Tactical trainer colours, cold war RAF

[Pellson]

Gentlemen.

Please bear with me on the long introduction.

Originally, as most of you know, most first generation JP:s were originally in allover aluminium, adorned with different visibility enhancing colour fields, first the yellow "trainer bands" and later different day-glo orange fields, resulting in very, very inconspicious aircraft.



Later, the basic trainers went to the ubiquitous red/white trainer scheme while a few JP:s used by the TWU got the ordinary 70-ies tactical camo scheme of dk green/dk sea grey over lt aircraft grey.



While this all makes sense in a world with adequate resources of front line tactical aircraft and/or ample early warning, I'm considering a potentially more dangerous environment, much like the very direct threat the West Germans and also my own country found ourselves living under during the cold war. In such a reality, any military aircraft, regardless of peacetime role, would have had a secondary wartime role, and they would have been prepared to move to that secondary role within hours rather than days/weeks. One consequence of this would have been that while any basic trainer definitely will have to be easily spotted in the air in it's trainer role, thus in peacetime having to wear dayglo field, those bright fields would have had to be executed in such a fashion that they could have been removed and/or rapidly overpainted in an emergency resulting in a fully camouflaged tactical appearance. See for instance the Swedish Sk60 trainer that in reality had a secondary light attack/recce role, flown by instructors.



Having found and fairly thoroughly refurbished an Airfix Jet Provost T3 I originally built (and, sadly, painted) some 35 years ago, I'm contemplating a more sinister camouflage scheme for this nippy little trainer. I'm basing my assumptions on that these harsher, more immediately threatening conditions also were valid in UK in the 70-ies/80-ies, rendering any basic trainer having been camouflaged as per the TWU JP above, but still carrying some dayglo stripes, much like the Sk60. What - do YOU think - would have been the most appropriate and/or british style to apply the hi-vis markings? Yellow bands? Orange dayglo fields? And to what extent? I feel that the original dayglo paint-up as per below would have been too bright to rapidly paint out even if the aluminium coloured  fields already would have been camouflaged in the scheme below.



I am happy for all ideas and input, sketches being even more welcome.

Thanks

[TallEng]

What an interesting idea!
If you were to take the JP drawing above, I would keep the nose dayglo as is, leave the wing dayglo as is
But have the tip tanks in camouflage. And reduce the dayglo on the rear fuselage to a band roughly as wide as the
Fin flash. That should reduce the amount of dayglo to be camouflaged.
How ever if you're looking at 70ies/80ies then I would replace the dayglo areas with roundel red.
Just my thoughts.
Regards
Keith

[Martin H]

I did something similar on a Gnat a few years ago


So I cant see why it wouldnt work on a JP 

[Old Wombat]

Me? I'd look at dayglo orange as the colour on the nose, tip-tanks, rudder & elevators, possibly with the wing trainer stripes.

This gives you more to be painted out than the Swedish example but less than the entire plane & makes it even more visible in the trainer role. The British roundels are also less visible than their Swedish counterparts, so you could possibly leave the tip-tanks orange if you ran out of time with no major negative effect in the short term (& could paint over them later).



Guy

[pyro-manic]

I'd go with red wingtips and tail, similar to the Hunters of 1 TWU:



Of course the JP doesn't have a spine, so just a fuselage band and/or tail in red would do. It's conspicuous enough for training purposes, but quick enough to paint over (just in flat dark green, say) or even leave alone if the situation is urgent enough. Alternatively, use an Alkaline Removeable Temporary Finish paint (like the Gulf War desert pink) for the dayglo/red, so you can just scrub it off when needed! It might need fairly regular touch-ups, which may or may not be an issue, but it's worth considering.
A final thought would be to use stick-on panels (vinyl?) of bright colours that could be peeled off before a combat mission, as well as swapping out high-vis (dayglo or yellow/black chevrons?) and low-vis drop tanks.

[Dizzyfugu]

Have a look at Saudi-Arabian Strikemasters - IMHO, this is a good benchmark. Orange tip tanks and outer wing undersides, a field under the nose, a fuselage band plus an extension of the same towards the rear. That, combined with Dark Sea Grey/Dark Slate Grey from above, light grey undersides and RAF roundels (be it low-viz or with white bands) should look pretty good? Might even not need day-glo at all?

[Pellson]

Thanks a lot, all of you, for many tips and ideas. While I haven't yet made up my mind about the JP finally, I'm delighted having been shown schemes I never thought of. Also, that Gnat of yours, Martin, is quite intriguing.
Having a bottle of day-glo orange in my paint drawer, I am inclined to try something that'll make use of just that pot but I am not really clear on what, bar the fact that I do not really fancy having a fin stripe on top of a day-glo field.



I'm more attracted by this layout, though still perhaps too much orange tape in total:



Ah, we'll see where this ends up. I'll keep you posted.

[Captain Canada]

Tip tanks and a small part ( either above and below or just below ) the wing tip. I only say this after seeing the pic of the Saudi JP ! Which petty much looks right just as it is 

I'd also do part of the tailplane and maybe the ruder, or a part of vertical.....

And/ or maybe a slim band around the rear fuselage.

Sorry, not much help but I do adore trainers that look the biz !

[Mossie]

Here's a couple of naval camouflaged Buccaneers that might help a bit.  One's from the Royal Aircraft Establishment (60's time frame in dayglo orange), the other A&AEE (seventies time frame in red) so the paint schemes aren't standard military, but gives you an idea of what might be:
http://www.blackburn-buccaneer.co.uk/NA39_XK528_files/0_NA39_XK528.html
http://www.blackburn-buccaneer.co.uk/S2_XN975_files/0_S2_XN975.html

Thanks a lot, all of you, for many tips and ideas. While I haven't yet made up my mind about the JP finally, I'm delighted having been shown schemes I never thought of. Also, that Gnat of yours, Martin, is quite intriguing.
Having a bottle of day-glo orange in my paint drawer, I am inclined to try something that'll make use of just that pot but I am not really clear on what, bar the fact that I do not really fancy having a fin stripe on top of a day-glo field.

I'm sure I have a picture of RAF Phantoms on exercise with red rudders, but I can't find it for the life of me! .  Maybe this could replace the the red tail if you don't want a fin flash on dayglo?  Another optionis to use a thin strip of white around the fin flash if you just want some demarcation, this has been used on some trainers (especially the recent black scheme) and on Raspberry Ripple painted aircraft among others.