 |
| Fred Harl and Carmelo Turdo |
In any large gathering of aircraft, there will be a number of examples of what is traditionally known as "nose art," here loosely defined as a personalized emblem or nickname given to an aircraft and applied near the nose of the aircraft. Finding examples of nose art at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2013, with over 10,000 aircraft in attendance, was not difficult - it was more a matter of how many examples would be missed during the week. Nose art is most common on warbirds, those former military aircraft that served during and somewhat after World War II, but it has become a phenomenon among general aviation and homebuilt aircraft as well in recent years. The generally accepted first example of nose art, a sea monster painted on a 1913 Italian Flying Boat, started a tradition that proliferated during World War I and later World War II until the censors made the images of unclad women off limits (and therefore took the fun out of naming the aircraft). The practice waned during peacetime and reemerged during wartime in Korea, Vietnam and the first Gulf War (until the censors decided that women and liquor were offensive at overseas bases located in countries the U.S. was defending). Here we present some warbird examples by aircraft type:
No comments:
Post a Comment