Douglas O-46A on Philippines

[TISO]

Were O-46As based in Philippines camouflaged just before the war or were they still in "natural metal"?
All i could find in RE photos were couple prewar pic's in "natural metal".

[Maxschnauzer]

Hello TISO,
Have you seen this one of an O-46A taken at Nichols Field (undated). It does not look like natural metal to me but maybe it's just the lighting. What do you think?

Source:http://corregidor.proboards.com/thread/447/aircraft-philippines-1-december-1941?page=1&scrollTo=2394

[TISO]

Could be blue fuselage-yellow wings colouring which was popular before all metal colouring. I don't see any borders between colours upper-lower fuselage and fuselage colour seems a bit light for Olive drab-neutral gray matt camo

[Maxschnauzer]

Hi TISO,

This O-46A (36-139) of 2d Observation Squadron Nichols Field (4M tail designation of 4th Composite Group) also appears like it could be the blue/yellow scheme (though nose and tail differ from the previous) and was taken in 1939:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_Composite_Group#mediaviewer/File:2d_Observation_Squadron_Douglas_O-46A_36-139.jpg

P.S. Did you ever finish your B-18?

[TISO]

Thanks for pic's. I have a Pavla kit (short run plastic with resin parts- much sanding to be done on wing and tail trailing edges) which does have markings for 2 plane stationed on Philippines prewar both in natural metal (metal parts) - silver dope (canvas covered parts). They are 135 4MO (36-135) and 69 4MP (36-069). From reading Bloody shambles trilogy it seems that some of them managed to survive fairly late in the campaign (same as some B-18 and one or two A-27's)

RE B-18 i'm in a vicious cycle of bad ideas or to put it simply i would like to detail it a bit too much (had some crazy ideas of building the bomb bay and openeing the side doors which would mean detailing inerior construction). So i put it on the sidelines for the moment.