YF-23 kit vs VF-1J!

[Goshawk]

well Imgine your a fighter pilot and you have 1 or 2 bogys flying around say around 30,000 ft and your around 25,000 to 27,000 ft up and you are barley getting a radar return from your on board radar, so you have to go to visual, IE Eyeballing it, well you know there close but the paint scheme blends in with the surrounding clouds and sky.

And yes at that high up it can lol, but as you just flying along all of a sudden your threat reciever lights up with a possible radar sweep or a target lock, you look around and cant see them cause they blend in with the background. then POOF! Your dead. Of course it dosent always happen that way but it is a "sound theory" as the military would put it.

Thats why some ships are painted the colors, Black, for night ops, lite blue and white for day operations, but with the white the can work in the dusk and night to blend in with the clouds.

I now i left out somethings so Im not sure Im totally correct here but this started I think pre WW2, I may be wrong on the time area or i may be close to it, the idea was orginally desgined by a pilot at the time.

EDIT: I hope I didnt hijack the thread

Edited June 6, 2005 by Goshawk

[David Hingtgen]

With even a slight overcast, grey planes become impossible to see at even 1 mile distant. Go to an airshow to see the effect yourself.

Each plane's camoflage scheme is carefully designed to try to minimize any "distinct" aspect---usually the intake and tail shapes--it's a lot harder to see a "blob" in the sky than an obviously airplane-shaped shape. Thus you'll tend to see more obvious demarcations around an F-15's intake edges and v.stabs, while an F-16 has a stripe on the v.stabs dorsal extension. 2 goals:

1. "Blob" the outline, making it harder to see, period.

2. Make it harder to tell what type of plane it is, even if you do spot it.

Now, for overall dark grey schemes like the B-2, F-15E, and YF-21 #1:

At high altitudes, this is the best color. Trust me, I've seen in on TV etc---a dark grey B-2 will blend in perfectly due to light refraction, etc. And of couse, this is one of the best colors for night.

Final quick summary: planes are grey to hide in grey skies. Most of the time warplanes don't fly in crisp clear blue skies.

[Guest Bromgrev]

Final quick summary: planes are grey to hide in grey skies. Most of the time warplanes don't fly in crisp clear blue skies.

They certainly don't in the UK!

[GunnerX]

The YF-23 became a multi million dollar piece of scrap metal after it lost out to the YF-21.

Thanks for sharing the work Gunner!

the Tamiya kit lacks a lot of detail, and is basically the Italeri kit.

Noel

Thanks Noel!

[Sildani]

BTW, the pic is from the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The aircraft is currently in the restoration hangar waiting to be worked on - I saw it there in April. Don't know when the pic was taken, but nothing's changed.

[Fugly]

Damn, thanks for all the responses! Now it all makes sense...thank you very very much.

[GunnerX]

Hiyaz! Some decent shots....

[GunnerX]

.. and another...

[GunnerX]

.. head on...

[GunnerX]

.. and finally, from the back!

[Gerwalker]

GunnerX: Excellent model! I like the way you weather it.

I was wondering why the panel lines look lighter than the rest of the paint in the photos of the real life plane (sort of a negative of your model) It seems to be the opposite in the YF-23 painted with two tone grey cammo. Maybe it was some sort of putty? (I know they used to use tape for covering the B-2 panel lines and they are using a special putty these days)

Thanks for sharing!

[Grayson72]

It really is a great build.

The only way I think you could improve it is to fill in the seem on the front part of the canopy where it meets the fuselage/nose cone. If you look at the real pics it's all blended. I've notice a lot of the models from FSM have done this.

Could be difficult though since you're blending a clear piece.

Edited June 22, 2005 by Grayson72

[spellbinder99]

The YF-23 may not be as dead as it seems.

I saw both the prototypes at Edwards in mid-1994 and they since went to the USAFM and another museum in California. Word on the aviation street is that Boeing, who now own Macdonnel-Douglas, have taken at least one of them back with a view to restoring it to flight status as a fighter-bomber prototype, thus becoming the FB-23!

Proving yet again it isn't dead till they melt it down.

Cheers

Tony