Nose art

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nose art is a painting or design done on the fuselage near the nose of a warplane, usually for decorative purposes. Nose art is a form of aircraft graffiti.

1 History
2 Purpose
3 Subject matter
4 Photos
5 External links

[edit] History

The practice of putting personalized decorations on fighting aircraft originated with Italian and German pilots. The first recorded piece of nose art was a sea monster painted on the nose of an Italian flying boat in 1913. This was followed by the popular tradition of painting mouths underneath the propeller spinner, initiated by the German pilots in World War I. After these beginnings, though, most nose art was conceived and produced by the aircraft ground crews, not the pilots.

While the nose art in World War I were mainly embellished or extravagant squad insignia, true nose art started to occur in World War II, which is considered the golden age of nose art by many observers, with both Axis and Allied pilots taking part. During the height of the war, nose-artists were in very high demand in the United States Air Force and were paid quite well for their services while Air Force officials tolerated the nose art in an effort to boost the morale of the crew. This lack of restraint combined with the stresses of war, and high probability of death resulted in an excess of nose art that has yet to be repeated.

Due to changes in military policies and changing attitudes toward representation of women, the amount of nose art has been in steady decline since the Korean War. Nose art underwent a revival, however, during Operation Desert Storm and has been going strong since Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Nose art is largely a military tradition, but airliners operated by the airlines of Virgin Group feature "Virgin Girls" on the nose as part of their livery.

[edit] Purpose

The reasons for nose art are many but were often done for humor, aesthetics, to taunt the enemy, as a good luck charm or for other superstitious reasons. Practical reasons do also exist, as decorated aircraft were easier to personally identify. Many commanders also considered decorating the planes and giving them a sense of individuality to be a boost on unit morale.

[edit] Subject matter

The subject matter in nose art varies but largely stayed within a few mainstay topics, namely the cartoon characters and female pin-up. The females occurred in various stages of dress, or undress, and were very popular. The style evolved and became more wild and provocative. As a result, the Army Air Force tried to restore a sense of decorum with AAF Regulation 35-22 in August 1944. The regulation didn't prohibit nose art, but did try to, unsuccessfully, institute a "sense of decency."

According to some accounts, the farther the planes and crew were from headquarters or from the public eye, the racier the art. For instance, nudity was more prevalent with aircraft based in the South Pacific than of those in England. ^[1]

Other popular topics included animals, nicknames, hometowns, and various patriotic imagery. The Soviet Air Force decorated their planes with imagery of history, mythical beasts and patriotic motifs.

The planes were also decorated with bombs, "scalps" in form of enemy insignia, such as swastikas or rising sun flags, to illustrate the number of kills, or bombing missions the crew had been on. Some crews also used locomotives for train attacks, camels for cargo missions, broomsticks for "sweep" operations and sitting ducks for decoy missions. Major Eino Luukkanen (Finnish Air Force), 54 kills, used beer labels as victory insignia for his Brewster.