Hey, don't pick on pink camo! Haven't you ever heard of the Pink Panthers? Hey, if it's good enough for the SAS, it's good enough for us.

Finally, a chance to use some of my Land Rover trivia and really earn my name.

IIRC, some versions of the RAF Tornado were/are painted in a nice salmon colour.

How'd you like to be the poor guy who had to report the results of those tests? That sounds like a Douglas Adams scene.

"We're going to get lynched, you know that?"

A greyish pink is a nice soft color.

A giant long cylindrical greyish-pink thing flying through the sky?!?!?
[swoons]

Mary, maybe it's just me but that sounded really dirty. I think I love you.

When I was a kid I always wanted a sports car painted in the WWII RAF cammo, like the Hurricane or Spitfire.

It is just so cool.

You get near one of my jets with a can of pink paint, you'd better have your running shoes on, martini boy.

(That said, have you seen the new USAF BDUs? They're gayer than an Old Navy commercial...)

OK, I'm not a fighter pilot, but if it kept me or increased the chance of me not being shot down, I'd pink painted jet.

But that's just me. :)

Far as I know, it wasn't implemented because it only worked well in certain conditions (low cloud, fog, overcast) and very not well in others (green jungle, bright sky). The "Haze Gray" color on most fighter aircraft tends to work reasonably well in all conditions.

There's also the radar/laser reflectivity issue to contend with, which would tend to be considerably more important in the age of MANPAD missiles and the like which are not dependent on visual acquisition.

I think most pilots would rather have a greater ground visibility than a higher probability of taking a SAM up the wazoo.

I was working at Boeing during the Joint Strike Fighter competition. I lot of us were watching developments with some interest - if we won, more business, more jobs. The Boeing proposal had a rather prominent air intake centerline on the fuselage, pretty close to the nose. Big gaping thing.

When I read that the nickname for the Boeing version in the Pentagon was "the Monica" I was sure we'd lose the competition - which of course we did. Do I claim it's surely the cause? naw.. but it couldn't help, there is a certain fighter pilot image to maintain..

Mm. Did anyone post the nose-on pic of the plane next to a pic of Phil grinning in your office? The resemblence was eerie...

"When I read that the nickname for the Boeing version in the Pentagon was "the Monica" I was sure we'd lose the competition - which of course we did."

no offense, but that's one of the funniest things I've ever read. :D

Funny that you mention the JSF project. Boeing loses the competition, only to win the lions share of the UCAV contracts, which seems to be the direction things are heading these days.

Life is not without a sense of irony.

That said, the Lockheed VTOL fan setup gives me an afterburning stiffy whenever I watch a video of all the flaps and foils opening. Now those are tax dollars I don't mind spending.

Erik, I was goofing off at a fighter squadron ops desk several years back (this was long before I ever even considered working for Lockheed; I was a site rep for one of the Beltway Bandits) and saw the side-by-side comparisons of the LM and Boeing JSFs in Aviation Leak.

As the pilots were wandering by, they'd check out the pictures, point to the "Monica," and inevitably say, "I'm not flying that ugly-ass jet!"

I knew right then who was going to win...

Postel -

I'm sure the 'jocks' and hanger queens on board here can tell the story better - but our local AF rep her... - oh, sorry, ' Don', Joint Forces Air Component Command rep - here told me about the "grey" and "black" paint scheme on their juets and - get this: How the jocks *hate* the black paint scheme on the -117s because of what the color *implies*.

Now to Army guys and hollywood moguls black means "special" "high-tech" and "Secret OPs" but to AF guys black means " a bird that I do not completely own"

Inexplicably, work is now afoot to repaint the -117s "Nighthawk"s - you know, night? Black? Everybody tracking? - an Air Force grey.

Methinks it be some 'queer' thinking indeed...

I was also at Lockheed during the JSF competition. I asked father, who was in the Air National Gaurd during the 50's what he thought of the contenders. His response,

"Well, not knowing anything at all about the actual performance of those planes I'll say this. There's an old saying among pilots that planes that look like they want to fly tend to fly well, those that don't, don't. Looking at the Boeing design, I'd say they're starting right off with a strike or two against them."

Aesthetics matter.
;)

Pink has a long tradition as camo. Motor torpedo boats raiding the French coast from England during WWII were pink to blend into the sunset. P-40 Warhawks in North Africa were pink after the desert camo paint faded in the sun.

Pink works as cammo. The 9th A.F. P-40s used "Desert Pink" in North Africa. There's a beautiful example in the Kalamazoo "Air Zoo" museum, that came to Oshkosh for 20 years or more. http://www.airzoo.org/p40/highli1.htm. It was flown by Suzanne Parrish - one of the most terrific people (and best pilots) I've ever met.

As for Boeings Strike Fighter - all I can say is that St. Louis never met a nice design it couldn't make ugly as sin. What flew is NOT what Seattle sent them.

Here's a better pic of the pink P-40

http://community.webshots.com/photo/28921944/20742356SbAopLOFdt

There are some inaccuracies in the article cited.

I was an aircraft maintenance officer in the Marine Corps during the first Gulf War. Our aircraft were all haze gray for several years prior to that war, the migration on all fixed wing aircraft was completed around 1986 when I first got to the fleet, but I remember seeing a few with the old style.

Before the war our helocopters tended to be green but even they were migrating slowly to haze gray. Same for harriers.

The critical inaccuracy of the article is that the Marine Corps did not exclusively have haze gray in that war. Many squadrons painted their aircraft after arrival, or before leaving, to a khaki color camo paint scheme to blend with the desert.

Some squadrons got a bit artistic with it, too. I am still looking for a copy of the pictures I saw of CH-46's in one squadron that were painted with a desert camo paint scheme, but they had silhouettes of naked women in the pattern!

Photo-reconnaisance Spitfires in WW2 were painted pink. http://www.museum-explorer.org.uk/museum-explorer/display_photo.php?Photo=729 for an example.

About the F-117 color: As I understand it, the "best" camoflage color in night skies is a mottled grey pattern, like owls and some WW II German night fighters. However, an Air Force general wanted to ensure that no Pentagon planner tried to employ the sub-sonic F-117 in daylight (when it could be engaged visually), so he had them painted matt black.

That way (he hoped) even the most clue-less pencil pusher would realize that it was a "night" airplane...

Mike Rentner, is this what you're talking about?

The internet will never cease to amaze me! You're right, and I was wrong in that they are CH-53's, not CH-46's. The maitenance control officer in this squadron was the husband of a staff sergeant in my squadron.

Thanks for the link!!

Pink? Sounds to me like a thinly-veiled gay "triangulation" strategy....

It was my understanding that the F-117 is black as that's the natural color of the carbon/iron oxide radar absorbing goop they cover the things with. Something about adding pigment to it reducing the effectiveness of the wondergoop.

Mr. Lion, your speculation is not bad, but it happens to be wrong. Don't ask how I know.

One of the advantages of the haze grey paint (I wish I could remember the term we used for that color) is that it wasn't a glossy paint. This made it terrible to keep clean but the paint type helped a little bit (probably not an awful lot) on radar reflection as well as visual reflection.

The color of the radar absorbent material was not black. As far as I know, it was painted black for public relations more than anything else. At night, the color is irrelevent. They liked acting like they had the latest super secret thing from the Skunk Works, when really it was fairly old technology by the time it was made public. Not that there was anything better that I'm aware of, but it was really just an early attempt to field stealth technology. As I recall, most of their bombing and targeting hardware was very similar to that in the A-6E TRAM.

Pink is also used by many as an addition to ghillie suits. It is not used in large quantities, but it is in there, even in woodland suits. I would however feel a little odd climbing into any pink instrument of war... however, there would be an ample amount of fun to be had in the inevitable analogies that would follow...

Are we sure this isn't an "urban legend"? When I first heard this story the best color was baby blue...and the story concluded the same way as this one (i.e., baby blue wasn't "macho" enough). A friend of mine was talking to an Air Force pilot about the baby blue story - he said that the Air Force found these stories too ridiculous to even comment on. And whats more, they don't really have any interest in telling anyone why they do what they do--they like to TRY and keep foriegn scientists guessing.

Pink tank.

The Swiss camoflage pattern has red in it, the SS during WWII had a pattern with pink dots. The reason why pink is useful is because the air absorbs red light, and allows blue to pass. The superiority of pink is proven every time you look up and see the sky is blue. Why pink and not red? Because the pink is perceived as light blue at a distance, while red would be perceived as a shadow.

The top of planes tend to be darker earth tones because you are often concerned with having your planes targeted while on the ground. That is less of a worry if you deploy to a hard air field with hardened shelters, or if you have air supremacy.

Pilot's prejudices can have a considerable effect, and not just the color. Consider what happens when 3 Air Force pilots walk into a bar and try to impress the ladies:
"I fly an Eagle!"
"I fly a Fighting Falcon!"
"I fly a Warthog...."
Is it any wonder that the Air Force has been trying for years to get rid of the A-10, even though the Army thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread?

TO: John C.
RE: Warthogs

"Is it any wonder that the Air Force has been trying for years to get rid of the A-10, even though the Army thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread?" -- John C.

If the Air Farce doesn't want them, we'll take em, along with the manpower slots and funding. Indeed, that very idea came up back in the early 90s.

Air Farce said they didn't need the plane, during the annual budget hearings.

Army came along, next, and said, "If the Air Force doesn't want them, give them to us."

The Air Force retracted its suggestion....

Regards,

Chuck(le)

TO: Stephen Green
RE: Color Schemes

This same thing goes on all the time. And the Air Farce can't seem to make up its mind what to do. We were hearing about this in the early 70s.

One of the AF cadets suggested "Air Superiority Yellow"...we're up here and we don't care if you can see us. Sort of a Baron von Richtofen thing....

Regards,

Chuck(le)