SOVIET AIRCRAFT COLORS 1950S-1970S

Soviet cockpits and metal surfaces of the Cold War

Postwar Soviet aircraft have two unmistakable visual signatures: unusual interior colors and extensive areas of unpainted metal. This package deals with both at once. Four shades aim at the inside of the machine, the two remaining ones are metallic and are intended for the external skin.

Inside sits a turquoise emerald tone that every builder of MiGs knows, then a pale blue-gray used in the cockpits of a whole range of types, a green for radar covers and wheel hubs, and finally a yellow-green protective finish for the internal parts of the airframe. The combination will cover the cockpits of fighters from the 1950s to the 1970s and helicopters of the same period.

Both metallic bottles come from a different product range from the rest of the package. These are aluminum shades with a fine sheen, which are sprayed onto a smooth glossy base and will stand polishing. A lighter and a darker variant make it possible to tell individual panels of the skin apart.

The interior paints have a matte lacquer base and a volume of 17 ml. The metallic tones are applied very thinly and without thinning. Once they have dried, masking with adhesive tape is not recommended, because it would pull off the fine metal particles; differences between panels are better dealt with all at once in a single working session.

For fidelity it is worth mentioning that the shade of the cockpits differed not only by type but also by the works that built them and by the year. Anyone building a particular machine from a photograph will do well to compare the tone against a picture of the interior before spraying, rather than against a general table.