Why go grey/gray?

[tanktastic43]

Sorry if this is a really dumb question and has an obvious answer.

I know roughly when grey became the predominant camo colour for air superiority, but I'm not sure why someone decided it should be?

Was it anything to do with using clouds as cover as opposed to trying to blend in with the ground below?

TT43.

[nev]

I don't claim to be an expert in this area, but I do know that the likes of the RAF & USAF did a lot of research in the late 70s/early 80s on grey camo schemes.  Someone like Jeffry (former intel type) will no doubt contribute more technical knowledge.

Also, I believe grey/green camos were sometimes intended to disguise the aircraft on the ground as much as in the air.

[sequoiaranger]

"Air Superiority" generally means controlling the skies over the battlefield. Generally that would be from altitude, not close to the ground. The earth looks more "hazy" from above. It's simple physical properties of light and atmosphere, where a pale blue-grey predominates. Thus the pale blue-gray "camo" of most modern aircraft. If the ground/water down below cannot be seen, then the predominate color is the light-to-medium gray of clouds. So much of detection is electronic, so electronic deception is more important, but most last-minute combat decisions are made with visual clues.

So "gray" tending towards pale blue-gray is the camo of choice.

[tanktastic43]

Fairly obvious as I suspected.  Cheers.

[Zeke]

There's also something of a more technical explanation as well mind you...

As the distance between your eyes and an object increases, the colour saturation visible in the object decreases and things become more 'grey'. (That's because of two things, the light dispertion in the atmosphere and the fact that human eyes are actually terrible bits of design that don't really work very well at all...it's your brain that actually does all the processing of the image, rather like Photoshop cleans up camera shots).

This is the reason behind the scale colour effect that many people try to get with their shades of paint, where you tone down the real colour into a scale version of it by adding light grey (or white).

In real life this means that any camoouflage applied to an aircraft becomes greyer at distance, although shades of purple have been shown to work almost as well becuase in pooer light conditions your eye makes a substance called 'visual purple' (a form of melanin) that enhances your eye's accuity but destroys the colour perception.

Damn my eduaction!...


and considering that I've been drinking Southern Comfort, my spelling is not half bad either!...

[Taiidantomcat]

So I have an excuse for purple planes! 

[Zeke]

Indeed you do...but NOT pink!...
Purple is one of the original cammo colours, just think of some of the WWI shades that the Germans came up with...worked very effectively too by all accounts...not that I was there you understand, I'm not actually quite that old yet...

[Nigel Bunker]

...but NOT pink!...

The RAF used pink in WW2 - it was effective for recce - there is a picture here http://www.airplane-pictures.net/image8237.html

[Flitzer]

As I understand it, the RAF PR pink was used due to the time of day they took off or landed i.e. dawn or dusk and the pink was found to be very good at hiding the plane against the tinged clouds from a low sun .

Not sure how acurate this is but I think its correct.

Cheers
Peter

[PR19_Kit]

My Dad flew a few missions in 'pink' early model PR Spitfires, PRIVs that were previously called Fs or Gs and they weren't really pink according to him.

There was just a hint of pink in a very pale grey and the reasoning was exactly as Flitzer explained it. Dad's flights at the time were from St Eval over the French Channel ports, and the 'pink' aircraft were flown on daylight tasks when the cloud base was low, around 1000 ft or so. That meant the aircraft could fly just skimming the bottom layer of cloud and the finish would tend to hide the shape in the dawn or dusk light.

Interestingly the missions were flown in opposite directions according the time of day, with the oblique cameras switched from port to starboard accordingly. This was to keep the Sun on the opposite side of the aircraft approaching the target, eastbound in the dawn with starboard side cameras and westbound in the evening with port side cameras. For some reason I never did get out of him, the number of evening missions far outweighed the dawn ones. Maybe they didn't like getting up early?

Most modern day interpretations of the pink would seem to be miles too bright, probably the best known example of this was during PL965's trip to the USA in recent years. That's her in the photo linked above, and I saw her at Breighton in that scheme just before she left, talk about BRIGHT!

[Flitzer]

I've heard of many shades that are classed as the 'PR Pink'.
Maybe the RAF's PR Pink was their equivalent to the Luftwaffe shade RLM 84 in that there seems to be an endless stream of similar but different shades labelled as RLM 84 and the same seems to be true for the elusive correct shade of PR Pink.

The RAF also had PR Blue too. And this ranges from almost a 'French' mid blue to Dark blue or a slate Blue-grey depending on which references you are using.

PR19_Kit, I bet your Dad has some great stories.

[Zeke]

Strangely enough, even as we speak, a friend of mine is researching PRU Blue for a project to do with RC scale flying...he's doing a Mosquito in PR colours and he's got an actual piece of a WWII vintage Mossie to work from, kindly lent to him from Duxford.
He tells me that White Ensign Colourcoats are absolutely spot on where the PRU Blue is concerned!...personally I always thought that their version was too dark, but apparently not...see what I know then eh?...

[sotoolslinger]

Allright then  Purple it is then

[sequoiaranger]

If you can't make up your mind between PR Pink and PRU Blue, then MIX THEM!

PR Pink mixed with PRU Blue should come up with a nice magenta/purple tinge.

Japanese reconnaissance "Rufes" were believed to have a magenta camo for dawn and dusk approaches.

[PR19_Kit]

PR19_Kit, I bet your Dad has some great stories.

Flitzer,

I'm afraid it's 'had' rather than 'has'. 

Dad died some years ago now, and he was always reticent about discussing his WWII activities, it took me years to get him to open up about that period and even then I always had the impression he was keeping things back. Once he got going on a subject he was a mine of information though, thus the bit about the flight directions above.