Current Indian Navy Sea Harrier scheme, medium sea grey or what?

[Giorgio N]

I'm toying with the idea of building the Hasegawa 1/72 Sea Harrier kit in the current Indian navy overall grey scheme. What's everybody's thought on the colour used ? To me it looks like overall medium sea grey, can anyone confim or give a different indication ?
Thanks in advance !

[scotthldr]

I'm led to believe that it is FS36320 "Dark Compass" upper and FS36375 "Light Compass" lower.

If you make it as a LUSH upgrade a/c arm it with Rafael Derby and Magic II AAM's for something different.

[Giorgio N]

Thanks Scott,

I'm tempted to build an upgraded aircraft as I like the grey radomes of these ones. I'm not sure if the radome is the same shape of the old one though, it looks more pointy but might be an effect of the different paint. it must be said that as I'm using the hasegawa kit and this has a more pointy end, maybe I should do one of these for this reason... These upgraded aircrafts also seem to have a special dual missile adaptor for the wing pylon

Interesting note about the colour scheme. I'm not sure if I've seen any colour demarcaton in the pictures, would the lighter colour be on the wings undersurfaces only ? Unfortunately I haven't found any clear picture showing one of these aircrafts from the bottom.

[scotthldr]

The radome is the same shape as they've always been on SHAR Mk51's it just the colour that gives the different appearance .

The colour scheme that I give you in my first post doesn't seem to be standard throughout the SHAR fleet . The lighter colour is on the underneath of the fuselage as well as the wings/stabs with the demarcation line being quite far down the fuselage sides, it then raises up to the leading edge of the wing root, similar to the Italian and Spanish scheme. Some a/c appear to be overall FS36320 "Dark Compass"

http://media.defenceindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_Sea_Harriers_IN_F-18F_ATFLIR_AIM-9X_lg.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jK5tpxIAkPs/T0b378S6O-I/AAAAAAAAJWE/jEdhEsOS7No/s1600/BAE+Sea+Harrier+FRS+Mk.51++T+Mk.60++INAS+300+INAS+552+squadrons++Rafael+Derby+BVRAAM++Indian+Navy+Harrier+vertical+takeoff+and+landing+%2528VTOL+STOVL+short+take+off+and+vertical+landing+INS+Viraat+%2528R22%2529+aircraft+carrier+%25284%2529.jpg

http://znn.india.com/Img/2011/11/14/14-11-11-d-gh6-O.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7320/8747551111_b7e3ffdb3d_z.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angad84/8748677578/sizes/h/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angad84/8748692778/in/photostream/lightbox/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angad84/8747551111/sizes/h/in/photostream/

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Galleries/5303-2/viraat01+057_1_.jpg

Some great pics here although none are of the LUSH upgraded version, scroll through the 5 pages

http://www.acig.org/exclusives/viraat/PICS/shar_603_nose.jpg

Edited June 28, 2013 by scotthldr

[Dave Fleming]

I'm not convinced that it's a two tone scheme, so much as artefacts from weathering and re-painting. The LUSH aircraft do appear to be a colour close to MSG overall.

[ChocksAway]

I don't have the answer, as can be seen by my build of the FRS51, IN623, but I did have a stab at getting it close.

As scotthldr has said, there has been a number of different schemes used, though I found dating photographs made it impossible to determine when each was introduced and superseded. Harrier SIG members will see the fun I had with this when they read my "More Tails to Tell" special schemes document. I'm pretty convinced that the latest scheme is a single grey excepting the radome and I think most of the FRS.51s have now been painted in this scheme. The light colour temperature varies so much across the photos I've seen that it's difficult to determine the best photo from which to make a prediction, in the absence of definitive information. In the end I used Life Color's acrylic Light Compass Ghost Grey (FS36375) and their Light Gull Grey for the radome. You'll also see that there are different colour radomes, as occurs with the USMC AV-8B II Plus fleet.

Giorgio - you may want to have a look at other Indian Navy / Air force aircraft because they appear to be standardising on one particular grey and therefore the same grey? I've seen various names for it including "low visibility grey" but never an FS or BS reference number.

I don't suppose that really helps, but good luck. It will be nice to see another one in this scheme.

[Giorgio N]

Thanks a lot folks !

One picture seems to show a 2-colour scheme, but those of the upgraded ones seem to me in one single colour... I might just look into the paint stash and see what grey looks most like the pictures although as Graham said it's not easy to understand which is the right one.

Those pictures also show some interesting details: the front exhausts seem to be in a darker colour, that might well be an unpainted metallic tone. The wheel well doors also look like they are in a darker grey, something quite unusual.