Down to two but Meridian/Kingsville can't agree. Not trying to get the aircraft to blend into the environment but stand out so it's easy to see via 3-plan ACM. However, the 10 aircraft at each wing will be used for everything, not just ACM. Meridian: K-ville:
NMM looks cool, but at low alt would blend in very well with places like sweato. West coast RAG has a poo colored rhino, and it was always a bitch trying to locate it if you were low, blended right into the mountains of 2508.
Camo is great for the tactical environment and looks awesome; but training command aircraft are orange and white for a reason. Mid-air, near miss or just an 'Oh shit, that was close', lets not make it easier. We all bitch and complain about Safety but are willing to throw it out for the 'coolness'! The right paint job would make the clown jet look great but I don't think it should take away from the ability to get an 'EASY' eyes on. That Orange and White sighting saved my hide more times in the Landing/FCLP pattern than it eaver did in the Gun Pattern/3 plane ACM! Folks generally know where to look in those 'Canned' flights; not so much for the solo taking it to low key (if they still do this) or beaking into his/her interval. Just my opinion! Oh and 4 plane form which is by far the scariest thing in all the syllybus!
The ACM types have pushed for this as the clown jet is apparently difficult to see against a cloud our blue sky background during BFM, specifically 3 plane. I don't know as I don't do BFM but I see studs lose jets all the time during simply tasks like tacan rendezvous. Only 10 jets will be painted and the idea is to have the aircraft stand out, not blend. I thought why not just overall yellow, like the TW-5 T-6B but folks want some coolness to it as well. So the fighter types are saying this camo is to make it easier to see. We put that that black and white one up against whit, blue, brown, green backgrounds and it stands out much more than the clown jet or the desert.
Night form is why no black as it was considered. Remember, the Brits fly black Hawk T2's, shiny ones at that as they flew two of them down here.
Night form was really the reason? The jet could be day glo orange and it'd be just as hard to see as a ninja jet on a dark-as-fuck night. And the orange and white scheme is VERY hard to see against a cloud deck. It really needs more orange to be effective. You're going to have a tough time making a jet both tacti-cool and high viz. I say you just paint them Hornet gray (already got the paint), slap on some aggressor markings, and be done with it. Let Darwin take care of the rest.
My experience was that I could always get tally 2 after an extension but I had to rely on the dude trying to not get smoked in the flats to tell me on the radio who is who. Way easier if one guy is a different color. That's the safety part I think. Both because there will be no blue on blue and you won't go no joy and miss the bandits reverse and high aspect merge while you're pulling for a shot on the wrong guy.
You use the nav lights during the rendezvous and when you get close enough the wingmans strobe and a-coll are bright enough to illuminate lead. It's actually pretty easy. I mostly talked about sports with the ip when I was dualed up on those flights.
Seems to me the Training Command exists to train students in the basics of ACM, BFM, or whatever the latest term is in vogue. Once the students get to the RAG they can begin to train for the real world. What good does it do for the student to lose sight just because of a fancy, cool, paint scheme and lose valuable training time. I remember too many times spending valuable seconds trying talk the student's eyes onto the bogey. Wouldn't it be better to see and be seen at all times, analyze the moves of the wily bogey, and counter those moves? And better yet, get an early tally and use the classroom-taught maneuvers to move in position for a valid kill? And is the availability that good these days to be able to dedicate 10 aircraft to tactics syllabus flights only? I'm with Bunk. Paint all the jets the retro-yellow color and be the standout at airshows. But, oh, I almost forgot. I'm retired. Who cares.
They do have formation lights...no matter the color, can't see it at night but you can see the white against the lights in close pretty good, even on a dark night.
The entire purpose of the new paint scheme is so you CAN keep sight/ID which one is the bandit in a 2v fight.
While that is all good and well, once they get to Hornets, a good %age of the time they will still need to figure out what Hornet is good and which one is bad. Might get lucky in the RAG and do those flights against F-5's (I did), but it's not like the problem is suddenly solved after leaving the VT's.
