Nose art, a lost art

on a Black Widow night fighter from WW2

If you Google "nose art" I'm sure you'll find many, many fine examples, but when I see some, I generally try and take pictures to keep.  A couple of weeks ago, in Lakeland, Florida was the annual Sun 'n Fun air show.  I took quite a few pictures, but these are certainly favorites.  The B-17 "Texas Raiders" is part of the CAF (Confederate Air Force) and shows tonnage of bombs dropped as well as the pin-up gal in western attire.  Often, nose art featured scantily clad women.  A lot of aircrews during WW II would name their planes, and would indicate tons of bombs dropped, or in the case of fighters, might put small enemy flags beneath the cockpit canopy to show the prowess of the pilot assigned to that aircraft.

B-17 "Texas Raiders"

The B-25 (below)  is painted to reelect a Russian motif, and many of these Mitchell light bombers were shipped to Russia by convoy.  We sent over a number of aircraft to the Russians during the second World War,  including P39's, P-40's, B-17's and B-25's.  The heaviest and  most coveted was the B-29.  They requested same, but we never voluntarily provided.  Three B-29's were forced to land there during the later stages o the war, and were simply not returned,  Russian engineers took over, reverse engineered them, and soon there was a look-alike Tupelov copy.



Not all nose art will be found on warplanes, as "Downwind" out of Port Orange, Florida, is on a T-34 "Mentor" trainer, a post Korea war trainer, of which many were decommissioned and sold to individual owners by the Air Force.

Seen on a T-34 Trojan, Daytona Beach

Apache Princess - B-25 at Fantasy of Flight

         This painting is not exactly historical, as there was a B-25 known as Apache Princess, but the owner of this restored bomber took the liberty of painting his wife's face onto the sexy squaws body.  Nice join, Kermit Weeks.



Regarding the redheaded vixen portrayed on The Downwind; its a clever play on aviation words - the downwind leg of one's landing occurs just before you enter into your cross wind and follow through on your final approach to the field.  Downwinds run parallel to the length of the runway, and it's typically a very long leg.

The  wording reads "Russian to get you"

I found this blond Cossack to be a very nice  piece of art work.

Of coarse not all the pretty girls were inanimate drawings on the noses of older aircraft.  There were also several working the crowds and one actually working to fuel several thirsty jets.   And not all of the are was on  the nose, as evidenced by the T-shirt on the backside of this very busy young women.   She was heard to say "so many jets, so little time".



those are both L-39's, a Czech jet trainer which also can be fitted with ordinance.