"Sea Harrier colours" Topic

I've read that 800, 801 and 809 Naval Squadrons had different colours for their Sea Harriers, with 801's being darker than those of 800. However, what colour would the reinforcements in 809 have been coloured? Would it have been the Hermes scheme or a different one altogether?

809 were far lighter than the others – rather than being done in extra dark sea grey like the earlier arrivals, 809 got the short-lived air superiority scheme – medium sea grey upper and barley grey undersides with the then new pastel coloured lo-vis roundels.

Here's one on Ascension in '82.

link

Thanks! Are you planning on doing the low-visibility roundels at some point?

They're not doable with my print process – it can't handle pastel colours (or grey for that matter) as the white's not designed to print on top of other colours. The only way it might be possible is using two decals – a colour one, and then a low density white one to go over the top, which I suspect most people would find too fiddly.

Well, I'm not planning to do my "all fixed-wing forces" project for another nine months (although I have started on a "some fixed-wing forces" one), so plenty of time to gat that technique going!

AS mentioned in the Ascension Phantom thread, Mike Grant Decals ( mikegrantdecals.com/shop ) had a sheet with RAF lo-vis roundels. It's a very nice sheet with roundels for Italy, Spain, UK, India, Canada, Australia, France, Portugal & The Netherlands. It's no longer listed on the website but IIRC, it wasn't either when I ordered one so it might bewoth shooting him an email.

Aircraft on Invincible where spray painted, she had the facilities to do this. Hermes aircraft where brush painted! Experience showed that a lighter colour was better at air to air work so the latter ones where in medium sea grey, barley grey.