by John Reed on June 19, 2012
Here’s you pic of the day for Tuesday. This awesome shot of an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet from VFA-122 tricked out in a digicam paint job for last year’s centennial of naval aviation is taken from Erik Hildebrant’s book, Fly Navy.
Enjoy.
June 19th, 2012 | Air, Fast Movers, Planes, Copters, Blimps | 1763246 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fdefensetech.org%2F2012%2F06%2F19%2Fpic-of-the-day-digital-super-hornet%2FPic+of+the+Day%3A+Digital+Super+Hornet2012-06-19+17%3A26%3A06John+Reedhttp%3A%2F%2Fdefensetech.org%2F%3Fp%3D17632
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{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
I really miss planes with interesting paint schemes .
This pic reminds me of how exciting it was to be a 6 year old, sitting the front seat of an Air America Porter rolling past the revetments of colorfully painted F-4's, 104's and 105's @ Don Muang in Bangkok. Fighter Porn.
UGLY reminds me of 1970 wallpaper
Tax payers dollar knows no end.
Will all the tiger meet camouflage planes please sand up:
f-5
f-104
f-16
f-4
respectively with their ridiculous pain scheme.
Lighten up, I'd like to see more fancy paint jobs. Varity is the spice of life. the way you sound, you'd think they were asking you to pay the bill personally.
More's the point, a "ridiculous pain scheme" is about the cheapest way to make detection harder (save covering up with camo net or hiding in a cave) and saves aircraft and lives. Far cheaper than fancy electronic countermeasures, radar absorbent materials, etc.
It might strike someone as ugly but any infantryman would rather go on patrol in camo instead of fancy red coats with shiny gold buttons, like some troops of old.
So your analogy is infantry in a jungle/desert/bush, good for you, sky and bushes are the same, ok, we are smoking some good stuff.
Planes spend a lot of time on the ground, or flying over terrain. A single solid color stands out.
Not just me, you too, so enjoy it, you paid good money for that, and will continue to.
What, would you rather have every airplane painted air superiority gray? It's not like every plane is painted up like this.
This Super Hornet was painted up for the 100 Years of Naval Aviation.
Not doing something over the top for a 100th anniversary is rather dumb, what's the point? That's like celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary by going to McDonalds.
Yes I would, check why they were started being painted that way after Nam, you'd get the point. With this idiocy it is hard to miss, whereas with gray you know clouds, and stuff. Do you absolutely think gray and varieties there of were done out of sheer incompetency aye?
I'd love a higher res copy even just at 1024×768 if it was available. 1920×1024 preferable but hey… :)
And almost all fighter porn is good fighter porn. Haters gonna hate.
Meh… Looks alright. I think a camo scheme with USMC MARPAT on the top of the aircraft and the nose and bottom still maintaining the standard gun-metal grey paint would be the most ideal.
Can someone please enlighten me? What’s the use of this digicam paint job? Just to look cool or it has some practical purpose?
I was under the impression this was a publicity move, but I think Hyperstealth digicammed some MiG-29s with an eye toward functionality.
Think about it, are aircraft ALWAYS in the air?
More likely to be in the air if an F-18 than an F-22 </snark>
Who would ever suspect that a darker camo painted object moving across a light blue sky would be an airplane? Oh wait. This was done as a PR stunt, as the article stated. Never mind.
My whole point exactly.
It's called counter shading, when viewed from above dark colors or camo will better blend in with the ground, a lighter color on the bottom will make the plane blend in better with they sky when viewed from below. This was done extensively during the 70s and, to a lesser degreem the 80s with ground attack aircraft like F-4s in Vietnam, A-10s, and A7s. Both the Marines and Air Force have done this in the past and the Navy experimented with it but found it made spotting the planes during landing much more difficult.
Seriously, though, who spots planes by eye any more? Is any air defense system based on visual manual targeting? Does a radar system care at all about the paint job of a plane?
Indy, My recollection is that digicam configurations are the most effective way of breaking-up an object's recognizability. Hence US uniforms, newer Chinese armor and a number of other applications.
The basic behind digital camouflage design (and several other camouflage design) is really simple… to break apart the unit's outline.
For aircrafts that in itself serves to increase the difficulty in discerning the unit, and should the unit be seen it also serve to obfuscate the unit's design (visual ID) and general vector.
It doesn't make sense if you look at it at this range, but to get an idea of it take a look at one at a long distance from various angle… then it should be pretty clear what the camouflage is intended for.
centennial of naval aviation it was painted for that, Honoring 100 years of naval Aviation. You all jump to conclusions…it's not like we pain ALL of our aircraft like that!
Interesting paint job. Does this really help fighter craft or is this just PR scheme? Way its done, looks like its suppose to mess up digital images verses traditional mk 1 eyeballs. Sort reminds me of colored duck tape….
This digi camo frenzy is getting out of hand. This has NO repeat NO use. I miss my old days of tan and OD on Phantoms and Thuds. F-15 grey is fine but making impossbile to copy digi camo waste of paint.
I am not quite sure what 'impossible to copy' has to do with it's functionality (and i am fairly certain that since the design is digital, copying them to another unit only requires the pattern generator which can be replicated however way you like it since the algorithm for the generator obviously will produce the same design when given the same starting parameter) but to the best of my knowledge the pattern does work at breaking outlines, which is about as much as one can expect for visual camouflage.
I remember a pair of photos in an old miltary magazine (From the 70s?) One showed a friggate parked in front of a small island. With normal cammo options. You could see about 50% of the ship.
The next photo showed the same class ship, in a new cammo scheme and system. I had the photo for about 10 years and NEVER saw the ship.
In WWI, the schemes for planes etc were crazy, the idea was to break up the shap. you might see the plane/ship etc, but you would need a closer look to see what it was.
If I had my DRIV painted to look like an Albertross, you would think it an easier target, till you got too close and died etc.
In WWII the schemes got better, and the same idea applied. Break up the shape, not hide the tank etc (eg, paint the end of your long barrel black to make it look short.)
I for one will now be painting a few of my 40K model APCs in similar schemes. It looks great.
the new stealth paint for airforce in recession?
RtD, While the F-17 Cobra was designed for the air force (and lost out to the F-16). The follow-on F-18 is completely Navy and designed for carrier activity. The paint job is not stealth, it's designed to be hard to see (by the M-1 Eyeball) and even harder to see with thermal viewers (because of the difference in the heat collecting abilities of different colors and tones).
Anything is better than looking at grey airplanes all the time.
Reminds me of the 'dazzle' camoflage paint on warships of WWI and WWII……that had limited effectiveness too.
Plane camo: for when trees fly.
Looks like something out of Ace Combat or something. I'm digging it.
Nothing new except you can miss it if it is close to the desert ground. Thus you made a low altitude look from above hard to spot visibly plane ok, the air defense on the ground will have a field day throwing everything on a DARK spot in the sky, while the planes would knock it of still from few miles back spotting it on the radar. Camo = sucess = fail.
Getting back to the scemes that make a bit of sense: http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/groups/1/3/20…
http://i334.photobucket.com/albums/m428/helisilve…
http://maggieameanderings.com/images/2011/blueang…
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3w3ij7pcX1rtim…
http://flyawaysimulation.com/media/images11/image…
And those that dont: http://www.hyperstealth.com/supersonic/F-16-KA2-D…
To add that this is old news as VF-122 has done this in the past for the 100 years of naval aviation. ( maybe this is the exact same repainted plane ): http://www.flickr.com/photos/phantomphan1974photo…
The nerve of some people, It was for the centennial of naval aviation, the only purpose was to celebrate 100 years of Naval Aviations! Some poeple should learn respect for there country and our pilots…
O yeah respect, sure, like making your pilots suffocate FIRST, you mean that respect. Then spending funds on fancy paint jobs, why not hotrod pinstripe, it is the American way, lets be consistent.
Sure we applaud to paint jobs, while people die in Ospreys, suffocate in F-22's and GOD knows what will happen with F-35, good work, bring it on, people can take it.
Dude, you need a beer.
Have wine, it is just that it has not settled yet.
That’ll blend in perfectly on the deck of one of those new digicam aircraft carriers.
Looks like something you'd get as part of a DLC pack for one of the Ace Combat games.
I'm no expert but im almost 90% sure thats a regular F-18, not an F/A-18, the F/A has a rounded intake, not a cornered one as in this picture. anyways, sweet paint scheme, and reply if you have more knowledge on my prevous statement.
All ‘hornet’ variants are F/A-18. The inlet differences are as follows:
F/A-18 A/B/C/D — Hornet (round inlets)
F/A-18 E/F — Super Hornet (rectangular inlets)
Hope that helps! :)
Lockheed did a lot of research into stealth and visibility, but from what I heard, our military didn't like the shape of the submarine designs (apparently, sonar acts in ways similar to radar), or the colors (a shade of pink) that made aircraft, etc, much harder to detect.
I'd like something in a mauve, please.
Depens on perpective and altitude, and color too.