Israeli AF paint set (1970’s desert colours)

From polished aluminum to desert camouflage

The Mirage III fighters came into Israeli service in 1962 in bare polished metal, without a camouflage finish. Only at the turn of the sixties and seventies did the machines receive the desert scheme, in which a sand and two green fields were laid on the upper surfaces while the underside stayed in a light tone. The set covers both eras, so from one package both the early and the later guise of the same type can be built.

The shades in the package

• Aluminium as the overall finish of the early Mirage III
• Sand for the upper surfaces of the desert scheme
• Pale Green as the green field of the upper surfaces
• Dark Tan as the darker tone of the scheme
• Duck Egg Blue for the lower surfaces of the fuselage and the wings
• Green for the underside of machines where the light variant did not apply

Which machines it covers

The supplier names a wide range of equipment, from early jets of French origin through fighter-bombers and light trainers to helicopters. From one package you can therefore paint a whole hangar scene without buying the shades one at a time. Most of the paints also carry a numerical designation according to the American standard, so they can be compared with the shades of other makers.

A note on the lower surfaces

One of the green tones was reserved for the lower surfaces of light ground-attack aircraft, which did not receive a light underside. Before spraying it therefore pays to check on a period photograph of the particular machine which variant the underside continues in, because the difference is conspicuous on a finished model.