  He's a retired Belgian Air Force officer, author of books on the Luftwaffe and air war in Europe, is presently restoring a Junkers Ju 88, and above all has led aircraft excavations all over Europe for more than 30 years. His personal collection of aircraft parts and artifacts literally defies description.

Almost two years ago, Chris began sending me boxes of parts.  He would go through his hanger and storage sheds periodically, usually when the weather started to warm up each Spring, and I'd get deluged with pictures of the items he'd uncover.  We'd agree on a price, and he'd drive to Germany to ship them off to me (shipping from Belgium is twice as expensive).  Sometime a box would be a centimeter too long and DHL would refuse it, or his car would break down . . . but upon eventual reception I always enjoyed my own little airplane Christmas!

This time around Chris outdid himself (see photo, top).  He shipped two "banana boxes" on June 25th and another on July 3rd (Another case of the Germans hassling him over weight and size - he had to break up two huge boxes into three).  Each box weighs over 50 pounds!

What's fantastic about the parts that I get from Chris is that they are usually from older excavations - from 30 years ago or even older than that.  What's sinister about the corrosion of aluminum is that, depending upon conditions, a piece of metal might survive intact for decades, but once it begins to exfoliate it degrades rapidly to the point of destruction in only a short time.  Looking at the aircraft parts unearthed from recent excavations, often being sold on eBay and elsewhere, anyone can see this.  But I've received parts from Chris that are perfectly preserved, with paint that's literally 100% intact and with no corrosion on the metal.  Wonderful stuff!

So it is with great excitement that I impatiently await the arrival of my banana boxes from Germany.  They contain amazing parts from a huge array of famous WWII aircraft: P-47, B-17, Fw 190, Me 109, Do 217 - the list is glorious.

Look out for new offerings from me - both new artwork in support of the parts, and new displays - in the very near future.

- Ron Cole  

Pan American Clippers by Ron Cole

It started with a relatively standard commission.  An enthusiast in Florida liked my work and approached me to paint his favorite aircraft: the Pan American Airlines Boeing 314 Clipper.  Loving 'moody' and low-light compositions I suggested a dawn scene in the tropics under conditions that would allow me to paint a particularly 'alive' aircraft at rest - with cabin and exterior lights in plenty, all reflected in the water.  My client loved the idea.

About two weeks later the 'Yankee Clipper' (above) was completed and ready to ship.  I went ahead with the release of 50 limited edition prints, and conducted my usual online promotion of the piece.  I sold just under 20 signed and numbered copies in four days.  Wow.

I'm infamously bad at judging my own work, so having found a recipe that people obviously appreciated I went ahead and did something I have never done before as an artist: I created a series.

I chose the Martin M-130 'China Clipper' for my next subject.  In 1936 this aircraft, destined for Pan Am's Pacific routes, was flown to New York for its maiden flight.  I saw an opportunity to paint something unique that showcased more than just an aircraft, but the pinnacle of industry and technology in a given era.  My composition placed one of the world's most advanced commercial aircraft before the skyline of one of the world's most modern cities.

But there was one more Clipper aircraft flown by Pan Am that I could not fail to paint:

The Sikorsky S-42 was the 'original' Pan Am flying boat, and predated both the Martin and the Boeing.  I followed the general lighting conditions of the previous two compositions, but I wanted the S-42 to be a bit brighter and more saturated - less gloomy.  I'd had my previous two Clippers printed on metallic paper at 24 x 36 inches, upon special request by some collectors, and the S-42 was really designed to take full advantage of the amazing 'iridescent' effect provided by that special paper that makes brighter colors literally glow under direct light.

All three of these pieces represented some new territory for me as an artist, but I did not abandon my usual attention to detail:

My Clippers are still available for sale via this link.


Teresa Webber, a former Pan Am employee of many years, contacted me shortly after the release of my Boeing 314 to see if I'd be willing to let her use my painting for the cover of a Pam Am cookbook she was writing to be released for the Pan Am Aloha Celebration and reunion in Hawaii in 2014.  I was happy to oblige, in support of this once great airline.  Her book, A Touch of First Class, will include numerous recipes by famous individuals associated with Pan Am, including Frank Abagnale who was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Catch Me If You Can. 

  I hope to attend their reunion in 2014 in Pearl Harbor next June!

Above: My Boeing 314 looks fantastic on metallic paper at 24 x 36 inches!  It's the same 8 color Giclee process that I always use, but the paper creates a tangible depth and iridescent glow to the artwork.

Onto the next project!  Any suggestions???


- Ron Cole