Navy Skins Retro Paint For 2011 'Centennial Of Naval Aviation' (Awesome!)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 07:19PM 
F-18 Hornet wearing the colors of a 1945 F6F Hellcat from VBF-17
For the 100th anniversary of Naval Aviation taking place in 2011, the U.S. Navy has painted up several operational aircraft in retro colors. It's an awesome idea for so many reasons, but most of all for what it does in connecting the old with the new... for helping us to better know where we're headed by remembering where we came from. This one simple act of putting great heritage paint on a nice handful of aircraft has done more to get me excited about Naval Aviation than the movie Top Gun did - a big high five to the Navy for a stroke of genius!
The best part is that many of these military flying machines will be attending events around the country so we can take a nice close look. Oshkosh 2011 is one of the events where many of the special aircraft will be in attendance. So if you still needed one more reason to get Oshkosh on your summer calendar, I think you just found it. (get more OSH info on these special Naval aircraft here)
This events listing at 100NavalAviation.org is a good place to start checking to see if any of the retro aircraft might be coming to another event your area. Different activities will be taking place at each event so you might have to dig a little deeper to be sure. All I know for sure is that in looking at the partial list of retro painted aircraft in the fleet that I'm posting here, these airplanes look fantastic!
T-45 Goshawk trainer in a pre-World War II tactical aircraft paint scheme
Awesome 'three-tone' scheme from WWII on a MH-60 Seahawk - one of my faves!
F-18 in a 'Navy Working Uniform' camo scheme (see video below)
T-45 Goshawk trainer in more pre-World War II tactical aircraft colors
S-3 Viking in 'Battle of Midway' Colors
TC-12 (Beechcraft Super king Air) in 'Battle of Coral Sea' colors
MH-60 in Korean War era 'Sea Blue' colors
HH-60 in Vietnam era 'Olive Drab' colors
A sweet video of the 'Camo' F-18 being shot for still pix back in August. Looks like fun!
MustSee, NicePaint, WWII, historical, military, video Email Article
Reader Comments (5)
Sweet, thanks for sharing. I also like the 3 tone MH60 colors. May have to use that when I camo my old pickup :-)
Desertdawg- Wow(!) three-tone would look awesome on an old pickup : )
Cool collection of retro-schemes! I've seen "camo" Hornet in photos before but, the HD vid is afterburnin' hot!
Impressive paint jobs ,love the S3...
TW
PS hope you send them to Europe soon..
It is an interesting choice for a Commemorative Paint Job. VFA 122 out of NAS Lemoore CA. The West Coast Hornet Fleet Replacement Squadron. Twenty six years ago, it was the A7 FRS. I passed through on my way to VA 147 back then.