With all the controversy surrounding the use of the computer to colorize black and white images, I thought I'd do the opposite. Face it, WWII and color just don't seem right.

I'm kidding....

The "oil lines" of concern to the first commenter are actually spark plug leads. Each cylinder has two spark plugs, fired by separate magnetos.

I was also taken with the fact that this pretty girl is no mere model.

Those external cylinder head oil pipes look very vulnerable to me. They are critical to the engine's operation yet in use they'd be hiding behind a thin aluminium sheet. Meanwhile the baddies would be firing all sorts of assorted sharp pieces of ironmongery in their direction.

Nice to see the details on the shipping tag; can someone enlarge the clipboard at center-left, in case there's anything of interest on it?

[Alas, it is out of focus. - Dave]

I wondered what engine this was and a quick photo search shows this as a R-1830. Long Beach built C-47 cargo planes and they used this type engine.

If there is any question as to this young lady being just a publicity model or the real-deal mechanic, look closely at her fingernails. The dirty saddle shoes could be a set-up with a model, but no gal I know that only poses as camera candy would have those fingernails! Definitely a real engine assembly worker.

As a photographer all of my working life, this is a very sad but not unexpected day. I was too young to be shooting in the era where you could shoot 4x5 Kodachrome. That's one of the things I love about this site. I shot quite a bit of it when it came back briefly to the medium format world in the mid-80s. I've come very close to selling my 4x5 camera given the dearth of emulsions still available but the images on this site keep me in the game, so to speak.

She's cute. He, on the other hand, is hottimus maximus. Hats off to Kodachrome. Such beautiful, limpid color.

What a grand picture; it has sort of a "heightened" look, for lack of a better word. Lovely as Technicolor.

(And I'd say the mechanic on the right is pretty cute, too.)

That is one gorgeous airplane mechanic. (Yes, wisenheimers, I'm talking about the one on the left.)

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day...
Momma, don't take my Kodachrome away.

My first job out of college in 1973 was as a Kodachrome Quality Control Chemist at Berkey Photo in New York. It was an incredibly complex process that got incredibly beautiful results.

As Mark Twain said of the Mississippi steamboat: "So short a life for so magnificent a creature."

Nothing is as sexy as a woman with a wrench in her hand!

Saddle shoes!