C130 paint question

Hello Glenn!

I've been wondering about something like that for some time, too! From what I've seen some of the Herks have been natural aluminium finish or painted silver. most of them probably before '65 when they introduced the SEA camouflage.

I dug up an olf Tech order 1-1-4 and it says "All exterior areas except as specified" and then "Former system" colour 17178 and "Standard system" 16473 which I'd say are numbers also applicable to the FS-595. The first one would be silver, the second one ADC Gray.

Hope this helps - have a nice day, and by the way, Happy Easter everybody!

Paweł

If it was grey it was most likely a two tone white top and I think ADC Grey sides and bottom, both gloss colors.  I have a lot of C-130 photos from that time frame and the most common early was natural metal, and later SEA camouflage.  I know there were some weather C-130's painted white/grey.  Here is a photo from 1975 of the white/grey scheme.

Found one taken just a couple years before my time. Maybe this is what I'm thinking. I can't tell if it's gray or just plain metal. If it's plain metal I have no clue what color that would be close to.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/13476480@N07/27238449454/in/photostream/

It would be natural metal, I would think.  Like this one leaving Da Nang.  Alclad II ALC 101 would be my choice over a dark gloss base.  There are lots of good options for natural metal now.  Below the C-130 photo is a C-123 I painted with Alclad II ALC 101.