One of the most widely used adversary aircraft in US service has been the A (2024)

SkyhawkAdversary Colors

byDavid W. Aungst

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One of the most widely used adversary aircraft in US service has been the A-4Skyhawk. It ranks second only to the F-5E/F Tiger II.

Over its many years of service with US aggressor squadrons the Skyhawk hasbeen painted in more camouflage derivatives than any aircraft I know of. Most ofthe camouflages are one of a kind. They combine some rather unique colors andpatterns to form some of the most interesting camouflages I have everfound.

With the recent release of the A-4E/F by Hasegawa, I have been examining manypotential modeling subjects with wild camouflage schemes.

I created the following digital diagrams to assist myself visualizing theappearance of these aircraft. I did this to help decide what schemes I wouldbuild first. Before you call the guys in the white coats to have me carted away,know that once the original line drawings were created (without any camouflageapplied), it only requires a couple hours of image work to camouflage onediagram and apply markings to it. I could not paint and decal a model anyfaster.

The diagrams provide me enough visual clue to the overall camouflage patternsto allow me to decide on which camouflages I really do like enough to committime for model building. Since I had a whole directory of camouflage imagesstarting to accumulate, I decided to make the patterns available to othermodelers. Thus, here I am.

Perhaps I can inspire some readers out there to build some models of theseaircraft and get their models posted, starting a sort of aggressor Skyhawklibrary!

First up is one of the more plain looking aggressor color schemes. This is aTop Gun machine, A-4E BuNo 151033. This aircraft is available on SuperScaledecal sheet 48-317.

The instruction sheet with this decal set is rather poor. I needed to do alot of looking and interpreting to glean out this pattern. I found a singlepicture of the aircraft as presented on the SuperScale sheet in Bandits! (seeReferences).

I found a couple more pictures of the aircraft in the Osprey Superbase booktitled Yuma (see References). The pictures in the Yuma book are from a differenttime period than the decals or the Bandits! picture, but the camouflage seemedto be the same. The main difference between these is that the gold pilot's nameblocks (below the co*ckpit) were no longer being carried when the pictures weretaken. Also, the Yuma pictures showed no false canopy under the nose and the useof a lighter gray for the markings applied to the Grayish Blue (F.S.35237) areasof the aircraft.

I chose to make my diagram match what the decal sheet provided, including thegold name block and false canopy. The Bandits! book picture shows the markingson the rear airframe are darker than those on the forward section, but theSuperScale decals are all in one color. According to the SuperScale decals, theleft pilot's name block reads "LCDR SOBIECK / SOBS". The right sideblock reads "LT PARMENTER / TIGER".

For a long period, this was the oldest A-4 Skyhawk in Top Gun. This was themount for Randy "Duke" Cunningham during his assignment for Top Gunfollowing his service in Vietnam where he became the US Navy's only ace pilot ofthat conflict.

The positive/negative style of the markings makes them hard to see inpictures, but they are there.

As noted on the diagram, the NAVY (written in green) on the tail was changedat some point to read MARINES (written in red). I have no information on whenthis change occurred or for how long it was carried. There have been otheraircraft assigned to Top Gun that worn MARINES on the tail.

A-4E BuNo 150023 (Top Gun #56, seen below) spent much of its Top Gun careerwith MARINES titles on the tail.

This aircraft is available on SuperScale decal sheet 48-316. As printed onthe two copies of this sheet that I have, the markings are a bit too dark(almost black), and the green NAVY is provided, not the red MARINES. There are avariety of gold name blocks on the decal sheet. The instructions are hard tomake out, but I think the correct name blocks read "LCDR MARTIN /REDBONE" on both the left and right sides.

A color picture I have shows the pilot's name being changed to "CAPT.WILL MILES / STUMP" during the period where the red MARINES writing wascarried on the tail.

This is the well-known "Colonel Tomb Scheme".

The closely matching colors of this scheme make the aircraft appear as onecolor in many photographs. I got the pattern shown here from the paintinginstructions of an old Fujimi 1/72nd scale A-4E kit (stock#25024 / F-24). I amnot very confident about the accuracy of the Fujimi instructions as the fewcolor pictures I have compared them to seem to be a bit different. Additionally,the side views and top/bottom views on the Fujimi instructions do not reallyagree with each other as to where the spaghetti pattern gets applied. I reworkedthe pattern in my diagram so that it at least agrees with itself on thespaghetti pattern.

After studying a few pictures and seeing how the paint looked in thesunlight, I am convinced that this aircraft was first painted in overall gray.Then, a splotchy pattern of green was applied to create the pattern as seen inthe diagram. Originally, I had thought that the aircraft was green first withthe spaghetti pattern applied second. Whichever way it is painted, applying thispaint scheme to a model will require some air brush wizardry.

The Fujimi decals have the gold pilot block showing "CMDR METCALF /VIPER". I have no idea if CMDR Metcalf is even a real person or, if he is,did he actually fly this aircraft. Perhaps the Japanese are just a little"Top Gun Crazy". Through several books I have pictures of thisaircraft, I can not find any picture clear enough to make out the names in thename block. It does appear that different names were carried at different times.I would appreciate anyone with information on this dropping me an e-mail withthe names on the aircraft.

Decals for this aircraft are not currently available in any scale from anyafter-market decal company I am aware of. However, the nose number is the onlymarking that is not readily available from alternate sources (like SuperScaleaggressor decal sheets 48-316 and 48-317). If you can find the nose numbersomewhere (the typeface is not that uncommon), you can easily model thisaircraft (if your air brush skills are up to the challenge).

Top Gun#56 (A-4E BuNo 150023) carried as many as seven different camouflagesthroughout its career in Top Gun, perhaps even more. Of all of them, this one ismy favorite.

The aircraft carried this camouflage in April of 1982. Woven into theaircraft's camouflage is the outline of a MiG 17, allowing the aircraft tomasquerade as a MiG during combat training. I have never heard how effective thecamouflage was at making the Scooter look like a MiG. Being a short-livedscheme, I assume it was not as convincing as hoped and was removed after itsevaluation. I got the pattern shown here from the painting instructions of thesame Fujimi 1/72nd scale A-4E kit as the "Colonel Tomb Scheme".

I am more confident of the accuracy of this diagram as I have found severalcolor pictures of this aircraft to confirm the pattern. The Fujimi decals usethe same pilot's name block showing "CMDR METCALF / VIPER" as in thepreceding scheme. From what I have deciphered from the pictures I have found inbooks, the pilot's name on the aircraft actually was "CAPT FULTER /CARROT".

I used this diagram to complete the "Fake MiG" model, seen in aprevious posting. Decals for this aircraft are not currently available in anyscale from any after-market decal company I am aware of. As with the"Colonel Tomb Scheme" above, the nose number is the only marking thatis not readily available from some other sources. I do have it on very goodauthority that this aircraft will have decals available for it (in 1/48th scale)sometime this summer.

This is an early aggressor scheme applied to an A-4E Skyhawk of VA-43 (laterVF-43) in June of 1975. Note the full color intake warning markings (red) andrescue arrow (yellow). Also evident are the full size tail markings, applied inblack. The only low-vis markings on the entire aircraft are the non-standardblack outline national insignia.

The one picture I found of this aircraft shows no other aircraft data beyondthe rescue arrow and engine intake warning stripes. I pieced the patterntogether for this aircraft from three sources. The first are instruction sheetsoff of old SuperScale decal sets (32-037 and 72-170). The second is a singlecolor photograph from Famous Airplanes of the World #3 (Douglas A-4Skyhawk).

Lastly, I consulted the pattern painted onto a model displayed in ScaleModeler magazine (Vol-11/No-9, September 1976). The magazine model was a 1/32ndscale Hasegawa kit built by Bob Archer using SuperScale's decals. I do not knowif Bob had any further information for his build than I did or if he was limitedto only the rather poor instructions found on the SuperScale decals. Whateverdocumentation he had, his model turned out well and provided me some idea ofwhat to do with the camouflage in some tricky places.

The bottom camouflage is just guesswork by me as I had very little to go on.I could see just a little bit of the bottom in the FAOW picture, enough to knowSuperScale was not correct about the lower wing being solid gray. I pieced whatI could from the picture and made the rest work around it.

Another of the camouflages carried by Top Gun#56 (A-4E BuNo 150023).

While I have been unable to nail down a date when this camouflage wascarried, attributes of the airframe make me feel this camouflage scheme was alater date than the MiG scheme seen above. This is a rather plain, simplecamouflage scheme.

When I found that I had color pictures of both sides of the aircraft indifferent books, I decided to work up a diagram for the pattern. The bottom isclearly one color in the pictures, but the wing and tail tops are nearlyinvisible. Hence, I took some artistic license to piece together a pattern fromthe slight view of the wing and tail edges seen in the pictures.

Decals for this aircraft are not currently available in any scale from anyafter-market decal company I am aware of. As with the "Colonel TombScheme" and "MiG Scheme" above, the nose number is the onlymarking that is not readily available from some other sources. If you can findthe nose number somewhere (the typeface is not that uncommon), you can easilymodel this aircraft. I do have it on very good authority that this aircraft willhave decals available for it (in 1/48th scale) sometime this summer.

This is a VA-126 aircraft. If you thought the "Colonel Tomb Scheme"seen above would be complicated to paint, you have to check this one out. I mustsay that tan and brown tiger stripes are a very attractive scheme.

I have seen a few aircraft (notably a couple F-5E and F-5F aircraft) that hada tighter tiger pattern, but this one is still tight enough to be a challenge. Ifound multiple pictures of this aircraft in two different Osprey books. One is aSuperbase book titled Fallon (see References). The cover of this book is apicture of this aircraft. The other book is Navy Attack (see References).

Unfortunately, in all the pictures I found, only the left side of theaircraft is shown. Also, the wing and tail tops are visible only by what colorsare present on their edges. I had sent to me a scanned picture of the sameaircraft with different camouflage colors (darker) showing the right side. Whilethe colors changed, it appears that the camouflage pattern did not. What I havehere on the right side portion of the diagram is based on this picture with thedifferent camouflage colors.

I would appreciate if anyone with a picture of the right side, or anythingshowing the wing or tail tops could e-mail me some scanned images so I canupdate my camouflage diagram accordingly. This is likely to be one of my nextHasegawa A-4E Skyhawk projects.

With the recent Skyhawk releases from both Hasegawa and HobbyCraft, thefloodgates are opening. I hope to see many new decal sheets come out providingeven more of a selection of unique aggressor camouflages. I know that I will bebuilding more of them as time permits.

And, if you think there are a lot of single-seat aggressor camouflages, justwait until Hasegawa releases a TA-4J! There are about three times the number ofunique camouflages applied to the TA-4J as are found on the single-seat A-4E/F.

• Aggressor Aircraft, Aerospace Series by Chuck Stewart. Osprey Publishing Limited, copyright 1990.

• Air Power Magazine (Vol-21/No-4, July 1991), A-4 Skyhawk Special Edition Sentry Books, copyright 1991.

• Bandits!,Pictorial History of American Adversarial Aircraft by Dave Parsons and Derek Nelson. Motorbooks International, copyright 1993.

• Colorful U.S. Navy A-4 Skyhawks, Color&Markings Volume#18 by Bert Kinzey and Ray Leader. Detail&Scale Publication, copyright 1990.

• Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, Air Combat Series by Peter Kilduff. Osprey Publishing Limited, copyright 1983.

• Famous Airplanes of the World #3 (Douglas A-4 Skyhawk) Bunrin-Do Company, Limited, copyright 1987.

• Koku-Fan Magazine (Vol-31/No-8, August 1982) Bunrin-Do Company, Limited, copyright 1982.

• Navy Attack, Aerospace Series by Rene J Francillon and Peter B Lewis. Osprey Publishing Limited, copyright 1990.

• Scale Modeler Magazine (Vol-11/No-9, September 1976) Challenge Publications, copyright 1976.

• Superbase 2: Miramar, Superbase Series by George Hall. Osprey Publishing Limited, copyright 1988.

• Superbase 8: Fallon, Superbase Series by Tony Holmes. Osprey Publishing Limited, copyright 1989.

• Superbase 9: Yuma, Superbase Series by George Hall. Osprey Publishing Limited, copyright 1989.

• U.S. Navy Adversary Aircraft, Color&Markings Volume#6 by Bert Kinzey and Ray Leader.

• Detail&Scale Publication, copyright 1987.

• U.S. Navy Attackers, Koku-Fan Illustrated #22 Bunrin-Do Company, Limited, copyright 1987.

Text and Images Copyright © 2001 by DavidW. Aungst
Page Created 19 April, 2001
Last Updated 18 May, 2001

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