I found a great post on nosecone art

I think I came across this because of Instapundit. In any event, I liked it very much and wanted to share with you this blog post about nosecone art, also known as fuselage art -- the paintings that pilots used to do on the forward fuselage of their aircraft. The post has many examples of such art, including this one:

But the value of the post really lies in the reverence the author has for the artform. As he describes it:

These weren’t the polite expressions of a genteel upper crust. These images were the anonymous graffiti of common guys living on the edge. Pinup girls, cartoon characters, and catch phrases decorated aircraft that were made to engage the enemy, to kill or be killed. As bands of men were sent to face destruction or victory, they adorned their aircraft with images of jokes, icons of power and lovely ladies. That’s the spirit.
These were images that said we’re coming to kick your ass to protect the things we love. Such a meaningful expression of human endurance and defiance in the face of overwhelming adversity is completely lacking in the cloistered stylings of establishment art today. What our cultural institutions are serving up is completely inadequate for the troubled times we live in.

Most of the photographic examples in the post seem to be from World War II aircraft, and that undoubtedly was the high water mark for such art. However, there is an aircraft type whose pilots have declined to give in to the conformity of the modern military and have persisted in creating nosecone art. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the A-10 Warthog:

It is a wonderful aircraft flown by wonderful men.