Unique USAF Skyraider belly paint

[Ken]

Once the USAF A-1s went to camo paint in the '66-'67 timeframe, the scheme was mostly unchanged for both USAF & VNAF airframes; 3-color tops with light grey undersides. Occasionally the belly colors were changed to black and subdued tail codes & serials were applied. Sometime airplanes are seen without star & bar insignia. Much of this is well documented.

I came across these photos on skyraider.org, heritageflightgeardisplays, and another online source I'm unable to properly credit. Note the darker grey undersides and non-standard black applied up the sides of the cowls. The curved black area is reminiscent of the black exhaust areas on the early COIN-scheme A-1Es, but I suspect this is unrelated.

I've heard rumors that the A-1s used to support the Son Tay Raid had special paint applied but have no way of knowing if these black cowls are related. I'm not familiar with either of these scheme changes.

Anyone have any info to share?

[famvburg]

I wonder if that darker gray is Gunship Gray. Looks pretty close to me. Now that has me wondering & this memory is from a very long time ago, like early - mid '70s as a teen. I built the Revell 1/40 A-1H Skyraider "Sandy" back then & while vague in memory, I know it called for the belly to be painted gray rather than white. The box showed it white but I originally painted it gray, just the plain old gray from Testor's. (Kinda close to Gunship Gray in the model world I think.) I don't think it listed an FS no. or if 'we' even knew what an FS color was then. After seeing some more pics & looking at the box top I repainted the belly white. In later years, after I found out about camo gray & its FS no. & how close it was to being white, I always guessed that's what Revell intended but didn't say, was 'camo gray'. I recently bought one of those kits off of eBay so I may have to dig it out of the closet to check but I sure do wonder now if these pics may have been responsible for Revell saying to paint the belly gray. Like I said, it's nearly 40 years since then so I could be remebering details wrong. Thanks for the pics.

[Ken]

My assumption is that these dark gray bellied A-1s were all post-1970, NKP based birds. When you think about paint colors that were on hand, you might think of the OV-10/O-2 scheme, but this shade appears darker. Maybe the Raven T-28s? The gunships (47/119/130) were still camo over black. I don't recall - what shades were being used on the IGLOO WHITE Neptunes, and were they at NKP too?

I'm sure there is someone who knows it it's no big deal ... I'm just very curious ... particularly in light of the NMUSAF A-1H needing a paintjob sometime soon.

Ken

[Ken]

Can any of our T-28 and our Raven gang speak to the commonality (or not) of this particular grey? And any comment from our Son Tay experts regarding the black??

Ken

[Ken]

Update to end the thought: After reading the "Son Tay Raid" by John Gargus, I don't believe any H/J models were used on the Raid, so that spoils the paint scheme theory.

Ken

[Snake45]

I've seen a few photos of USAF Skyraiders with 36118 Gunship Gray undersides, but black was much more common.