Researching the F S colors for the MASH Chopper/ Huey Cobra

Olive Drab. Not sure what the designation of the Korean War OD was, but possibly ANA 319. The Cobra should be FS 34087.

It's just a Bell AH-1 Cobra!  The Huey is the UH-1 series.

I've got a 1/35 Academy Bell 47 (USCG HTl-4 model) and I've sprayed it in Humbrol #155 OD, looks perfectly acceptable as OD in my opinion.

If you need to match FS numbers with paint brands I came across this helpful spreadsheet -

www.paint4models.com/.../paintconversionchart20100101d.htm

The only real issue, if you want to get technical, is that OD has changed over the years. Humbrol 155 is very good for the modern color that I encountered in my active duty servcie in the 80s. But not spot of for the older Vietnam era OD shades (there were at least two different ones then) or the Korean era color, or the WWII colors. Basic rule- pick the one you like and run with it.

Actually, the AH-1G was/is quite frequently referred to as the HueyCobra.  Google "HueyCobra" - you'll get about 30,000 hits.  I'd have to dig out some references but I'm pretty sure that is even what the Army and Bell officially called it (after the Cobra name got added). 

I'm assuming the OP was asking about the color of US Army AH-1Gs but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out while I'm here that the USMC had AH-1Gs in FS14097.

I guess that is just like the offical name of the "Huey" was "Iroquois" but it was never called that by the crews or troops.  A UH-1 was a "Huey" and an AH-1 was a "Cobra"!  

stikpusher

The only real issue, if you want to get technical, is that OD has changed over the years. Humbrol 155 is very good for the modern color that I encountered in my active duty servcie in the 80s. But not spot of for the older Vietnam era OD shades (there were at least two different ones then) or the Korean era color, or the WWII colors. Basic rule- pick the one you like and run with it.

I've been looking at pics of Loach models, and one thing strikes me - a lot of people seem to get their main color looking like that brownish OD that looks right for 'Nam era helicopters, as opposed to using Humbrol #155 spray which is more green.

One of the model builds I looked at stated he used Gunze Sangyo OD acrylic, but not which one (there's a few different ones from the looks of it on places like Ebay).  Obviously you'd have to airbrush it on, whereas Humbrol do #155 in a spray can.

I also wonder if the Tamiya XF62 (also available as the AS-6 spray can) is a closer colour to that brownish OD than the Humbrol #155 acrylic?  Pics of the spray can tops seem to indicate the AS-6 spray is more on the brown side of OD.

Vallejo model air #43 looks like it could also be another contender for that brownish OD, but again you'd have to airbrush it on rather than use a spray can.

I guess if your airbrushing the paint on you could mix your own up from various different paints to obtain that "right" shade of OD.

Yes, Gunze in their acylic line had 3 shades of OD. The armor one was darker, the one for WWII aircraft, lighter and greener, and the 34087 shade was the lighter and browner one. It works great for Vietnam choppers. Polly Scale also made five different OD shades, of which two leaned towards the browner hues, one darker and one lighter. Tamiya's OD, to my eye, is too dark for 34087. You would definitely have to lighten it up a bit with some Buff. Humbrol 155 is too gray and green for the Vietnam 34087. But a dead ringer for the current shade like on my k-pot ;-). On my build of the Revell H-13, I used the Polly Scale shade.

Wow, it gets really confusing when you start looking at just how many brands of paint and versions of OD there are then.

It's an absolute minefield!

FYI I think the Gunze OD I've seen in use is their H304.  That's probably the paint colour F-100 John is looking for, for the Cobra at least.  This Huey on Scale-Rotors.com appears to have been painted using that colour -

http://www.scale-rotors.com/galerie/1-utility-helicopters/232-bell-uh-1d-huey-slick-dragon.html

Not sure how far 10ml pots of paint go though when airbrushing (or even just using a normal paint brush) I would imagine that it could get quite expensive compared to using a spray can.  Just had a look on ebay and there only seems to be 1 seller with H304 currently and they want £4 per pot inc. postage (from Belgium), other websites (supposedly) in the UK seem to want to charge rather expensive postage - £2ish for the paint pot but £6.99 for postage on one site!!  Their official supplier in the UK (as I understand it) modeldesignconstruction.co.uk want £2 per pot but £4 for postage!!

Hopefully F-100 John doesn't live in the UK, has tons of cash to throw at paints, or is building a braille scale Bell 47 and Cobra.

The Gunze paints go far pretty well when airbrushing. Yes, H304 is the shade best matched for US Army choppers and it is semi gloss. But when airbrushed, the sheen is absolutely minimal.  H78 is a darker, green shade with just a hint of brown to it for US Army armor, and H52 is thier take on OD for aircraft. It is lighter and greener shade. I am not sure what those translate out to in the Mr Color line.

According to that spreadsheet I linked to the Mr Color equivalents are 38 (H78) and 12 (H52), I believe they're preceded by the letter C (so C38 and C12) as I saw one on Ebay just now.  Said something about it being a colour lacquer?

Oddly that spreadsheet doesn't seem to have H304 on it, unless I've overlooked it somehow.

Good to know the Gunze paints go quite far when airbrushing, I need to save up for paints/an airbrush compressor as it is for the 5 kits I've got in progress/waiting to be started, and every time I get another kit at the moment I have to source more and more paints, it's starting to cost me a fortune!

Hopefully finding out Gunze H304 is the one for Vietnam heli's has helped F-100 John also.