Special Mil Colour Schemes
A bit geeky I know, but I've always wondered.
We often see fast jets painted in amazing colour schemes for anniversaries, airshows. I'm thinking of Tigermeet etc. Given that your average pointy military jet is these days covered with all manner of radar avoiding, low observable paint and coatings - how do they do that? I'm sure it's a little more sophisticated than the crew chief and the lads sitting down with an outline drawing of the jet, coming up with a design and then heading off down to B&Q to grab a few cans of spray-paint (although I note that some Vietnam-era BUFFs and even a few Op Corporate Harriers were literally hand painted with brushes at times for operational reasons). Does someone on the Squadron designate a particular jet that is to be resprayed for such display purposes? Is there a special type of paint that goes on over generic "RAM Fast-Jet Grey" and able to be washed off a few weeks later (cos I'm sure they don't strip em back to bare aluminium and composite). What happens if you balls it up? :eek: Crew Chief - "Jenkins - that is the most ****e Tiger stripe I have ever seen in my life you horrible little man..." |
Given that your average pointy military jet is these days covered with all manner of radar avoiding, low observable paint and coatings - how do they do that? I'm sure it's a little more sophisticated than the crew chief and the lads sitting down with an outline drawing of the jet, coming up with a design and then heading off down to B&Q to grab a few cans of spray-paint (although I note that some Vietnam-era BUFFs and even a few Op Corporate Harriers were literally hand painted with brushes at times for operational reasons). Does someone on the Squadron designate a particular jet that is to be resprayed for such display purposes? Is there a special type of paint that goes on over generic "RAM Fast-Jet Grey" and able to be washed off a few weeks later (cos I'm sure they don't strip em back to bare aluminium and composite). |
Very intriguing, thanks for that.
I saw an interesting system used on an Air NZ 747 around about the time of the Lord of the Rings special colour schemes. Went into the hangar and up on a scaffold. Viewed up close, the graphics were made up of thousands of what looked like tiny fish scales, applied like a vinyl transfer. |
We have a Camouflage Working Group? Would anybody like to buy them a colour printer, or there are any other shades of grey yet to be invented?
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"We have a Camouflage Working Group?" I think we do.............never seen them though :p
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Sandy :}
Saw a shot of a Typhoon (modern pointy one) recently with invasion stripes. Very retro - nice. There are mentions on the web of camouflage working groups at various points in history, but nothing I can find (ha ha) on RAF.mil Is it a formal body, or are working groups just brought together on an as needed basis? |
Formal Body, read Chapter 6.6 on the link below.
http://www.maa.mod.uk/linkedfiles/re...1/chapter6.pdf As for all grey aircraft, that's the best colour if operating in the medium altitude role in all weathers and at night. That's the reason that RAF Night fighters were mostly medium sea grey from 1942 onwards. |
Thanks for that - wow - detailed specifications for everything.
Contrasts with the stories of the B-52s on Guam being deployed for Operation Linebacker - the undersides of which were apparently handpainted matt black, very roughly using brushes - brush strokes still visible for a long time afterwards. |
Mainjafad, Great posts you are clearly the top banana on this topic.
My favourite was the Puma done up for a tiger meet. Can't recall the year but I did have some pics (wet film era). I also remember the wash off paint. in particular the T4 Canberra pained blue for the anniversary where B Beaumont flew it. Now then I am surprised the Coff has not come across this thread. it would be 20 pages long and full of wonderful pictures of such things. |
dragartist
My involvement in the production of one of these ' Specials' was supplying the original multi layer photoshop drawing that the scheme was designed on (Plus showing the guy who designed the scheme how to use items of the photoshop software required to create the design). The bloke who designed the scheme in question wrote an article in a monthly aviation magazine that explained all the hoops that have to be jumped through to get the scheme on the aircraft. As for knowledge of camouflage schemes, having had to do aircraft profiles from the early days of the RFC through to stuff that is still in service, I've had to research the subject to find the correct scheme for an aircraft at a specific time period. In a lot of cases its resulted in a trawl of the bookshops as well as the internet. In a few cases the book explains how the camouflage scheme came about. |
We have a Camouflage Working Group? Whole trial was a waste of time as 1. The camouflage group had not been consulted about the new colour scheme and were therefore pissed off to start with 2. The first thing anybody saw were the smoke trails from the engines and then two black dots - didnt make any difference whether one was camouflaged or not. and finally - the aircraft had been painted the wrong colour anyway (it was nick-named the Flying Turd so you can guess the colour) and the remainder of the fleet was to be painted a different (ie the correct) colour Anyway we had a few leisurely flights burning holes in the sky and eating Jock Pies and beans. To be fair, the Nimrod colour scheme was intended to provide protection whilst on the ground. |
That would be this one then, nimbev (Photo posted by Beagle on another thread)
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...lying****e.jpg Not exactly British Standard BS381C 389, Camouflage Beige to give the Hemp colour it's official name and British Standard number. |
That's bloody hilarious.
No-one thought about the smoke trails... |
No-one thought about the smoke trails...
Not really relevant, The amount of smoke would be dependent on the aircraft's power settings and the smoke visibility would be dependent on whatever overcast was behind it, I think you would find that the main purpose of the trial was to see if the Brown aircraft was more 'visible' than the White one. Seeing that it wasn't and they were picked up at same instant, the trial was basically successful. As Nimbev has correctly stated the main purpose of the hemp scheme was to camouflage the aircraft while it was sitting on the ground. The ASW scheme has some documented history to it, Operational research in 1941/2 found that an all white scheme gave the shortest detection range for visual pick up of a Coastal Command aircraft by the crew of a U-boat in daylight (compared with the original day fighter / bomber scheme used) . Thus most of the fleet of Wellingtons, Sunderlands and Liberators were painted white, with Extra Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces to help camouflage from above while over the sea from fighters (when operating over the Bay of Biscay or north sea for example). Advent of the snorkel and the later Nuclear Submarine, lead to the all over Extra Dark Sea Grey scheme being used as camouflage from observation from above, however most likely due to solar heating effect reduction in places like the Med and Far East, the top of the fuselages were white. Nimrod MR 1, White / Light Aircraft Grey, Aircraft did high level transit, solar heating effect reduction were paramount, plus type was based on Malta. Hemp, Ground Camouflage. Camouflage Grey at phase out. Best compromise for low / medium altitude. |
Flew on Mk.1 Nimrods from Malta - they looked nice. The matt hemp finish had an adverse affect on fuel consumption as well ...
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Not exactly British Standard BS381C 389, Camouflage Beige to give the Hemp colour it's official name and British Standard number. |
However, 10B21 now appears to be called "Lizard Grey", which doesn't sound like the same thing....
Camouflage Working Group chameleon at work?:) Jack |
Doubt it, BS colours standard numbers are set by the British Standards Institute.
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"Thus most of the fleet of Wellingtons, Sunderlands and Liberators were painted white, with Extra Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces to help camouflage from above while over the sea"
Thereby replicating the colour scheme that had been worn by seagulls for centuries... |
In the Nimrod fleet, but not sure about others, the hemp paint scheme was used for ground camouflage. It was not meant to reduce the airborne visual signature.
At the same time as the aircraft started to be painted, we also painted the dispersal and pan parking areas. |
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