Model Forum / General / Models / July 2007

Nope.  And I won't be doing so.  I dislike special schemes and would much
rather build an ordinary line jet.

My experience of jets in special schemes is that they are an awful lot of
work for the groundcrew - much more than for ordinary jets.  They have to be
kept squeaky clean and in fully serviceable condition. Oddly enough, it
always seems that the powers that be choose the squadron dog for the special
markings. Sometimes here is no choice about which aircraft to use (as with
IV Sqn's specially marked Harrier in 1987). At other times, the choice just
seems ridiculous. I've found that aircraft in anniversary marking schemes
are hated by the groundcrew.

In 1987 I designed and painted the special markings for IV Sqn's 75th
anniversary. The same year was also the 20th anniversary of the first flight
of the first *true* Harrier, XV738. (All the previous aircraft had been
either P1127s, Kestrels or Development Batch aircraft which differed quite
dramatically from the production aircraft and so never saw squadron
service). As IV Sqn had XV738 on charge, that was the obvious choice.

The markings I devised were taken from the Squadron badge and comprised a
yellow lightning bolt on the fin, with black above and red below. The wing
commander wanted to keep the special paint scheme secret until it was
unveiled (as the station commander frowned on such things) and so the paint
shop didn't spray it. Instead, I hand painted the fin one night shift.

Esci later provided markings for the jet in this scheme in their 1/72 kit
and it is also available as an update on Modeldecal Sheet 94. Both decal
sheets are slightly inaccurate as the lightning flash is neatly presented
with straight lines. That's not how it worked out in practice! I botched up
the masking and so the upper demarcation line of the forward zig (or maybe
zag) on the port side was noticeably curved!

Anyway, XV738 was the display jet at the 75th anniversary celebrations and
remained in those markings for a couple of months until it went for a
scheduled minor servicing and was repainted.

During 1989 a Tornado (ZD891/BB or 14 Sqn) was involved in a mid-air
collision with two Luftwaffe Alpha Jets.  This was the third mid-air
collision in 18 months that was attributed to the camouflage scheme being
*too* good. Therefore, various measures were tried to improve visibility.
Various RAFG aircraft participated in a trial which involved painting the
tails in red or white for tactical aircraft, red or blue for air defence
aircraft.  There are numerous photos around showing RAFG Phantoms with red
or blue tails. These weren't squadron markings, the aircraft were
participating in the trial.

IV Sqn was on APC at Decimomannu at the time and so none of our aircraft
participated in the trial. When we got back to Gütersloh, the wing commander
(a different one, we also had a different station commander by that time)
was a bit miffed that none of his aircraft had colourful tails and so three
aircraft were selected and had their tails painted in the squadron colours,
in an identical scheme to the one that XV738 had worn. The difference this
time was that the station paint shop did the painting and so the lightning
bolt was nice and straight!