Combat Colours: Military Aircraft Markings

The “esprit de corps” that flourishes in the individual air force and naval squadrons across the world, is often colourfully reflected in the schemes worn by their aircraft. This book illustrates not only the extraordinary range that has been and continues to be displayed on these planes, but also shows that some, often short-lived aircraft schemes are especially designed to reflect anniversaries, special duties and display roles. Many combat aircraft are included such as Phantoms, Mirages, Starfighters, Tornados, Fighting Falcons, Tomcats, Hornets and Corsairs.

The concept of Combat Colours arose some years ago as an exercise to gather, in one volume, all of the special schemes that were being devised to commemorate anniversaries, especially those not given too much publicity. As the idea grew, so unfortunately did the amount of schemes that were appearing which, to some degree, gave the project an open ended finish and as such, delayed its final production.

As the volume of material began to grow so did the catchment area in as far as what was considered to be a special scheme. In the end, after much discussion, it was decided that in the interests of fairness on those units restricted as to the lengths they could be allowed to go in altering their standard schemes, that anything and everything non-standard would be considered.

This, therefore, gave us licence to include the special one-off schemes for the anniversaries as originally conceived; special display colour schemes which were to be regularly seen on the airshow circuit; strange markings and colour schemes adopted as either one-off trials or applied for specific exercises, and finally some of the more elaborate art work that was appearing in ever increasing abundance.

Having set the criteria, the then near impossible task of deciding what to leave out arose and the finished product is in no way indicative of a lack of effort or imagination of those units not included. Equally the type of shots included are hopefully designed to give the reader a good overall look at these schemes without making the subject static. Having said this however, many striking shots were omitted so as to avoid losing a more overall balance.