I have very few photos of "Winged Warrior" None of which show all the markings which were on it.

So, much of this is based on photos of other 95th BG B-17s operating at the same time period.

This is the basic scheme I've worked out.

The red on the tail is typical of 95th B-17's, though occasionally you'll find one where just the rudder was painted red, or where the red wrapped around the fuselage. And then there are some with no red tail at all.

The "Square B" seems to have been painted on with just black paint. Earlier 95th aircraft that were camouflaged had a white square with the "B" painted in black. On the bare metal planes, it looks like the "B" is just the bare metal.

The diagonal stripes on the wings seem typical, but most photos weren't taken from angles where you could see the wings very well. The few I have found show a stripe on upper and lower wings, opposite the star/bar, but "Square B" only painted on the upper side. I'm not sure how those stripes end when they get to the leading edge. I've just had them end in a straight line along the leading edge.

The Olive Drab anti-glare paint is accurate on the nose, and at least partially on the nacelles. I don't know how far back the paint went and whether it ended with a sharp or rounded corner. I've seen both on restored B-17's.

I'm not sure about the anti-skid wing walks on the wings. I had a good photo of a restored B-17 with these and I painted them in without thinking too hard about it. After looking at period photos, I think these will probably be removed.

The nose stripe seems accurate as far as width. I've found several color photos of the noses of 95th B-17's.

The number on the nose was present on the left side of "Winged Warrior" at some point in it's service life. I have no idea if it was also painted on the right side, though that won't show up in the final painting anyway.

Original "Winged Warrior" photo above, My CG recreation below.

I tried matching the original shot as nest I could, moving the camera around and adjusting the zoom factor of the lens.

I got most of the landmarks on the plane to line up pretty well, the relationship of the near engine to the chin turret, and the position of the No. 4 engine in relation to the upper turret.

The original photo seems to have a sort of fish eye distortion on the left side which bulges the nose section a bit which I couldn't duplicate.

I'm not sure what happened to the wingroot in the original, it's just a dark smudge, maybe a finger blocking the lens?

My pitot tube seems a little oversized. I also learned that I need to modify my nose art so the bird's wings have more curve to the front edge.

Reference Photos

The CG Model (Overall)

The CG Model (Engine)

The CG Model (Nose)

Markings

The CG Model (Misc Parts)

Composing the Painting

Home