USAF COLORS “GREY SCHEMES” FROM 70’S TO PRESENT

Gray as a camouflage color, not as a last resort

When the US Air Force decided at the end of the 1970s to abandon green and brown camouflage, it was not about saving money. Tests showed that against the sky it is brightness that matters, not color, and that the blurred outline of an aircraft painted in two close grays is harder to read at combat distance than a multicolored pattern. That is where the whole family of finishes these eight shades cover comes from.

The package contains light and dark slate tones for the two-color schemes of fighters, the medium grays of the later single-color finishes, a very dark gray for close support aircraft and a shade developed for the units that play the adversary in training. Aggressor aircraft are usually the most rewarding for modelers, because they carry unusual combinations of grays designed to imitate Eastern equipment.

Painting an almost single-color aircraft is more treacherous than painting a colorful one. Without contrast every unevenness of the surface shows, so before spraying it pays to sand the model thoroughly and lay down a primer. Modulation is done very carefully, and a difference of one tone is quite enough. Finally come the faded panels and the exhaust stains, which bring a gray aircraft to life more than anything else.

The paints have a thin consistency suitable for an airbrush, dry matte and take a clear coat well before the decals go on.

The line-up is not limited to a single era. Aircraft that first flew in the 1980s and those of today share most of the shades, because over the decades it was mainly the layout of the individual areas and the degree of sheen that changed, not the colors themselves.