USAF F-4G underside colour

[Plastic_parts]

I’m almost finished building the Italeri F-4G wild weasel ( kit 134) and I’m going to finish it in the SEA scheme.. now I always thought that Phantoms in thes colour scheme had grey undersides but the kit painting guide suggests this particular machine had white undersides. Is this correct or is it a miss print?

thanks in advance guys

[iainpeden]

The light gray underside was FS36622 and was almost off-white. The nearest I have ever found  is the Xtracolour enamel from Hannants. The first digit refers to the gloss/matt finish and Hannants have it as 16622 as a gloss finish.

Needless to say - on a Phantom it got very dirty very quickly.

[NorthBayKid]

FS 36622 is one of those colours that modelers often get wrong.  That's really no fault of their own, since most model paint lines also get it wrong.  The real thing is *very* light grey.  If you paint a scale model in paint that matches the FS595 color exactly it will be far, far too dark.  In real life, it is sometimes impossible to tell unless you have white and 36622 right next to each other.  Here is a photo that demonstrates the difference.  If the white '438' were not there, you would swear the codes were white.

 

[Des]

Some of the early camouflaged F-4C to serve with the USAF give the impression that they have white undersides possibly because the white from the original ADC grey over white colour scheme had not yet been replaced by FS36622 grey , good comparison is pylon colour as they often remained white longer than the undersides.  

 

By the time that the F-4G entered service however FS36622 grey was well established as the undersurface colour on USAF F-4 Phantoms of all variants in SEA camouflage although in time this did change to a wraparound SEA scheme on some F-4G (and others) before going 'lizard' with the European 1 scheme and eventually the final greys.

[dalea]

Just had a look at an FS595 fan deck.. Just to muddy the waters slightly, is the'"438 " in the photo White or "Insignia White"? Furthermore, there are 2 fs nos. for "Insignia White" , FS17855 and  FS17925, neither of which is a  true white.

[Plastic_parts]

It’s giving me a head ache 😂... so does this mean all USAF aircraft in the SEA. Scheme have this very light grey, almost white on their undersides ? I always thought they had a medium grey lower half. If I’m wrong and they should have this very light grey finish then all my USAF aircraft models in this scheme are wrong 😳

[Alan P]

Yup.

 

[Des]

26 minutes ago, Plastic_parts said:

..... so does this mean all USAF aircraft in the SEA. Scheme have this very light grey, almost white on their undersides ?

I would go with most rather than all , from photographs I am pretty sure that some early recipients might have kept the white from previous schemes for a little while at least.     But thereafter while most were light grey there were many variations - some F-4 had black as did some B-57 and A-1 although some other A-1 had Gunship Grey , some 'Ryan's Raider' F-105F had a wrapround scheme using SAC colours on the undersides while some post-Vietnam War F-105G , F & RF-4 , A-7 and possibly others had a wraparound SEA scheme.     USAF Helicopters , Transport and utility aircraft also had many variations along similar lines.     Also worth mentioning that with some aircraft such as the AC-47 , A-26K and some SF and Gunship types training units in the US had light grey undersides while operational aircraft in theatre had black.

 

Case of finding your subject and researching it. 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Des

[NorthBayKid]

The standard USAF SEA camouflage pattern had 36622 lower surfaces.  The overwhelming majority of aircraft had that colour on the belly.

[e8n2]

As was stated earlier, FS36622, when painted on a 72nd scale aircraft, it much too dark.  Believe me I did it once on an old Hasegawa F-4E in the early 70s.  A couple of years later I was stationed at RAF Woodbridge as a cop and got up close and personal with the 78 TFS F-4Ds that we had.  Standing just a few feet away from the aircraft and the undersides definitely look like flat white.  Whenever I do a SEA (South East Asia) color schemed aircraft, I ALWAYS use flat white.  It is much more representative of what the real thing looked like.  It is called scale effect, and normally I don't bother to worry about it, but in this case, I do.  Here is a shot of one of our F-4s later in life at Nellis AFB:

 

https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=F-4D+65-0667&fr2=piv-web&hspart=att&hsimp=yhs-att_001#id=1&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviationphotocompany.com%2Fimg%2Fs%2Fv-3%2Fp1953278830-4.jpg&action=click

 

Later in life it ended up in the Hill two tone gray scheme before going to D-M for storage where I last saw it just over 10 years ago.

 

Later,

Dave

Edited February 11, 2020 by e8n2
Added photo link

[f111guru]

On 2/9/2020 at 7:41 AM, Plastic_parts said:

I’m almost finished building the Italeri F-4G wild weasel ( kit 134) and I’m going to finish it in the SEA scheme.. now I always thought that Phantoms in thes colour scheme had grey undersides but the kit painting guide suggests this particular machine had white undersides. Is this correct or is it a miss print?

thanks in advance guys

These might help on your paint. The above information and FS number is correct.

Taken in the mid 80's Cannon AFB New Mexico. Enjoy

 

Happy Modelling

Ron VanDerwarker

[Duncan B]

If you look at the pod on the pylon and compare it with the pylon colour they do not look the same. I think Italeri have got it wrong and see no reason why this aircraft is in anything other than standard SEA Camo.

 

Duncan B

[Murph]

The AGM-88 HARMS are gray FS #36622, while the AGM-65 Mavericks are white.

 

[e8n2]

8 hours ago, Duncan B said:

If you look at the pod on the pylon and compare it with the pylon colour they do not look the same. I think Italeri have got it wrong and see no reason why this aircraft is in anything other than standard SEA Camo.

 

Duncan B

I would refer you to my previous post on this subject.  When you are right there looking at it, you really can't see any grey in it.  In the one picture you can see the two of them together and THEN you can tell a difference, but not really until you get to see the pod on the pylon.  Looking at the nose section, it would be hard to tell a difference.  Whenever you paint a 72nd scale aircraft in SEA camo, the FS 36622 is noticeably  darker than it is in photos of the real aircraft.  I like to use the official colors but when it comes to the underside of SEA camoed aircraft, I will use flat white.  It really is up to what the individual wants or thinks looks right to their own Mk I eyeball.  In a larger scale, like maybe 1/32, then using FS 36622 for the undersides may not look so weird, but it definitely does in 72nd.

Later,

Dave 

[Hook]

On 2/9/2020 at 4:45 PM, Des said:

Some of the early camouflaged F-4C to serve with the USAF give the impression that they have white undersides possibly because the white from the original ADC grey over white colour scheme had not yet been replaced by FS36622 grey , good comparison is pylon colour as they often remained white longer than the undersides.  

Early 'C's were delivered not with ADC Gray on top, but in Navy colors - the topside grey was FS16440 Light Gull Gray.

 

Early SEA camouflaged examples received the two greens and tan upper colours in the field, with the undersurfaces remaining Gloss White and (the giveaway!) the large star & bar insignia still underwing.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

Edited February 14, 2020 by Hook

[Plastic_parts]

Well thanks for the advice fellas... it looks like flat white is the way to go but perhaps with just a tiny spot of grey to tone it down a little bit, I think pure flat white might be a bit to “ clean” looking