Memphis Belle weathering patterns

[Lee_K]

I came across this photo of the Memphis Bell during the War Bond tour and noticed the huge wear pattern on the port wing root, all the way to the metal apparently.  Any idea if that was caused by loads of school children being lifted on top to take a look at the famous bomber, or if this occurred during combat operations?  There's also some wear on the trailing edge portion of the starboard wing as well.  I don't think I've seen any other B-17 with that much wear in that location.  Also note the grayed-out national insignia on the wing and no splotching on the port stabilizer.

 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Lee_K
wording

[LSP_K2]

I strongly suspect that's just normal wear and tear.

[Oldbaldguy]

Love these old photos because you get to see things in their underwear, warts and all.  Things I find interesting in this one include the wear on the backside of the prop blades.  Looks like three have quite a bit of time on them while one appears to be newer.  Modelers often forget or don't realize that prop blades show wear on both sides of the blades, not just the front or leading edges.  Second is the bare aluminum showing through at the wing roots as mentioned.  B-17s had multiple gas tanks in the wings and each had its own filler cap up near the leading edge.  Maintainers had to get up on the wings to pump gas into the tanks and the easiest way to do that is to mount the wing over the trailing edge at the wingroot which is the lowest point, walk up the wing along the root then across the top to the fillers, rain or shine.  That equals a lot of slipping and sliding in dirty, muddy broghans going up and coming down, which is little different than taking sanding paper to the surface -- a single coat of paint from that era can't stand up to that kind of abuse, so it wears through.  A couple of other things include the very obvious difference in the color and weathering of the original painted finish compared to the fabric covered control surfaces (which came up in another thread), and the POL streaking on the left side of the nacelles but not on the right sides.  Also note the air flow patterns coming out of the oil cooler vents.  And then there are the ubiquitous and seemingly fit self-important politicians and local luminaries in their snap brim fedoras and two-tone shoes standing around waiting to be admired and photographed while other people's sons were overseas doing their bit.  Some things never change.  My guess is that The Belle was muttering, "Please get me outta here!" to herself the whole time.

[LSP_K2]

There's actually a fairly well known photo of a B-17 in flight, taken from directly above, and it shows similar patterns, though, as I recall, far worse.

[Lee_K]

3 hours ago, LSP_K2 said:

There's actually a fairly well known photo of a B-17 in flight, taken from directly above, and it shows similar patterns, though, as I recall, far worse.

 

I'd love to see that!

[Lee_K]

4 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

Love these old photos because you get to see things in their underwear, warts and all.  

 

Agreed.  I add prop abrasion to almost all my WWII era models.  

 

What I still can't my head around is if the Belle had abrasion on the port wing root due to ground crew filling the tanks before missions, then why wouldn't it be there on the starboard wing as well?  Perhaps the armorers added wear by always using the port wing to lower belts of ammo into the radio room?

 

[LSP_K2]

2 hours ago, Lee_K said:

I'd love to see that!

 

Admittedly not the best, but here goes. I have a much cleaner photo here, but my photos aren't really organized worth a darn on my PC. This may or not be a lousy version of the one that I've seen elsewhere, but the wear patterns are certainly similar.

 

[LSP_K2]

As I recall, the flat area directly behind the upper turret, sometimes got pretty skanky too; perhaps a shortcut from one side to the other?

[MikeMaben]

blown up ...

 

[tomprobert]

8 hours ago, Lee_K said:

What I still can't my head around is if the Belle had abrasion on the port wing root due to ground crew filling the tanks before missions, then why wouldn't it be there on the starboard wing as well?  Perhaps the armorers added wear by always using the port wing to lower belts of ammo into the radio room?

 

I think in this case, it's more likely to be the batteries venting/leaking rather than footfall. Granted there would be wear and tear from the mechanics etc., but the batteries are located in the forward part of the wing root, just behind the leading edge of the wing. There are/were two in the left, and one on the right - if memory serves me correctly. It wasn't unknown for these batteries to leak, sending fluid back over the wing.

 

Looking at the original picture you posted, the staining seems to originate exactly where the batteries are located. Don't take this as fact in this instance, but I think it more likely than paint damage from feet/boots.

 

Tom

Edited September 21, 2020 by tomprobert
Typos

[Lee_K]

Outstanding Tom -- thank you very much!

[TAG]

21 hours ago, LSP_K2 said:

There's actually a fairly well known photo of a B-17 in flight, taken from directly above, and it shows similar patterns, though, as I recall, far worse.

Here's what I found in my Fort refs, it's easier to see the repeating exhaust/leak patterns once you have several different samples to compare. Let's start off with some -F's:

Then some -G's, this first one is colorized but still serves to discern the patterns.

Not directly from above but still shows the exhaust stains to good effect.

Here's an original period color shot of the same bird: s/n 42-97503 "Princess Pat" VP-X. You can also clearly see in this shot how grubby things got behind the top turret, as per K2's post. I just love how much is going on here, the more you look at it the more interesting things pop out, this would be a weathering project of EPIC proportions!

And finally, here's another shot that illustrates well how dirty the section immediately aft of the top turret could get.

Hope that helps, fellas!

 

Thomaz

[Lee_K]

Wow Thomaz -- that is fantastic reference material.  Thank you very much!

[MikeMaben]

20 hours ago, tomprobert said:

           I think it more likely than paint damage from feet/boots.

 

Me too.

 

This pic shows some serious foot traffic ...

 

 

 

[Oldbaldguy]

I gotta admit I was skeptical about Tom's view that the extreme wear at the wing roots was caused by escaping battery gasses, but after looking at the photos above, I think he's most likely 100% right.  Still, the idea that all this corrosive stuff was free to roam about unchecked inside the wings gives me the willies because of the damage it does over time.  But, if you think about it, all the mechs were concerned with at the time was making sure that their airplane was able to get to the target and back on that particular day.  Nobody was concerned with the long game.  Leaks and drips and crud were normal and something they learned to live with/work around and NObody was thinking about trying to repair damage that might exist fifty or seventy-five days down the road, much less fifty or seventy-five years in the future.  So, paint stripped by leaky, gassy batteries make sense in this case.