vietnam era huey color?

In a word, yes - BUT, OD is an awfully big word (um, abbreviation) in modelling terms.

"Khaki" is another one with many faces.

WmB

I recall seeing a Huey and a HueyCobra at an airshow in 1973 and the color was definitely a brownish, almost a very dark tan, shade, not green. These seemed to be well maintained machines with fresh paint. The color seemed to be something called "Field Drab" FS30118 which is available in Testors Model Master Enamels. I don't know if this was really faded OD or a "real" color like Field Drab. The color photos from Vietnam seem to indicate that a darker shade, the "Olive Drab", was used. But like the previous post indicated - Olive Drab is a pretty general term.

Martin

And mud, and exhaust stains, and extreme fading on the upper surfaces. Just about any olive colour you like would likely be not-wrong.

As others have noted...the color varied *greatly*, anywhere from a very dark "black-green-ish" shade to a faded, bleached, brownish khaki-ish shade (to make it even more confusing..."khaki" is just as varied as "olive drab"). Personally, I tend to prefer the faded, khaki-ish side of the spectrum. Plus, it can be fun to mix up this color, instead of trying to match it from a bottle.

Try this: Mix (pure) black with orange. Believe it or not, this gives you a very nice, brownish khaki. Spray this as a highlight color, over a base coat of dark green...with more highlighting, of course, on the upper surfaces; and other areas exposed to harsh sunlight.

It was called helicopter drab or OD but there are degrees of OD. If it was crewed by a perfectionist and was rubbed with Johnsons floor wax, it was dark and shiney. If it was a B/C Model it was generally darker than a D/H. Those out in the sun for a time were faded. I suggest you pick a specific ship and work toward that color. Is there a specific ship you are thinking of? You can also consider camo as several were so painted. Which model kit are you working with? Hugh Mills scout pilot 69-72 snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

I have a -C gunship. I was looking for the base colors. I have a bottle of "helo drab" but it's almost black. Works well enough for apaches and blackhawks, too dark for a vietnam huey I suspect. I wanted to make this pretty much a "generic" gunship til I could figure out how I wanted to mark it, and was going to weather it to match. Just getting my base coat of paint on before I put it all together.

Testor's "Helo Drab" is the color now in use on modern U.S. Army acft. It is the Testor's equivalent to the CARC (Chemical Agent Resistant Coating) green paint used on all U.S. Army helicopters..

Up through 1964, helicopters were dark, semigloss Olive Drab (start with the Tamiya color), with full color, high visibility markings. After 1965, a new, lighter, flat OD was introduced, and markings were toned down. Testors Model Master FS34087 is a dead on match, as they used the FS595 color chip as a reference (ironically, helicopters are the only subject for which this shade is correct). It could fade in service, so some aircraft might be browner than others, and of course a waxed aircraft would appear darker and shinier than a flat finished aircraft. The current Helo Drab (also available from Testors Model Master) is a different color. Gerald Owens

The Vietnam-era gloss OD was FS 14087. There were actually two flat

34087s - the first was FS X34087, later suceeded by FS 34087. Gloss-painted aircraft persisted well past 1965. The markings were glossy at first, then went through a period where there was a mix of high-viz and toned-down markings, and eventually all standard markings went to flat black to go with the flat OD. Appearance of the OD could be anywhere from full-out flat to gloss - many units waxed their aircraft. There were also many operational variations, including gloss green and black, non-standard greens, etc.

In the very early '70s the Army started painting some aircraft in a slightly darker shade which was an early Aircraft Green. This color was darker than the FS 34087 OD, and didn't fade as much - 34087 was very prone to fading and staining, leading to anything from pinkish-brown to brownish-violet shades. Around 1987/88 the Army went with the current Aircraft Green which is very, very dark. In the

1987-199X period you could see Army aircraft in Vietnam-era paint, early '70s green, or the new dark Aircraft Green, all on the same airfield, and many times on the same aircraft.

The short answer is that for most Army helicopters in the later non-gloss period in Vietnam the paint to go with is FS 34087.

John Hairell ( snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com)

FS X34087 was actually the second version of OD, and was renumbered FS

34087 in the 1967 and later editions of the FS-595 color book, a decision which has led to endless confusion when model paint manufacturers tried to duplicate US Army Olive Drab. The final edition of the color book deleted the chip altogether, which is one way of sidestepping a controversy. The revised chip did not adhere to the standard method of determining color and saturation and simply should not have been given that numerical designation. The original FS 34087, which corresponded with standard vehicle Olive Drab, was considerably darker and greener than the 1965 helicopter shade, and the flat or semigloss (24087) versions continued to be used on ground vehicles through 1974, when the four-shade MERDC camouflage patterns were introduced. I have a 1971 edition of FS-595a, and it had both chips (the newer FS 34087 chip was pasted on top of the original--I separated them for future reference). Gloss painted helicopters may well have persisted past 1965 (it takes a lot of time and money to repaint aircraft), but the flat paint was introduced at that point. Gerald Owens