Doin' That Shark Mouth Thing.....

On 02/05/2011 20:01, A Paulus wrote:
On Mon, 02 May 2011 07:07:49 -0500, Mitchell Holman wrote:

The most overused paint scheme in aviation history.


What are the origins of this paint scheme? IIRC, it began
somewhere in the early WWII Pacific theater when it was
realized that foreign pilots were very superstitious (i.e.
frightened) over such a design.

Never heard that before, the pilots probably just thought it looked good.

But that would not explain the German biplanes that also
sport the pattern.

AP

AIUI the sharkmouth in WWII was used by ZG76 Haifischgruppe (Shark
Gruppe)on their Bf 109D aircraft and transferred it to the Bf 110C in
February 1940 (see http://www.virtualwings.org/bf110/m8dp.htm).

It was copied by No. 112 Squadron RAF and applied to their P-40
Tomahawks. This was copied in turn by the AVG, the Flying Tigers.

--
Peter

On Tue, 03 May 2011 00:41:43 +0100, Ramsman wrote:

Never heard that before, the pilots probably just thought it looked
good.

AIUI the sharkmouth in WWII was used by ZG76 Haifischgruppe (Shark
Gruppe)on their Bf 109D aircraft and transferred it to the Bf 110C in
February 1940 (see http://www.virtualwings.org/bf110/m8dp.htm).

I should always google before I ask. The following link discusses
both the "fear factor" theory and the "looks good" theory:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo...ad.main/61374/

But before this thread, I did not know that such patterns are
called "sharks mouth" patterns. They could just as well be the
snarling jaws of any wild animal.