Hello, does anyone know the meaning of the big "white arrow" on this Corsair F4U.
The marking for the squadron leader, swarm leader or just a squadran insigna?

thx in advance

The story of the white arrow as I was told by history buffs was. That the squardron leader had this on his plane to show the direction of which he wanted the group to go with having to get on the radio.I.E. on missions that required radio silence. I can't verify that but that story was told to me more than once by more than one person.
The story also goes that Pappy Boyington had one on I believe the right wing tip of his aircraft at some point for the same reason.
Now that you posed the question I am curious also to find out why and to see if the stories I was told were true.

Actually the explanation is much more simpler than that.

In the Pacific Theater in WWII the US. Navy had so many carriers deployed that needed to come up with a simple method of distinguishing which aircraft belonged in which carrier. They came up with a system of geometric shapes that were painted on the vertical stab and wings of aircraft. The Corsair in your picture for instance hailed from the U.S.S. Bunker Hill, and so would any other aircraft with a large arrow painted on it.

Cheers,

CDT Reimund Manneck
U.S. Army ROTC

thx, sounds very plausible.
i first thought something like warlock, keeping this action series in mind i saw during my childhood (vmf 214)... but it's just a series...

do you know the introduction year of these shapes. i'm just building a model kit of the corsair "167" seen on the pic above.
this on is part the the vf 84 from the USS Bunker Hill as you stated right

I agree with Bombshell. I have seen various types of aircraft, including Hellcats, Avengers, and Corsairs with that marking and all were from the Bunker Hill.

Interestingly, Tamiya's instructions on their F4U-1D kit call for the cowl of Corsair 167 to be painted yellow, but that is not the case on your picture above, DesertFox. Does anyone have any info on that?

Nic

Could be from different time periods. Markings often change a little over time representing change in theatres, etc.... Or it could be the Tamiya just thought it looked cooler with the yellow on the nose. #:-)

i have the hasegawa kit of the f4 u-1d corsair and it that manual the suggest a yellow cowl.
but i disliked the yellow one and so i painted the whole model in blue.

Yellow rings on cowlings were painted in the carriers to identify aircraft being used in operation over the Japanese home islands. Once again, it can be seen on all kinds of different USN aircraft. Being that the USN only operated over the Japanese home islands in the end of the war, most of these aircraft only sported the yellow ring at latter stages of the war.

Cheers,

CDT Reimund Manneck
U.S. Army ROTC

I would say it belonged to the Bunker Hill, because my old Hobbycraft kit had those same decals.

~Chip :-)

Interesting name friend..........wonder whence it came?

This is going to cause confusion.

hm... i have this name since my online-gaming time. must be up to 5 years by now.
i did not mean to cause confusion and i don't think people will mistake us. i'm more a reader than a poster at this board.

For sure it´s the ID of the Bunker Hill´s aircrafts.