Turkish F-104 'light grey'

[John Elkin]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the 'Light Grey' applied to at least one Turkish F-104, as depicted on Xtradecal sheet X48208?

It appears to be too light for FS16473 and too dark for FS36622.

 

[Creepy Pete]

Dunno, FS16473 looks pretty light in bright sunlight. Early Dutch ones were painted in RAL7001, maybe that's an option too?

 

[SAT69]

The one picture I could find, doing an internet search, of a Turkish Air Force F-104G in overall grey showed a flat finish and appeared to be too light for aircraft grey.

[Giorgio N]

Turkey received both new and second-hand F-104s from several sources and this resulted in several schemes.

The aircraft on the Xtradecal sheet was former Luftwaffe and the grey was applied in Turkey as part of camo trials. However in the pictures I've seen of this aircraft the grey is darker than 16473, not lighter. It's always hard to tell the exact colour from pictures but I would probably try RAL 7001 or even the lighter fs 36375 on a model.

 

Now there have been some Turkish Starfighters that used a lighter grey and these were Canadair built new aircraft that had the fuselage in the Canadian grey sometimes known as "Voodoo Grey" to modellers. 6-164 however was not one of them

[A.C.Acikgoz]

hi,

 

it is possibly FS36473 "Counter Insurgency Gray" or "COIN gray"... 

 

regards

[John Elkin]

Thanks for the input guys.

I knew 8164 was ex Luftwaffe, so maybe RAL7001 would make sense.

[Giorgio N]

Yes, it was ex Luftwaffe but was repainted in Turkey so the paint could have been from any sources that supplied paint to their air force.

I'm looking again at the picture linked here:

http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/Stars/wT164.htm

 

The radome is supposed to be in 16473, the overall colour is slightly darker than the radome. How darker ? Hard to tell in such a picture... .

There's a way to tell if it could be RAL 7001: have a look at a Dutch Starfighter. In these the lower surfaces was in RAL 7001, if the contrast with the radome is roughly the same, then it could be the one. Personally I now find it maybe a bit too dark

Other options: in 1987 Turkey was receiving the first F-16s, so maybe they used FS 36375 ? At the same time, what would a brand new 16473 finish look like ? Turkey had used the F-102 in this scheme, that however had long been retired by 1987.

[iainpeden]

What ever it is, it does look quite pretty and clean - not like the F-104Ss, Giorgio.😉

[Giorgio N]

5 minutes ago, iainpeden said:

What ever it is, it does look quite pretty and clean - not like the F-104Ss, Giorgio.😉

 

Can't say anything, our S are guilty as charged !😁

 

In their defence though, they were a bit less dirt when new... just a bit 🤣

 

In the page below there's a picture of 6-164 taken 3 years later, when she carried the code 8-164:

 

https://www.i-f-s.nl/squadron-exchanges-1990/

 

She's now a bit more weathered and the paint looks lighter. I'm still not sure of the paint unfortunately..  @A.C.Acikgoz suggestion of 36473 could be a good one, but I would darken it a bit to give some more contrast with the radome... or lighten the paint used on the radome.