Sunday 1 February 2004

Pretty in Pink

RAF Pink TornadoMaybe one of the advantages of having a more "Politically Correct" mixed-gender armed force will be the abandonment of some Macho Bulldust. From Jim Dunnigan's Strategy Page :
Deciding what color to paint aircraft has always been a contentious issue. Many different color schemes have been tried over the years. At one point, the U.S. Air Force ran some extensive tests and concluded the color that best hid an aircraft in flight was a shade of pink. The results of this effort were never implemented.
One can guess why - somehow Macho Fighter Jocks just wouldn't be comfortable zooming around in something the same colour as Lady Penelope's Rolls-Royce. Of course, some military forces, such as Britain's SAS have been using pink as a camo colour for decades, such as their famous Pink Panther LandRovers. (As an aside, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward's Biography makes fascinating reading.) Anyway, the picture on the right is of an RAF Tornado bomber in a low-visibility colour scheme : "Desert Pink".

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