LUFTWAFFE COLORS 1990S-2000S [SET]

The Luftwaffe after reunification

The 1990s meant a fundamental change for the Luftwaffe. Machines taken over from the East German Air Force joined the older Phantoms and Tornados, units were relocated and with that the way the aircraft were painted changed as well. The conspicuous green and brown camouflage of the 1970s gave way to low visibility: to light grays with soft transitions, which blur a machine against the sky and against clouds and are designed for combat at long range.

The four shades of the set

The package holds a stone gray to the German RAL 7030 standard and three grays defined by the American FS standard: the medium gray 35237 and the pair of light so-called ghost grays 36320 and 36375. It is these last two that form the two-tone low-visibility pattern, which appeared at the same period on the aircraft of several air forces and in German service was worn by aircraft derived from American design. Giving the particular standard numbers makes pairing with documentation and with the shades of other brands easier.

The character of the Real Colors line

The paints are built on a lacquer base, so they are thinned with the matching thinner of the same brand, not with water. They come out of the bottle very finely ground and once thinned they form a thin smooth layer, which is ideal for soft transitions between the gray fields. The sprayed coat dries quickly, but it pays to wait a day before masking, so that the fresh layer is not lifted under the tape. The shades can be mixed with each other to create fading of individual panels.