"Question re: Vietnam helicopter markings" Topic

It is my understanding that helicopters were assigned to "teams" with different color codes.

White: Observation
Red: Attack
Blue: Troop transport

Was this ever reflected in the markings on the helicopters themselves? I.e., "Attack helicopters have a red stripe?"

I only had occasional need to use helicopters, white birds, for hand held photo missions. Never saw any special markings. On the radio we were white bird and the Cobra flying shot gun was red bird. You may have heard of pink teams. White flys low to attract attention and then red flys in and hoses the people white birds attract. But never any colors per se. That was the aviation unit with the 11th ACR. btw. H

That helps, thanks!

Many units used tactical markings to denote which company or platoon (or troop) a helo was from, such as triangles, squares, diamonds, circles, which were generally white, though sometimes colored. There were usually applied to each side of the tailboom, sometimes the cockpit doors. There was not standardization, and some units painted the tops of their "winglets" bright orange or white, or had white stripes painted behind the greenhouse to denote leaders, etc. The Red/White/Blue nomenclature was a way to sort out what capability/loadout a type of helo/section carried. You've probably heard of a "Blues" platoon, which was the heloborne portion of a Cavalry Troop. As you said, Blue= lift, but blue and red are dang hard to see on dirty birds…

The only 'special' markings I'm aware of are brightly-colored horizontal stabilizers, which were NOT uniform. The various colors were to help higher aircraft see where the helos were against the dark green jungle.

I'm planning on marking all my observation birds (3x Loaches and 1x Huey slick) with dayglo orange or something similar. Might only do white. Not sure I'd use red, orange, and yellow as the red would probably fade to an orange and the orange to a rather yellow. Can't use blue, as that's too dark a color to serve the primary purpose of showing where the helos are.

I remember the UH1 unit that were flying out of the US ARMY airfield at Ft. Benning, GA., were still calling themselves "The Soc Trang Tigers". After their ops in Vietnam. When I was there as a Cadet for training in '75 or '76. IIRC, they had a Tiger painted on the pilots' doors …

Here is a link that should help. Its called vietnam huey illustration home page

vietnam-hueys.tripod.com

Jim

I have seen loaches with a white topped engine compartment, but mostly it was for radio tactical call-sign and identification.

Curiously, if you think of artillery and infantry branch colors, it makes sense.

If you listen to Covered Wagon's hit, "NAPALM STICKS TO KIDS". there is a line of lyrics about "blues out on a road recon".

I think I might have stumbled on Red gunship markings:

Nice! I think I'm going to 'borrow' that paint scheme, Pyrate.

Since I'm going to get a couple of the OGUK UH1Bs and arm them with the twin M60s and door gunners, that will suit perfectly.