Cool story, seems someone went for a joyride and the mountain got in their way

I need some help with the F6F-5N wheel well and wing fold areas. I have been searching for any information as to the color of those areas after the little info that I have been able to find shows white, chromate, and Navy blue.

Bob

By the time Hellcat entered mass production, Grumman had made the decision to adopt Interior Green in place of Bronze Green for cockpits, and possibly also to adopt Zinc Chromate primer in place of its own Grumman Grey. However, older paints were to be used as long as their stocks were available.

Thus the first hundred or so F6F-3 airframes produced almost certainly had their cockpits finished with the remaining stock of Bronze Green. Subsequent aircraft had their cockpits finished in Interior Green. Starting with F6F-5, cockpit area above and including the side consoles was finished in flat black with the remaining surfaces in Interior Green.



An enlarged portion of a well-known photo of newly produced F6F-3s on Grumman publicity flight. The factory-applied red surrounds to the national insignia should indicate a June - September 1943 time frame. What is interesting is the colour of the headrest inside the cockpit, which looks markedly unlike Interior Green. The actual colour could have been Bronze Green, but this statement is non-conclusive.

The inside of the engine cowling varied throughout the Hellcat production, being Grumman Grey, Interior Green or Zinc Chromate Yellow. Later F6F-5 and had flat black cowling interiors. Other enclosed areas of the fuselage were either Grumman Grey (on early production machines) or Zinc Chromate Yellow.

In common with the general Navy practice the wheel bays and undercarriage legs were finished in the lower surface colour. However, the area ahead of the main spar in the wheel well was left in Interior Green. Also, some photos of operational Hellcats show wheel hubs and legs in Aluminium finish, possibly applied during overhauls at field maintenance depots.