Model Air - RLM Complete Set

The German system of shades in one place

The Luftwaffe had its colors described by regulation and marked with a number, so the builder is not deciding whether a tone appeals to him but whether it fits a given type and year. That is exactly why the shades of this system are bought together rather than one at a time: no sooner have you built one machine than you need other pairs of numbers on the next, and filling them in individually is slow.

Working with camouflage patterns

The set comes in on a finished airframe, with the joints sanded down and the glazing under a mask. Earlier schemes call for two dark tones above and one light one below, later ones move to cooler gray combinations and to mottling along the sides of the fuselage. That mottling is exactly why a line built for an airbrush pays off: the drops can be laid on lightly, at low pressure and from a greater distance, so that they form a cloud and not a blotch.

• The upper two-color segmented pattern of the airframe and tail surfaces.
• The light undersides of the fuselage, the wings and the engine nacelles.
• Mottling along the sides of the fuselage on later machines.
• The color fields of recognition stripes and leading edges.

How much of the system it covers

The RLM system is wide and the brand itself lists a number of its shades individually in single bottles as well. The set is therefore a practical cross-section, not an archive of everything that ever existed: rarer late numbers are bought according to the particular subject. For an ordinary build of fighters and bombers, though, it covers what matters and the modeler does not have to start from nothing on every project.