British Aircraft Markings and Camouflage


The RAF adhered to pretty rigid and well-documented standards of aircraft camouflage during the war, so researching authentic paint jobs is a no brainer. You can read the British Air Ministry's instructions for aircraft marking yourself at rafweb.org, or delve into the bottomless archives of that mecca for modellers, ipmsstockholm.org.

The only thing the British did that was rather out of the ordinary was paint some reconnaisance planes pink. Many recon missions were often flown at dawn or dusk, when the sun was low in the sky, and the pink color helped them blend into the reddened clouds very well. But you really had to feel very secure with your masculinity to fly one. RAF pilots apparently have machismo to spare, as many of their strike aircraft during the Gulf War also wore the infamous pink paint. This time the paint was fully washable, though, so if anyone said anything they could hose the plane clean and deny everything. The British have an unusual historical affinity for the color pink. The traditional colour for Imperial British dominions on maps is pink, pink was once used to refer to the scarlet-colored coats worn in fox-hunting, the London Financial Times uses a salmon-pink color newsprint for its paper and Pink Floyd is the name of one of Britain's leading rock bands. All of which is meaningless coincidence, of course. I'm not trying to suggest anything.










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