Suez 1956 Painting Guide

THE ALLIES

Mimicking the D-Day invasion colours all British, French and Israeli aircraft were to carry uniform recognition stripes in the form of broad yellow-black-yellow-black-yellow stripes round the rear fuselage and front to back on the wings. However, in the general rush to get ready uniformity wasn't always achieved, though the Royal Navy followed the order to the letter, and the Valiants had no stripes at all. Some RAF and French units ran out of yellow and instead substituted white or grey. On Cyprus they had to resort to using the cream emulsion normally used to decorate rooms in RAF quarters. French and Israeli stripes tended to be more narrow than the British.

British

Bombers flew in bare metal and RAF fighters had the standard dark green and grey disruptive pattern uppers and bare metal, light blue or light grey underside. Various unit markings were added to the fuselage and fin.

Fleet Air Arm planes were grey across the top with the sides and undersurfaces a light colour officially termed light sky-blue, but in fact more of a grey green (see Fleet Air Arm Museum Sky Hawk to the left)

French

Jets were always left in bare metal. They often had flashy unit markings such as lightning bolts along the length of the fuselage or diagonal stripes on the rear.

Those based in Israel usually bore Israeli national markings. French navy planes were a glossy dark blue overall and had 'proper' invasion stripes.

Israeli

The Mysteres were bare metal, other jets and all piston planes were camouflaged tan or sand with dark slate blue or dark green. Camouflaged planes had light grey undersurfaces. Some Ouragans tried to look especially mean by sporting sharks teeth around the jet intake. The actual colour scheme could be mixed, even in aircraft from the same squadron.

THE EGYPTIANS

Some British supplied fighters seemed to have been painted light grey overall. The Lancasters were medium grey with black undersides, most other aircraft were left in bare metal. Fighters tended to sport narrow green or black recognition stripes (in similar positions to the Allies). The older planes usually had a broad white stripe outlined in green. The Vampires had just the green stripes without the white middle, in the Russian fighters these were black. On a lot of planes there were three stripes on the wings, the centre one being broader than the others.

British, French, Israeli

and Egyptian national

insignia

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