Hawker Hunter export/desert scheme - correct colours

[StephenMG]

Hi all,

In the time I've been a member of BM there have been a number of excellent builds of Hunters in the desert colour scheme as used by Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Kuwait etc. There has also been a fair bit of confusion over the exact colours originally used on the aircraft, confusion compounded by a number of books and decal sheets giving incorrect colours - here's an example of a BM thread on the subject.

I have a vested interest in getting these colours right (see the link in my sig for details) and have recently been involved with the blokes at Yorkshire Air Museum who are repainting their ex-Qatari FGA.78 in Qatar Emiri Air Force colours. Unfortunately their first stab at the colours was based on the incorrect/confused colour information described above. I have since become involved and helped them with the correct colours.

As part of that research I spent some time matching colours to the access panels I have that retain their original Qatari paint. These have been cut back and polished to remove any surface dirt and to reveal the original, clean, paint. I thought I'd share the results of all this with you as, I believe, it provides the definitive answer to the confusion over these colours.

Firstly, the original paint samples I have been working from are,

• the spine panel (just behind the hood with an aerial mounted on it) from Qatari FGA.78 QA12 - this has the original "Sand" colour on it
• a fuselage access panel, also from QA12, which has the original "Brown" paint intact, and
• a link collector (Sabrina) from one of the Qatari FGA.78 aircraft (which one is unknown as it has not been stenciled with the serial number) which has the original "Deep Sky Blue" paint on it.

Officially, these colours are quoted using ICI colour codes and it has been said that these have no equivalent in the more familiar BS381C standard,

• Brown - ICI F407-815
• Sand - ICI F407-814
• Deep Sky Blue - ICI F407-813

My original intention was to match these colours (by mixing Humbrol enamels) and to paint some swatches to send to Yorkshire Air Museum so they could get paint mixed to the correct colour. I started with the spine panel and the Sand colour. This, to my surprise, turned out to be very easy and required no mixing at all as it was a perfect match for Humbrol enamel 225. The Brown turned out to be a very, very close match to Humbrol enamel 29 and the Deep Sky Blue to Humbrol enamel 109. Unfortunately I haven't got a photo of the blue but these photos show the swatch cards I painted for the Museum propped against the original panels. Yes, there are tiny variations in the photos but they are flat swatches (with matt paint) against curved, gloss panels so do look slightly different, but you get the idea.

This lead me to a slightly surprising conclusion. Although these are not quoted as BS381C colours, they are BS381C colours just by another name, as far as the eye can tell anyway. I wonder if Hawker did that for export aircraft rather than quote a British standard for foreign air forces?

Anyway, the upshot of all this and my conclusions on the BS381C equivalents to the ICI colours are as follows,

• ICI Sand = BS381C:362 Middle Stone = Humbrol 225 (Middle Stone)
• ICI Brown = BS381C:450 Dark Earth = Humbrol 29 (Dark Earth)
• ICI Deep Sky Blue = BS381C:175 Light French Blue = Humbrol 109 (WWI Blue)

This is at odds with the books and decal sheets I mentioned earlier which list the colours as Dark Earth, Light Stone and Azure Blue. Apart from the Dark Earth they definitely aren't!!! The Xtradecal International Hunters sheet is a perfect example.

Incidentally, these colours were also used on Hunter demonstrator 580 and Harrier demonstrator G-VTOL.

I hope that’s useful to someone.

Mark

[Truro Model Builder]

Very interesting. I've always thought from the few colour photos that are around* that the lighter colour was too dark for light stone.

*Subject to the usual caveat on basing info on old photographs.

[StephenMG]

To be fair, the colour does look different in most photos and tends to lose the mustard tone. There's even a hint of green in the original which doesn't seem to show in old photos. As you say, it never looks light enough to be Light Stone though.

M

[Dave Fleming]

It's interesting 225 matches BS381C Middlestone, because If I recall correctly that there wasn't a direct descendant of wartime Middlestone in the post-war MAP colours.

[Julien]

you might like these pics;

[John]

It's interesting 225 matches BS381C Middlestone, because If I recall correctly that there wasn't a direct descendant of wartime Middlestone in the post-war MAP colours.

But recall that Middle Stone is one of the original BS381 colours and it remained in the standard after the war. I'm not sure when it was dropped but I imagine it would still be around at the time the Hunters would have been finished.

Azure Blue wasn't in the pre-War BS381 and didn't survive the amalgamation of MAP and BS381 shades. Presumably there were thought to be sufficient light blues in BS381 to meet any requirements.

John

[StephenMG]

Nice, thanks Julien. Top one is QA12, middle is QA10, both after returning to the UK from Qatar and being spares recovered at Hurn. Bottom are a nice looking Kuwaiti FGA.57 and T.67.

All these photos illustrate the difficulty in accurately establishing colours from photographs as they all look different!!!

[Truro Model Builder]

Agreed, but none of them look like light stone was used!

Y'know, I'm very tempted to put one of my Revell Hunters at the top of the pile with the Kuwaiti decals from the old Airfix kit. I made so many of them when I was younger and never once did I use the Kuwait option. Is there anybody out there who did?

[JosephLalor]

On 6/17/2015 at 11:12 AM, Truro Model Builder said:

Agreed, but none of them look like light stone was used!

Y'know, I'm very tempted to put one of my Revell Hunters at the top of the pile with the Kuwaiti decals from the old Airfix kit. I made so many of them when I was younger and never once did I use the Kuwait option. Is there anybody out there who did?

I did.  I used Xtracolor renditions of RAF Dark Earth and PSA Desert Gold  on the upper surfaces and FS 15183 on the lower surfaces.  My choices were based on a Finescale Modeler article about 1991 Gulf War colours for the uppers, and an Ian Huntley article in Scale Aircraft Modelling which had a table matching BS to FS for the lowers, the colour in question being Azure Blue (not the WW2 one). 

Edited August 27, 2021 by JosephLalor