Silver MiGs

[Tolvcat 4,495]

Some pictures of MiG jet fighters up to the 21 showing that the bare metal was actually a painted coat that stayed quite uniform and durable despite whatever time and weather did to the other coloured finishes an each airframe. May also be worthy of note that the paint went on gloss but didn't stay that way long going first quite matt then turning almost grey. 

Lots of interesting options for finishing models without having to buy 37 flavours of Alclad for each one.

MiG-15 (and UTI)

Interesting that here the metal paint at the wing root has worn enough to show some of the bright bare metal underneath. Shades of late WW2 Japanese finishing there

MiG-17

MiG-19

MiG-21. Harder to find, the early ones were a bit shy. There are loads of pictures of Indian Air Force ones, but they seem to have painted theirs gloss light grey when they were refurbished/upgraded. 

I don't know whether this finish was continued on later jets - certainly the -23, -25 and -31 appeared without camo but the latter two were a law unto themselves pretty much any way you care to measure it. This will give some food for thought for the earlier types though, and it kept me amused for an hour finding the pics.

Andy

 

[Mad Steve 23,561]

I wonder Andy, might that be the 'Anti Radiation' paint I read about waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back.

At one point I wanted to build only modern Russian stuff and amassed quite a little airforce of soviet aircraft. Anyhoo I had a book about Migs and one part in there spoke about Anti Radiation paint but i could not find out anything more about it. Your post just made the memory pop in there.

[Paul Brown 9,066]

Probably nitrocellulose mixed with aluminium powder, or in RAF parlance High Speed Silver (silver dope). In the real world aluminium clad airframes soon turn to dust without any protective coating and natural or bare metal is probably quite rare.

[Mad Steve 23,561]

Ahhhhh, I didn't know that, thanks Paul. I just assumed they were literally bare metal. 

[RWG686 37,798]

47 minutes ago, Mad Steve said:

'Anti Radiation' paint

Probably meant UV rather than stuff out of Chernobyl.

[Mad Steve 23,561]

6 minutes ago, RWG686 said:

Probably meant UV rather than stuff out of Chernobyl.

[Jag Mate 1,125]

On 13/09/2023 at 18:40, Paul Brown said:

and natural or bare metal is probably quite rare.

As per all Lightnings until they started getting painted in ghastly camouflage which ruined them.

An F3 which features a lot in one of my logbooks from my time on 29(F) Sqn.  Pretty as a picture.

[Jessie_C 12,865]

On 13/09/2023 at 11:21, RWG686 said:

Probably meant UV rather than stuff out of Chernobyl.

Or anti-flash, similar to the white undersides of V-bombers and B-52s. Reflecting the instant sunshine away from your airplane is generally considered to be a Good Thing.

Edited Sunday at 06:27 PM by Jessie_C

[Paul Brown 9,066]

2 hours ago, Jag Mate said:

As per all Lightnings until they started getting painted in ghastly camouflage which ruined them.

An F3 which features a lot in one of my logbooks from my time on 29(F) Sqn.  Pretty as a picture.

I should have qualified my comment and thinking about exceptions to the rule, Lightnings are obvious (I have Ian Black's book!). Must have been a 'mare for your erks.

[Jag Mate 1,125]

1 hour ago, Jessie_C said:

Reflecting the instant sunshine away from your airplane is generally considered to he a Good Thing.

Unless you're doing a laydown in a Jaguar at 200ft and 550knots

[Jessie_C 12,865]

15 minutes ago, Jag Mate said:

Unless you're doing a laydown in a Jaguar at 200ft and 550knots

What was the plan to escape the nuclear sunburn then?

[Jag Mate 1,125]

Both mirrors turned up and eyepatch (strike pilots for the use of) on and look down closing the other eye.

You could time the flash from weapon release to within a couple of seconds.

Then it was a question of running from the blast wave.  It would be moving at about 660kts and after release we would be pushing it up to around 580 so it only had about an 80kts overtake on us.  We would be just under 5nm away at the time of detonation.

[Jessie_C 12,865]

..and hope that you could find a handy hill to hide behind?

[BlackMike Models 9,661]

17 hours ago, Jag Mate said:

As per all Lightnings until they started getting painted in ghastly camouflage which ruined them.

An F3 which features a lot in one of my logbooks from my time on 29(F) Sqn.  Pretty as a picture.

Ooh I just felt a twitch (in my stash). I wonder if a Lightning build will reignite my mojo, an F.3 with a white spine and fin might just be the answer.

Duncan B

[Jag Mate 1,125]

4 minutes ago, BlackMike Models said:

an F.3 with a white spine and fin might just be the answer.

Which one are you basing that on then?

[RWG686 37,798]

43 minutes ago, Jag Mate said:

Which one are you basing that on then?

Duncan does Leuchars stuff so most likely 23 Sqn  eg XP760 / K.

[BlackMike Models 9,661]

8 hours ago, Jag Mate said:

Which one are you basing that on then?

It'll be a 23 Sqn one, XP758 'D' possibly but any from 23 Sqn at that period of time would do as they all had the white fins and spines (while 74 Sqn had black so made a nice contrast!). Could do XR753 'A' but that was an F.6 with gun pack I've already got one of those in the Leuchars collection.

Duncan B