Wheel Wells

Modelers frequently ask about the color of wheel wells and landing gear. The color of wheel wells of Navy airplanes are not well known prior to the change to the gray/white scheme in February 1955 because prior to that change there was no overarching specification that they be any particular color (actually the requirement for white wheel wells was not officially added until July 1956) and being on the underside of the airplane in shadow, their color is difficult to discern. For more on the color scheme changes, see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/12/changing-from-blue-to-graywhite.html

The color of wheel wells of airplanes in museums usually can't be relied upon because the restorers don't have much of a clue either or in some cases, a care.

Note that the color of the wheel wells was almost always defined in a contract-imposed specification, implemented by a manufacturer's production and inspection documentation. The Navy's overhaul facilities also painted the wheel wells in accordance with its internal documentation. The problem is, there was no consistency of wheel-well requirements prior to July 1956, even between a manufacturer and the Navy's facility that subsequently overhauled that airplane.

For an example and introduction to this topic, see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/07/f8f-bearcat-wheels-and-wheel-wells.html

Another example are circa 1950s Grumman F9F Panthers. From the factory, I'm pretty sure that the wheel wells were zinc chromate green and the landing gear struts, the same color as the exterior.

It's pretty obvious from this picture of a Panther on the Grumman assembly line that the wheel wells are almost certainly chromate green (the dangling antenna is for the radar altimeter) as is the interior of the wing fold.

The interior of the nose gear doors appears also to be zinc chromate in some color pictures. Also note that the hub of the nose wheel is blue in the color picture above but not in the one below, and it's not obvious that the interior of the landing gear door is green in the one below. (The shimmy damper on the side of the strut just above the tire is also a metallic color.)

This is a picture of the nose gear and speed brake of a new(?) F9F-4 although it may be just out of overhaul. (The color may not be true because I lightened the picture considerably.) However, it has a different and blue nose wheel hub and the inside of the landing gear door is not obviously green. Another color note is that the interior of the speed brake is clearly red.

There is some speculation that the landing gear was painted a lighter blue than the airplane exterior. This picture of an USMC F9F-5 operated ashore from a base in Korea suggests it might have been but the color of the tire leads me to believe that the lighter color in this instance is mostly dirt. Also note that the interior of the gear door doesn't have any hint of green.

Although the change to white wheel wells was definitive, the addition of red on the edges of gear doors was not, at least initially. See https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2012/10/painting-crush-points-red.html. It also provides examples of McDonnell's idiosyncratic practice, almost certainly Navy approved, of painting the entire inner surface of the landing gear doors and flaps red from its FH-1 Phantom through the blue F3H Demons. North American also appears to have done so with the doors on its FJ-3/4 Furies, even the gray/white ones, but again that may have been a depot practice.

And to add to the uncertainty, note that the landing gear was not necessarily painted blue on blue airplanes:

FJ-1 Fury

FJ-3 Fury