Quote:
Originally Posted by cdavenport
.... I wonder why they painted Fat Man in that curious paint scheme only to drop it on Nagasaki. ...
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About the paint scheme of the Fat Man, I found that at Tinian there was a number of bomb casings. They were used, "only" filled with high explosive, by the 509th for practice, dropping them on Japanese cities. Sixteen missions of this kind were accomplished before dropping the operational ones. This "dummy" bombs were bright orange and were called "pumpkins", I don't know if for the color or for the shape. I suppose that for the F31 one of this cases was used, and that could justify the color scheme.
Here some more details, with a dummy to compare bombs and the people.
Here some picture of the real one with people near it.
Here loading a "pumpink" into the B29 bomb bay for a practice mission.
Best, Nando