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Armée de l’Air Mirage III/5 colours


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Hi all,

 

I am venturing down another path of which I have limited knowledge. I am therefore coming to you, the BM collective, for advice.

 

My question is about the standard colours for these aircraft in French service during the 1970/80s, the green/grey/aluminium scheme. Simply I am looking to understand the paints I need for my 2025 build plan :). Moving away from enamels (Colourcoats) I am now venturing in to  acrylics, having sampled the delights of Vallejo Model Air and Life Color so far. Vallejo offer 70.900 French Mirage Grey. Is that okay? How about the green? Vert Fonce? 
 

I will grateful of your guidance and thoughts. Thanks. 


Martin

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irage.jpg

 

For the Green current Humbrol 163 or Revell Aqua 42 are pretty close 

Grey is more complicated closed I could directly compare out of revell, humbrol, valair is an army painter,  its like a lighter version of FS36118 very similar lightness to FS36152 and FS36132 just a different hue to them, lifecolor do their own versions so both so maybe one of them will do. edit remebered I have used Vallejo 900 before and it looked ok I shall relook at the build in daylight 

 

Edited by PhantomBigStu
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7 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Vallejo offer 70.900 French Mirage Grey

My understanding is that this might be more appropriate for the F.1 Air superiority scheme or the dark bits on a Mirage 2000 rather than the Green Blue scheme. Not sure though. French colours have always been a mine field to my mind as there appears to be no readily available standards that we can use to compare these things or even get @Casey to do matches to other ranges in the same way that she has with MAP, BSC, FS & RAL colour ranges.

Steve.

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6 hours ago, PhantomBigStu said:

irage.jpg

 

For the Green current Humbrol 163 or Revell Aqua 42 are pretty close 

Grey is more complicated closed I could directly compare out of revell, humbrol, valair is an army painter,  its like a lighter version of FS36118 very similar lightness to FS36152 and FS36132 just a different hue to them, lifecolor do their own versions so both so maybe one of them will do. edit remebered I have used Vallejo 900 before and it looked ok I shall relook at the build in daylight 

 

Hi Stu, what you describe as A610 and A615 seem very close. What paints are they? M

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1 hour ago, stevehnz said:

My understanding is that this might be more appropriate for the F.1 Air superiority scheme or the dark bits on a Mirage 2000 rather than the Green Blue scheme. Not sure though. French colours have always been a mine field to my mind as there appears to be no readily available standards that we can use to compare these things or even get @Casey to do matches to other ranges in the same way that she has with MAP, BSC, FS & RAL colour ranges.

Steve.

 

I have that paint and I can confirm, it's the blue grey used on the F-1 (and some III-C), so not good for the green/grey scheme

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2 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Hi Stu, what you describe as A610 and A615 seem very close. What paints are they? M

AFNOR standard paints the French use, bloody difficult to find the information but the RGB simulations there are taken from an official document so they should be pretty close to the real thing.                  

1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

 

I have that paint and I can confirm, it's the blue grey used on the F-1 (and some III-C), so not good for the green/grey scheme

        
well that sucks as the build I mentioned earlier is a mirage iv, not got the chance to look at it yet,

 

edit: yeah valljeo 900 is too blue and a tad darker, more like A620 which is the all over blue used on mirage blue scheme, though blues tend to look bluer omn the real thing than they are on the model so it doesn't look half bad on my IV, though the fact the green I used on that is way off being too blue and light helps offset it 

mirage.jpg

IMG-5776.jpg

Edited by PhantomBigStu
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  • RidgeRunner changed the title to Armée de l’Air Mirage III/5 colours
1 hour ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

The Humbrol equivalents are Hu27 for the grey and Hu102 for the green.🙂

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

Actually humbrol current 27 isn't half bad, current 102 is nowhere nearand whatever that french websites says the french use AFNOR not RAL

 

mirage.png

 

edit: added the closest FS green and FS36132/FS36152

Edited by PhantomBigStu
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21 minutes ago, PhantomBigStu said:

 

Actually humbrol current 27 isn't half bad, current 102 is nowhere nearand whatever that french websites says the french use AFNOR not RAL

mirage.jpg

The colour description is from the Heller 1/72 scale Mirage IIIE/R/V and Heller although now owned by Glow2b from Germany is still a French company.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

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41 minutes ago, Rob de Bie said:

I partially colour-checked Mirage IIIE #471 at the Cambrai firedump (but not yet burned) in 1993. The grey parts matched FS 26152 on a 'fresh' part, and FS 26373-26293 on a 'bleached' part.

 

Here's a photo taken on the same occasion: https://www.flickr.com/photos/61758703@N07/33936874040

 

Rob

It would be edited my image to show 36152 and 36152, its just slightly different hue to them 

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6 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

The colour description is from the Heller 1/72 scale Mirage IIIE/R/V and Heller although now owned by Glow2b from Germany is still a French company.

I suspect you might be falling into the Airfix recommending Humbrol 30 Dark Green trap there ;)
Heller instructions mention these for the IV for instance. Most of them tend to match the once-used Humbrol range, and may be good for some, but like other manufacturers they will pick what colours are closest matches available in their range (https://www.scalemates.com/colors/heller-acrylic--860 )

 

s!AixJDhsXffc7t85_0CckjWcfpZetGA?embed=1

 

 

As far as the colour tables on that site go, I appreciate all the effort it takes to convert matches to RAL but I'd like to point out this one:  http://richard.ferriere.free.fr/camouflage/couleurs_usa.html .
Seriously? ANA and FS595 all as RAL? 

 

 

FWIW: ModelsVit Mirage IIIE instructions mention Humbrol 30 (Dark Green) and 87 (steel grey)  - perhaps this is an equivalent of the DSG/DG found on British jets and the GelbOliv/Stahlgrau on German F-104s for instance, the colours intended to match the overall NATO standard camo colours of the time.

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Hi Stu @PhantomBigStu,

 

I am homing in on the A610 and A615 colours. They look good to my ageing eyes, particularly the green as it could work well also for my Zaire Mirage project. Are they Revell colours? 
 

Thanks, M

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Most manufacturers suggest FS36231 and FS34079 ==> Vallejo 71.277 and 71.294.

 

Both look off compared to AFNOR samples: they are clearer, the green lacks that brownish hue and the grey lacks the blue hue.

 

Having said that, they look "harmonious" side by side and you have to take into account the scale effect, even more so at 1/72.

I think they will look just fine when sprayed thinly over a black base.

I still would add some blue to the grey.

 

 

Other manufacturers suggest FS35237 and FS34092.

They are also off compared to the AFNOR references and much darker.

I would not go with them.

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47 minutes ago, SebTartar said:

Most manufacturers suggest FS36231 and FS34079 ==> Vallejo 71.277 and 71.294.

 

Both look off compared to AFNOR samples: they are clearer, the green lacks that brownish hue and the grey lacks the blue hue.

 

Having said that, they look "harmonious" side by side and you have to take into account the scale effect, even more so at 1/72.

I think they will look just fine when sprayed thinly over a black base.

I still would add some blue to the grey.

 

 

Other manufacturers suggest FS35237 and FS34092.

They are also off compared to the AFNOR references and much darker.

I would not go with them.

Thanks for this :). My subjects will be a Gabonese Mirage 5G (French camo green/grey/aluminium) and a Zaire Mirage 5M (French camo green/a different lighter and brighter green/Aluminium). The Zaire had a definite Grey hue to the green. I have time to refine my paint choices as these are 2025 projects. In fact 2025 will be only Mirage deltas for me :). 

 

Martin

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Hi Stu @PhantomBigStu,

 

I am homing in on the A610 and A615 colours. They look good to my ageing eyes, particularly the green as it could work well also for my Zaire Mirage project. Are they Revell colours? 
 

Thanks, M

The A colours are the actual AFNOR paints which you'd can get commerically as aerosols. There isn't a revell for the grey as the hue is quite different to revell greys, but revell aqua 42 is close match for the green

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1 hour ago, PhantomBigStu said:

The A colours are the actual AFNOR paints which you'd can get commerically as aerosols. There isn't a revell for the grey as the hue is quite different to revell greys, but revell aqua 42 is close match for the green

Ah, I see :). Thanks, Stu

 

So the actual French paints are the AFNOR colours 610/615?

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On 10/31/2024 at 4:16 PM, drake122 said:

Zaire Mirages have beautiful color scheme indeed, but where can one obtain decals for them?

The only source I'm aware of is Carpena 72.08. Happy hunting!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

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