US Marine Corps Helicopters

Eighty years in two rows of bottles

The helicopters of the Marine Corps went through several entirely different ways of being colored from the end of the Second World War onward. The oldest machines carried the dark blue deck finish used from the end of 1944, after the middle of the fifties came a short episode of light gray, and from 1956 field green held for long decades. The eighties brought a three-color combination of green, gray and black, and the current machines fly in a tactical scheme of two grays.

Eight shades, five eras

• The dark blue of carrier machines from the end of 1944
• The light gray as the transitional finish of the middle of the fifties
• The field green used from 1956 to the middle of the eighties
• The medium gray of the three-color and the tactical scheme
• The light and the dark gray of today's tactical finish
• The black for the blotches and the desert tone from the operation in the Gulf

From piston machines to the tiltrotor

The list from the supplier reaches from the early carrier types through the attack and transport machines of the sixties to the nineties as far as today's tiltrotor with its tilting rotors. The set is therefore not tied to a single model but to the whole history of one branch of aviation.

The desert shade as a field finish

According to the supplier, the sand tone was applied in the field over the permanent paints during the operation in the Persian Gulf. On a model this means that it is sprayed as a topcoat, which can be rubbed through in places as far as the original finish; uneven coverage is more faithful here than a perfectly smooth surface.