Mr. Color - FS36375 šedá

The light gray that hid American fighters

Behind the number FS36375 stands the shade known as Light Ghost Gray. It is the lighter half of the two-tone camouflage that became the hallmark of American tactical aviation from the late nineteen-seventies onward. The varied green and brown finishes of the Vietnam era gave way then to the argument that the decisive engagement happens at the limit of visibility and that an aircraft should blend with the sky, not with the landscape below it.

On the F-16 this gray covers the lower and side surfaces, while the spine and the nose carry darker fields. On carrier-based F/A-18 Hornets it forms the entire underside of the fuselage and the wings, below the darker gray of the upper surfaces. In the Compass Ghost scheme it was also worn by the heavy F-15, and in various adaptations it appeared on reconnaissance and training types.

How the number of the standard is read: the first digit relates to the sheen, with a three marking the flat group, and the second digit places the shade in a color family, where a six belongs to the gray tones. The leading digit refers to the sample of the standard; for the actual finish the manufacturer's data applies.

This is a lacquer paint on a nitrocellulose base, not a water-thinnable acrylic. It is thinned with the thinner of its own line and dries to a firm, rub-resistant film that takes masking tape and subsequent oil weathering without trouble. For spraying it is usually thinned at roughly one to one, while by brush it goes on almost unthinned in several thin coats.