GREY.......
It's an example of 'jointery' making optimal use of the UK's defence resources.
When John Major was PM, his office decided that rationilization was needed and turned to him for leadership...
"Grey. I like grey. Grey is good. Pass me the peas please, Norma. Grey. Oh yes, absolutely. Have we got any grey?"
Now many year ago, it was RN tradition to paint everything and anything a fetching tone of battleship grey. So the Great Lord Pusser ordered lots of paint. Millions and millions of tins of the stuff. But then along came defence cuts and soon there was rather more paint than ships.
But Pusser was a wily cove. "Mr Major - I have a solution. You can paint the RAF's aeroplanes with some of my nice grey paint. I've got plenty to spare. You won't need to paint them in two-shades-of-sh*t, shiny white, hemp, brown or anything else. Just grey, lovely grey!"
"Thank you - I shall see that it is done"
And lo, it was.
Except for the trainers. They used the black paint which Pusser had left over from the bit below the waterline of his old battleships. But there wasn't quite enough left in Pusser's locker, so the ageing old Dominies were painted to look like a skunk, with some of Pusser's finest white flagpole-paint on the fuselage top surface.
But Pusser's paint was too heavy for the wretched little rented plastic pigs to which the RAF turned for elementary flying training when they could no longer afford to buy their own aeroplanes, so they are au naturel in Bundesweiss fibreglass...