Aircraft camouflage
Stealth technology, as in the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, aims to minimize an aircraft's radar cross-section and infrared signature, effectively providing multi-spectral camouflage at the price of reduced flying performance.
The French were among the first to introduce camouflage, starting with Nieuport fighters with which they tested a variety of schemes during the Battle of Verdun in early 1916.
A light blue-grey Nieuport 11 was flown by Georges Guynemer which he named Oiseau Bleu (Blue Bird) while some Voisin IIIs were also painted in the same colour.
[1] By mid-1916 a silver-grey aluminium dope became the norm for Nieuports until the French introduced a standardized disruptive camouflage scheme for combat aircraft in 1917.
[7] Both services also used black for night bombers, while a wide variety of experimental camouflages were tried out for specific roles such as trench strafing, with multiple colours.
In the North Africa campaign a combination of "Dark Earth" and "Middle stone" were used for the top surfaces, the underside was "Azure blue".
[13] In the later stages of the war, camouflage was often dispensed with, both to save time in manufacturing and to reduce weight, leaving aircraft with a natural metal finish.
[14] Soviet Air Forces aircraft were painted with shades of green, either plain or in disruptive patterns above, and blue-grey on the undersurfaces.
[15][16] The basic German (Luftwaffe) camouflage during most of the war was based on a light blue undersurface and a two tone splinter pattern of various greens for the upper surfaces.
The side of the fuselage on fighters and some light bombers often had irregular patches sprayed on, softening the transition from the upper to the lower surface.
The undersides of night bombers and night fighters were painted black early in the war, but by 1943 switched to lighter base colours of their usual light blue undersurfaces for aircraft flown by day, and a light gray base coat over the upper surfaces to match the skyglow over the German cities they were tasked with defending.
[17] A special pattern was devised for the Mediterranean front, consisting of a sand yellow that often faded to tan, with or without olive green patches.
As Germany lost air supremacy, ground camouflage became increasingly important, and late war fighters received a two tone scheme like the British Sand and Spinach, in dark brown and light green.
For example, in the Korean War, American B-29 bombers were switched to night flying with black undersides when Chinese fighters became a significant threat.
[33] Fixed-wing aircraft, too, are occasionally painted with snow camouflage, as for example on Soviet fighters[34] and Luftwaffe Stukas on the Eastern Front in winter,[35] in Swedish trials in 1970,[36] and RAF Jaguars on exercise in Norway.
Towards the end of the war, allied air superiority made visible light camouflage less important, and some American aircraft were flown in unpainted (silver coloured) metal to save weight.
Sealed beam lights were mounted on the leading edge of the wing of a Grumman TBM-3D Avenger, and around its engine cowling, with the lamps facing forward.
[25] During the Vietnam War, Yehudi lights were again tried, this time mounted to an F-4 Phantom painted in a dull blue-and-white camouflage pattern.
In 1997, active camouflage was again investigated, this time with thin computer-controlled fluorescent panels or light-emitting polymer covering much of an aircraft's surface.
[54] Digital camouflage patterns, widely used for uniforms with designs such as CADPAT and MARPAT,[55] have been applied to the aircraft of some armed forces.
[56][57] In 2017, a prototype of the Russian air force's Sukhoi Su-57 flew with a countershaded digital camouflage scheme, all dark above except for a multi-scale pattern at the edges.
