DC-4 Air France and their different paints

[Deleted]

The recent upload of a DC-4 Air France repaint at FlightSim.com concerned me about the diffferent paints of this aircraft.

According to the remarkable French aviation magazine "ICARE"



there were four different paint variations. These are (more or less …) three of them. In front the fourth and last paint with the red symbol of "Postale de Nuit" (night airmail).



One of the four variations also had the Air France symbol at the bottom of the fuselage.

BTW, they adopted the symbol of former Air Orient: a protome of winged horse with a dragon tail (the horse's head symbolizing the power, the fishtail reminiscent of the seaplane and the wings of a bird symbolizing speed), more simply called winged seahorse (international deposit of the mark) and affectionately nicknamed the "shrimp" by the staff.

Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

Thanks, I never knew the history of the Shrimp.

[Deleted]

There is an other interesting detail about the French flag at the fuselage:

A Douglas DC-4 (F-BELI) operating a German internal service from Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport to Berlin Tempelhof Airport came under attack from two Soviet MiG-15 fighters while passing through one of the Allied air corridors over East Germany. Although the attack had severely damaged the aircraft, necessitating the shutdown of engines three and four, the pilot landed it safely at West Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, where an inspection revealed that it had been hit by 89 shots fired from the Soviet MiGs during the air attack. There were no fatalities among the 17 occupants (six crew, eleven passengers). The Soviet military authorities defended this attack on a civilian aircraft by claiming the DC-4 was outside the air corridor at the time of attack.

Since this incident the DC-4's beared the French "tricolore" next over to the boarding door.

Bernard