Yiannis Mitzas

Photo-Reconnaissance Camouflage

In the period 1942-1945, the USAAF was approached by a Boston paint manufacturer known as Samuel Cabot with a proposal for a new white Haze paint that allegedly rendered aircraft close to invisible by means of the Tyndall Effect, the same light scattering effect that causes skies to appear blue. The effect on aircraft was achieved by using a black base and then spraying the haze paint in layers, building it up to produce sections of the aircraft that were lighter (such as the undersides) resulting in a mottled appearance. The USAAF was impressed and eventually adopted it on its F-4 and early F-5 Lightnings (photo-reconnaissance version of the P-38) from March 1942. Unfortunately, Haze tended to darken considerably in use, was extremely time-consuming to apply, and could not be applied at night either. As a result it was briefly discontinued between October and January of the following year. However, a revised version referred to as Synthetic Haze was developed shortly thereafter by Lockheed. Unlike the original, it was applied on a dark sky blue base and was also applied more uniformly giving the appearance of a single color. This became the standard color on the later F-5 Lightnings from March 1943. The closest equivalents to the intended color (known as ‘Flight Blue’) is FS 35190 and, to a lesser extent, ANA 501 (Light Blue). Given the brighter base color, it seems likely that Synthetic Haze had a deeper appearance than its Haze predecessor.

Given that the new Synthetic Haze paint did not fully resolve some of the problems of the original in terms of its complex application, from around 1944 most USAAF photo-recon aircraft began painting their aircraft identically to their RAF counterparts using PRU Blue. This is a darker blue-gray compared to Synthetic Haze and would have been applied as a single color. The USAAF was also a major user of British photo-recon aircraft through Reverse Lend-Lease and these included PR versions of Spitfires and Mosquitoes which would have been factory-painted as such. It is likely that the switch to PRU Blue occurred mostly in Europe and the Mediterranean

Aeroplane

F-5 Lightning

98 Mosquito

Spitfire

Colors camo :

Haze / Synthetic Haze: Xtracolor is the only paint range to carry Synthetic Haze and is matched to FS 15190. Barring equivalents to this FS color, Tamiya’s XF-18 is too saturated for Intermediate Blue but could be more suitable for Synthetic Haze. Any generic deep sky blue fading into a sky blue underside should be good enough for Synthetic Haze, while a lighter less saturated blue would work best for Haze, fading towards white on the sides and undersides.