And the colored planes go....

I've been involved with flight simming for as long as I can remember, and several years ago I made the acquaintance of long time MSFS repainter Garry J. Smith over the internet. In 2009 that led to us becoming involved in a project for the Heritage Flight Museum and the Historic Flight Foundation.  Together we recreated both Bellingham Airport and Paine Field as they were during WWII, and repainted flight sim models in the livery of the museum aircraft.

Thus, visitors to the museums can pretend to fly at Bellingham or Paine as they were during WWII in the actual aircraft that are on display a few feet away, something that no other museum has done. (We took a little artistic license with Bellingham, since during WW II it was basically a small (but beautiful) terminal, 3 runways, and dirt, so we enhanced it with a few extra hangars and hardstands.)

Bellingham, 1946

Paine, 1945

It was a fun project. Garry lives down under in Oz, while I'm up in Bellingham WA so there was a large and convienent time difference between us. I'd work on research and planning all day, and send ideas to Garry before I went to bed along the lines of  "Can you do this???". By the time I woke up he'd have put a full day in, and I'd pick up where he left off. To this day, if I stop by the Heritage Flight Museum I always see the sims in use.

In 2011 Garry and I collaborated again when the 39th Fighter Squadron held their annual reunion at the Heritage Flight Museum. In the days following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a strong fear that the next step was an invasion of the west coast of the United States, and the 39th Fighter Squadron's P-39s were hastily deployed to Bellingham as defense. Later they were redeployed to the South Pacific, serving with distinction during the war. 

As part of the reunion, we took a P-39 model and repainted it in the 39ths colors,

and during a break in the reunion the two surviving original pilots who were deployed to Bellingham were brought to the sims. I was privileged to talk them through "One last mission" in the skies over Bellingham. In the photo below, Col. Frank Royal is at the controls while off camera his children, grand-children and visitors look on.

I didn't have to do much talking to the old fighter pilot, like any good IP I just got the sim going and gave him vectors. But as it happened, we did run into a Zero off Sandy Point, and we escorted it back until it landed on the IJN Akagi.

It was a privilege to act as the IP for these two gentlemen. :salute:

Now that OspRey will soon be in Einar's paint booth, it was time to come up with a scheme. Fortunately, Just Flight makes a nice add-on to MicroSoft Flight Sim called Discover Arabia that includes a fairly well done SeaRey, so I've made a blank texture from one of their airplanes, and I'm slowly learning how Garry was able to do those fabulous repaints.

I've gone through various ideas, and since many have said that the SeaRey resembles a baby PBY Catalina, one of my first attempts at learning repainting was to give it a go.

I don't want my airplane to be a Wannabe Warbird, so while the scheme is tempting, I won't do it. However.....

Giuliana is 1/2 Tlingit Indian, and long ago she suggested an Indian paint scheme. I didn't like the idea at first, but with the wisdom of age it's grown on me, and I mocked one up in Flight Sim to take a look.

I really liked it, and G is now designing the scheme. Can't wait to see what she comes up with.



Some other schemes I've been using to learn Photoshop

This is another SeaRey builder's airplane

And of course, it's football season!!!