“Aviation artist Keith Ferris developed a number of camouflage schemes for aircraft in the 1970s and 1980s, all based on a splinter scheme and in various shades of grey, that went from a tan-grey to a dark blue-grey. All markings on the aircraft were heavily subdued and basically in a thin outline to not break up the pattern painted on the aircraft. The effectiveness of the scheme has been debated for quite some time and despite painting several USAF and USN planes with the scheme, none were adopted for overall use. About the closest any came to this was their use on Top Gun and VF-126 Skyhawks and F-5Es in the late 1980s. It was eventually felt that the current greys scheme that is so prevalent on modern aircraft was the way to go. This was partly due to effectiveness and partly due to the lower cost of maintaining the schemes”. Credit: Scott Van Aken at Modeling Madness.

These “Deceptive Paint Schemes” are some of my all time favorite F-4 and F-15 paint patterns. I have also included a wonderful Airfix magazine article by Paul Mercer.

More Ferris schemes here

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