NOSE ART BY SHAYNE MEDER

Here are some pictures from way back....when I first started to do nose art. Nose art made a come back in the early 80's. When I was stationed at K.I. Sawyer AFB Michigan in 1985 all of our planes-KC-135A's and B-52H's all were getting painted. At first many of them had the original type girlie art from WWII, many where awesome paintings by talented artists. It didn't take long though for some people to complain. They just didn't get the real intention of nose art and most of the complainers were civilian women and not the military. I guess it was officers wives,,maybe they were jealous,,,(just my opinion). Anyway,,when I did my first B-52 nose art, we were limited to camoflage paint (nonreflecting) and the color choices sucked. I could use red, blue, brown, black and a little white. I also had not yet learned to use an air brush, so I used a regular brush to paint these. Also after I did "Shack Rabbit" painting girls on planes had been banned. So we then had to come up with animal pictures......fun fun.

B-52H Feb 1989 TSGT Shayne Meder

So here is "Shack Rabbit" after the famous Jessica Rabbit. For those non-bomber types the term "Shack" refers to a direct hit with a bomb and "Rabbit" refers to repeating. So a bomber crew would always love to get Shacks. This picture of me on the right actually showed up on the cover of Air Force Times February 27th, 1989.  (ooh today is Feb 27th,, wierd huh?) Anyway-remember I told you people started to complain-well AF Times did a whole spread on all the nose art at our base and the Air Force...you should have read some of the letters back then...

Here I am again, like I said we had to start painting animals. Also it was during the Cold War so the Soviet Union was still around-notice the flag in Rex's mouth. Could you imagine today a nose art with the Iranian flag displayed like this? not hardly.

TSgt Shayne Meder     B-52H 60-0048             circa 1989

This was a typical day at KI Sawyer AFB,, cold and rainy. If it wasn't snowing it was raining. I sure miss the BUFF's, at least some of them are still flying. There was nothing cooler than seeing them loaded up, flying, smoking, making all kinds of noise...oh sorry...I got carried away..It was really cool after a big blizzard and they did engine runs,,the snow blew 100 feet in the air behind them,,like white tornado's.

This was cute little Rocky the squirrel, carrying a cute little bomb... B-52H 60-0026 circa 1989

This is "American Eagle". I got the idea from an old WWII poster depicting the bad guys as the old crow/buzzard. Of course the Eagle would kick his butt. Its not a great picture but all I could dig out. It is B-52H 61-0015   circa 1989

This one is "Nightstalker" it is actually 2 tigers on a rock about to lunge on their prey. I caught alot of flak for this one from the guys cause they wanted to think the tigers were doing something else.... oh well, the crews liked it...

B52H-61-0020  circa 1989

In 1990 I reassigned to Castle AFB in California where I got too busy to do anymore nose art. I did paint some interesting things like tool boxes, hangar doors and the VIP door for the Wing CC tanker... In 1994 I did some work for the museum there. By then I was a MSgt and in late 93 the base came out on the closure list,,,boo hoo,,. I retired in 1995 when the base closed and stayed on at the Castle Air Museum until moving to Riverside in 1997.

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HELMET ART

Coming soon--more nose art--some of KC-135's and C-141's and eventually some of museum planes