29.05.2009, 09:42
Bearcat Wrote:Well the line between historical, semi historical ., and fantasy is not blurry so it should be pretty clear. It is your skin paint it how you want to.. Usually in servers that demand historical skins the skin download feature is turned off.. My skin on the Mustang in my sig would be considered semi historical... the above skins would be considered fantasy... but if that's what you want then .. no one really cares.. (No offense.. just how it is..) It is not an issue.
It's like BEARCAT says, for the GAME, I would say most folks go with the semi-historical schemes, because, well, let's face it, we all like to let others know who we are and one of those ways is to use a historical skin with our own personal ID. Most of the planes I use follow that rule and sometimes I'll go totally fictional and make up whole squadrons when playing an offline campaign in DCG just so all the planes have a "uniform" unit color scheme.
Pursuivant also makes a very valid point. Historically, operations didctated paint schemes. Pilot and/or crew considerations were secondary and believe it or not, in some rare cases, personal ID was forbidden. One thing about war though is that often times the rules get bent on these things and generally, if the personal markings aren't absolutely outrageous, the "Brass" looks the other way.
Today, the noseart issue is still being played out in, at least, the US Air Force, "Heavies" (Bombers, tankers and cargo acft) are authorised noseart, but strict guildelines are issued as to what type of art is acceptable. In the fighter world, noseart is allowed, but only on certain acft for very specific reasons. For instance, The F-15's that I worked on at Langley AFB, VA had only two or three acft allowed to have noseart. One of those was an F-15 in the 27 FS that was called Maloney's Pony in commemoration of a WW2 pilot.
Another instance of this is the famed 23rd Wing. They are the only unit in the AF that are officially authorised to wear sharks teeth. That is because they have their direct parentage from the flying tigers of WWII. Even their heavies have them (even though they look kinda funny).