USAF, USN & USMC paint set (modern greys)

The modern grays of American combat aircraft

The eight shades cover what in modeling practice is called the gray period: from the end of the seventies, when colorful camouflage disappeared from American aircraft, to today's fifth-generation machines. Each shade has a number to the FS standard assigned to it in the list, along with the particular types on which it appeared.

Light Ghost Grey (FS 36375) and Dark Ghost Grey (FS 36320) make up the pair on which most of the schemes of naval aviation and of the Marine Corps rest, and you will find them on the A-10 and F-16 machines as well. Gunship Grey (FS 36118) and Grey (FS 36270) belong to the pattern nicknamed Hill One, which was carried by the F-4 machines of the C, D, E and G series and also by the F-16 in two-color and three-color form.

Medium Grey (FS 35237) covered the upper surfaces of the early F/A-18, A-6 and F-14 and of the two-color AV-8B. Dark Gull Grey (FS 36231) came onto the Marine Corps Harrier II after Operation Desert Storm. Light Grey (FS 36495) appeared in the years 1980 to 1983 on the lower surfaces of the first Hornets. Have Glass Grey (FS 36170) closes the selection and aims at the F-16 machines in their late form and at the F-35 variants.

The eight bottles are from a water-thinnable acrylic line, where a lower pressure and a thinner layer allow even a very fine boundary between neighboring grays to be preserved.

The difference between neighboring grays is inconspicuous in the bottle, but on a finished aircraft it is decisive. If you swap two close numbers, the scheme stops matching the photograph, because the eye follows mainly the ratio between the lighter lower and the darker upper surface. Mixing tones of your own is therefore a needless risk.