Desert camouflage in the Gulf War

Whereabouts where the Tristars based during the conflict? Is their use of the camouflage as much for use on the ground as in the air?

Pink has been used before on recon aircraft to make them blend in with the twilight sky, was this a consideration or is it literally because it was hard to mix the same sand colour? Especially when youve only got the pound shop to buy the paint from.

MH

As I understand it the two K.1’s were painted pink as they were the only two of the 216 birds dedicated to operating as tankers in the Gulf while the others were mainly used on troop or freight duties including bringing back a pair of Arab stallions from Saudi after the conflict ended- and was there a stink about that one! When the fighting had ended 216 was allocated to bringing the troops home- the first major flight starting on red nose day- obviously such an occasion couldn’t be ignored so the five allocated aircraft duly had dayglo noses applied from dawn onwards- we managed to get a couple away before the SEngO came into work and put a stop to it!

Cheers
Mad Jock

Ah the pink piggies- spent much of Granby tootling around the Gulf in Perky -ZD951

Here she is (a bad scan from slide), the pink pig!

Question, why was this particular Tristar painted pink?
As mentioned above it was only low-level combat aircraft that were deemed necesary to camoflage this way, and as far as I’m aware this was the only large aircraft to appear in pink.
I appreciate that Victors, Nimrods and VC-10s were already in a low-viz hemp scheme

Ah the pink piggies- spent much of Granby tootling around the Gulf in Perky -ZD951-carrying out refuels of anything with a probe- had a list somewhere of all the types cleared for refuelling from our aircraft. Possibly the most interesting part was the period we spent doing a refuel shuttle from Palermo to Riyadh. In fact for DC-9 fans Palermo was fascinating to watch as a fleet of Alitalia DC-9’s pitched up early in the morning to pick up all those working on the mainland- also Palermo was the place where I had the worst Pizza ever!

Cheers
Madus Jockus

Have a photo of one of them somewhere, the pink was washing off showing the original white undeneath.

Ah the pink piggies- spent much of Granby tootling around the Gulf in Perky -ZD951-carrying out refuels of anything with a probe- had a list somewhere of all the types cleared for refuelling from our aircraft. Possibly the most interesting part was the period we spent doing a refuel shuttle from Palermo to Riyadh. In fact for DC-9 fans Palermo was fascinating to watch as a fleet of Alitalia DC-9’s pitched up early in the morning to pick up all those working on the mainland- also Palermo was the place where I had the worst Pizza ever!

Cheers
Madus Jockus

IIRC, the difference in pinky/sandy shades on RAF Tornado’s was down to where they were despatched from, those despatched from RAFGermany being the pinkier ones. This was down to the RAFG guys having to mix their own desert camo paint, there being no pre-mixed desert camo in RAFG stores.

Painting the Tristatrs was one of my first jobs when I statrted at Marshalls in 1991.
One of the ground equipment guys was dispatched to the local hardware shop to buy 30 broom handles, rollers and trays and an assortment of brushes.
We then set about them with gusto and paper overalls and got them painted is a suprisingly short ammount of time!

What seagull ???

Can anyone confirm this, I was present at the BoB 50th anniversay flypast at Buckingham Palace in September 1990, only a few weeks after the invasion of Kuwait, and the first aircraft in the leading diamond nine was wearing this particular ‘pink’ camouflage scheme, I don’t recall whether it was a Jaguar or a Tornado, I have slides somewhere, but we all thought at the time that it was a chilling foretaste of things to come.

My own rather poor quality photo of the formation is below, complete with an very unwelcome seagull!

The desert-camo Jaguar was due to have gone out to the Gulf with the first wave of Jaguars but went U/S and so got left behind, but was therefore available for the BoB flypast.

I’m sure I remember seeing a photograph in Aircaft Illustrated of a Jaguar in desert pink as part of a camouflage trial well before the Gulf conflict. I’m fairly sure this was some time before September 1988, but perhaps someone else can confirm.

Can anyone confirm this, I was present at the BoB 50th anniversay flypast at Buckingham Palace in September 1990, only a few weeks after the invasion of Kuwait, and the first aircraft in the leading diamond nine was wearing this particular ‘pink’ camouflage scheme, I don’t recall whether it was a Jaguar or a Tornado, I have slides somewhere, but we all thought at the time that it was a chilling foretaste of things to come.
As I recall, Humbrol very quickly brought out a tin of the requisite paint, which was a pinkish colour, (but not as much as those SAS desert Landrovers), applied to all aircraft, or so I thought.
At the time, my son was of an age where he was well into model kits and we had a right time adapting current kits into combat models with much use of a Rapidograph pen and bits of plastic and of course, that life saving Humbrol paint.
The USAF never adopted a different colour scheme as far as I know, so why did we bother spending all that money for nothing, the government must have employed a team of ‘experts’ who knew better.
Airshows in 1991 were really the place to be in the wake of the Gulf War, Mildenhall was magnificent, and I cannot forget the sight of those two ‘pink’ Buccs weaving their way across the runway at Finningley while the Tornado F3’s kept CAPS overhead.
I’m shifting stuff around between the loft and garage at the moment, when I come across my paint box, I’ll see if the Humbrol paint tin has a BS reference on it.

I presume our Jags, Buccs and Tonkas were painted a different colour to the Americans is their different use. Our jets initially did most of their flying sub 200 foot whereas the Americans, well, didn’t.

[QUOTE=Pete Truman;1335607]Can anyone confirm this, I was present at the BoB 50th anniversay flypast at Buckingham Palace in September 1990, only a few weeks after the invasion of Kuwait, and the first aircraft in the leading diamond nine was wearing this particular ‘pink’ camouflage scheme, I don’t recall whether it was a Jaguar or a Tornado, QUOTE]

It was indeed a pink Jag in that formation. Also in the formation, one of the Jag drivers was a German on exchange, quite apt as it was the BoB 50th anniversary!

The black blotches scheme was applied only to a handful of RAF Chinooks for “covert” duties. As said, the US forces did not change any camo although certainly an A6 and A7 received a 2 tone desert scheme, if only for the trip home and a part in the film “flight of the Intruder”. Thr French already had many a desert schemed jet from Chad and Djibouti service.

The color spec should have been the same on all RAF aircraft, but the method of application differed. Combine that with quite heavy wear on the paintjobs when in-theatre, and you got hugely different shades of pink. I recall the color faded into a more tan-like color over the months, the first Tornados I saw leaving Brüggen (leaving on a monday morning, painted over the weekend by a gaggle of flown-in ATC scouts, the very same aircraft flying test flights in green/grey the friday before) were far more pink than they were when they returned, either for overhaul or at the end of the conflict.

Can anyone confirm this, I was present at the BoB 50th anniversay flypast at Buckingham Palace in September 1990, only a few weeks after the invasion of Kuwait, and the first aircraft in the leading diamond nine was wearing this particular ‘pink’ camouflage scheme, I don’t recall whether it was a Jaguar or a Tornado, I have slides somewhere, but we all thought at the time that it was a chilling foretaste of things to come.
As I recall, Humbrol very quickly brought out a tin of the requisite paint, which was a pinkish colour, (but not as much as those SAS desert Landrovers), applied to all aircraft, or so I thought.
At the time, my son was of an age where he was well into model kits and we had a right time adapting current kits into combat models with much use of a Rapidograph pen and bits of plastic and of course, that life saving Humbrol paint.
The USAF never adopted a different colour scheme as far as I know, so why did we bother spending all that money for nothing, the government must have employed a team of ‘experts’ who knew better.
Airshows in 1991 were really the place to be in the wake of the Gulf War, Mildenhall was magnificent, and I cannot forget the sight of those two ‘pink’ Buccs weaving their way across the runway at Finningley while the Tornado F3’s kept CAPS overhead.
I’m shifting stuff around between the loft and garage at the moment, when I come across my paint box, I’ll see if the Humbrol paint tin has a BS reference on it.

There were several shades of pink which was mainly due to how the paint was applied, sprayed or brushed on. 1 C-130 was painted using sweeping brushes?

Certainly on the ground the Army preferred a sand colour where as the RAF painted it vehicles and ground equipment pink.

As for why we do not paint our aircraft in desert cam probably boils down to the fact that the aircraft are rotated in and out of theatre regularly and the cost of painting together with lack of manpower to do it.

The pink colour was not ideal at night and some aircraft were toned down with patches of black paint (CH-47 springs to mind).

As I understand it the Jaguars (and the other aircraft) used ARTF (Alkaline Removable Temporary Finish) to the same spec