Modern Swedish AF paint set vol. 1

The shattered camouflage of the north

The Swedish Air Force worked out one of the most striking camouflage systems there has ever been. The upper surfaces were covered with sharply bounded polygons in four tones, meant to break the machine up into disconnected areas when seen from above against wooded and rocky country. Alongside it there was an older, simpler two-color version. This set can cover both.

Eight tones, two generations

The four-color scheme is made up of a dark and a light green, a buff brown and black; depending on the background it was used on all versions of the heavy supersonic machine with canards, on trainers and on helicopters. The older two-color finish reaches to a gray-green, an olive and a blue-gray, and it was worn by the early jet fighters and by trainers as well. The lower surfaces were covered by a light blue common to both generations. Each shade comes with its home code number, so it can be traced in period documentation.

A few recommendations

• paint the boundaries between the fields through a mask; a sprayed transition would go against the real subject
• sketch the layout of the fields out first, as this camouflage is not symmetrical
• lay the light blue underside on first and then mask it off
• with older machines, check whether they carried the two-color or the four-color finish

The paints are meant for finishing a model and hold no thinner or varnish. The number one in the name marks this out as the first part of a series devoted to the same air force.