Skyblue Dragonflys

One picture

In Squadron/Signal’s Air War over Southeast Asia, vol 2, on page 36, there’s a photo of “A pair of A-37s over South Vietnam during their first combat mission in August 1967. This was during the evaluation period for the A-37, and these aircraft carry an unusual blue/grey and white camouflage scheme.” The aircraft are 14517 and 14519. To my eyes, both appear to be blue overall with white or pale grey patches on the upper surfaces only.
There are other photos out there somewhere…

Nothing would surprise me where top-brass are involved.

Tell us about your personal experiences with the USAF senior staff.

Thanks, I’ve seen a disruptive side view of one but am doing a 4 view and want to keep the modellers happy with accuracy.

I have seen a photo in a book of one but it is impossible to tell where the blue ends and grey starts.

Nothing would surprise me where top-brass are involved.

I made a model of one of these many moons ago, but I haven’t been able to lay my hands on the photos (in a book) that I used as reference. From memory, there were several variations in colours on maybe only half a dozen aircraft. At least one was overall blue, at least one was blue/grey disruptive all over. I don’t remember the disruptive-over-grey scheme shown on that page, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have one.
I do remember Jim Wood pointing out that at least one of the aircraft had the stars-and-bars applied to the ‘wrong’ wings (so of course that was the aircraft I made). Jim was of the opinion that the USAF top-brass mindset of the time was such that this slip-up would have guaranteed that the trials were a ‘failure’, regardless of how the camouflage performed!