Royal Australian Air Force Hawk127 Lead-in Fighter

RAAF Hawk LIF Colour Schemes

The Royal Australian Air Force Hawk 127 lead-in fighter trains aircrew for operational conversion to the F/A-18 Hornet fighter. It is operated by No.76 Squadron at RAAF Base Williamtown, near Newcastle in New South Wales, and No.79 Squadron at RAAF Base Pearce, near Perth in Western Australia.

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RAAF Hawk two-tone scheme

Official Scheme: Medium grey over light grey two-tone camouflage pattern.

Suggested paints: Humbrol 140 (Gull Grey) over Humbrol 127 (Light Ghost Grey).

RAAF Hawk 127 2-tone scheme

WARNING: This image is box art from the Italeri 1/72 scale Hawk kit. While it gives a rough idea of the two-tone scheme, the markings are for a prototype aircraft and are completely incorrect for an operational Hawk. Airliners.net has some great reference shots like this one.

RAAF Hawk two-tone scheme (Dark)

Official Scheme: Overall Extra Dark Sea Grey.

Suggested paints: Humbrol 123 (Extra Dark Sea Grey)

RAAF dark two-tone scheme

This darker glossy version of the standard two-tone camouflage scheme was introduced to reduce the danger of mid-air collisions during training. The darker topside colour increases the contrast of the scheme, making the aircraft more visible. You can see an example of it here

WARNING: On-screen colour swatches may differ significantly from the actual hue of the paint. Use the Humbrol colour numbers for reference and make sure to test the paint on scrap plastic before using on the main kit.

SCALE EFFECT: Scale effect is the changes to percieved colours based on how far the viewer is away from the object. In scale models, this means that smaller scale models appear darker when painted in the authentic colour of the real world object. To make the model "look" like the real object, you need to paint it in a lighter shade of the colour. 1/32nd scale models should be 5-15% lighter, 1/48 should be 10-25% lighter and 1/72nd scale models should be 15-30% lighter.

Unfortunately for most colours it isn't as simple as adding white. Primary colours like red become pink when white is added. You need to add lighter tones of the base color to get a lightened version of the primary colour. For example this Cybermodeller article lists several colours to match Extra Dark Sea Grey at different scale levels, citing Humbrol 125 (Matt US Dark Grey) as a 1/72 scale match taking scale effect into consideration.

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