Ta152H V3, asymetrical paint?

[Breizh]

On the series of pictures of WN 150 003 where it is standing for pictures after its completion, with a 300L drop tank attached, why do the two sides of the fuselage appear to be painted differently? The left side looks like it has a pretty straight and even line between #76 and the top color, while the right side looks very mottled.
Were the pictures simply taken on different days?

And is the air intake left in bare metal, or is that just an effect of the quality of the photograph?

Thanks.

[Wayne Little]

Well, Breizh, both sides of the fuselage are certainly different in their patterns, one would think that maybe two different painters were involved with different interpetations or a single painter decided to MAKE each side different, who is to really know?

I don't think the air intake is bare metal, there are 2 shots that indicate to me that there is some camo applied, it seems that there is some reflection causing the bright contrast.

[Wurger]

I think hat the starboard was simply much dirtier than the port side.Besides the bright reflection on the air intake was caused by raind which made it wet and shining when much of daylight appeared.Here two pics of the bird that were taken from other views.

SOurce unknown.

[A4K]

I agree with wayne and Wojtek. I read about the restoration process of the Me262B-1a in the saxonwold military museum in South Africa, and they mentioned that the camouflage patches were painted differently on the port side than the starbord, indicating two different painters were involved.

What is unusual with this one is the complete contrast in styles.

[Breizh]

Thank you.

Wurger, wouldn't the rain shine on only the parts where it could acumulate, namely the flat part of the intake's top surface? Why wouldn't all the other flat and nearly horizontal surfaces of the plane shine the same way?

[Wurger]

OK, here you are an enlarged part of the pic.We can talk about it.I've marked main three areas A/B/C and two additional A1/A2.
Look at the C area.please.What we have there,a lighter area and the black spots.For me it looks like a grazed paint because of mantainance crew activity.Also there are visible some brighter spots so it is possible that there was bare metal.Personaly I think that the paint at the place was rubbed.
The second area is B. There we have something what is similar to the C effect but it is much more smooth with light smudges.It looks like somebody from technical team tried to remove some dirt for insytance, simply it looks like washed up.There is also possiblility that the member(s) of ground team touched this plase very often similarly to C area.
But now the A area which is the most interesting for us.A1 and A2 arrows pointed two areas where we can see darker places.I think that these are camo paint which was used there for painting.At A2 area it is clearly visible that it is divided into two parts darker and brighter.The borderline fits to the camo pattern which was used for Doras and TH-152.I don't think that "black men" had so much to do with the areas.But taking that the TH-152 prototype looks like very dirty plane into consideration, it is possible that the maintenance team could clean the place as well.If the paint was of a poor quality it could be grazed too.But I don't think so.The area could be messed with an oil for instance and then cleaned up but it is more likely that the area was wet.Besides it seems that the daily light was going form right-obove and a bit from rear direction and due to the air intake shape it made this shining area.If you look at the upper surfaces of wings you will see almost the same effect.

To be honest it is very difficult to estimate using B$W pictures what was the reason of this.But it seems that water (moisture in air) could caused this effect.I have seen this one on my unit Su-22 fighter-bomber aircraft very often.Although these were matt painted, rain made them shiny.The effect was clearly visible in Autum ( or Fall as you wish) when fogg or mist has just follen down to the ground and in Spring,especially when the Sun had just raised up and there were clouds yet and it was drizzled early in the morning.

That's my opinon but it's up to you only what will be yours.

[david johnson]

looks mostly like different contrast levels of the photos.

dj