hey
I just bought the academy 1/35 cobra and was wondering about the paint schemes? i.e which is accurate and which is still in use. the 2 suggested in instructions are the tan and brown “desert storm” and the green gray and black “marines”. Any other painting and decaling info, tips etc will help to. I’ve googled the above but results were unsatisfactory.
hope “cobrahistorian” reads this, but replies from others will be much appreciated.
Metallicus “Chopper-Boy”
This is HMLA-269 in Al Kut Iraq in the spring of 2003. This is the modern color sceme for cobras. Sorry, I don’t know remember the proper colors off the top of my head.
Semper Fi,
Chris
As Chris shows above, the current scheme is two-tone gray. The lighter gray is Light Ghost Gray, FS36375 (Testors 1728) and the darker gray is Medium Gray, FS35237 (Testors 1721).
For alternate decals, you can get the new Two Bobs Aviation Graphics Shark Mouth Vipers decal set (click on the 1/35 tab). This set is the most current with whiskey Cobras from the '05-'06 time frame. Also, see if you can find one of the discontinued Two Bobs Aviation Graphics Whiskeys in the Mix decal sheets. It had decals for a bunch of current (as of about '03-'04 time frame) snakes.
To bring it up to about '04 current standards, Cobra Company makes a great NTS (Night Targeting System) upgrade for it as well.
See Gino’s post for the correct colors. The cross hatched areas XXXXX are dark color
/////// areas are light color and the black line is where you blend the two colors together at.
I can’t tell you anything about decals however the markings, stencils, insignia, located on dark areas are to be painted the light color gray and vice versa. Main and tail rotor are lusterless black #37038 Cabin interior is also this color black.
Hope this helps.
Both paint schemes are accurate and neither is still in use. The tan/brown is HMLA-367 circa Desert Storm and the Tri-Color scheme and decals are for HMT-303 (QT tail letters) from the early 90s. HMT-303 is the training squadron - the most ordnance you would probably see hanging on one of those aircraft is one rocket pod. Other than that the link Gino posted (thanks Gino) is an excellent review. One more thing though - the kit and that build - and most builds you see - have the factory installed skid crosstube fairings -these were removed almost as soon as the aircraft hit the fleet. I’m talking about the “legs” that hold the aircraft up off the skids - they should have a round cross section - not airfoil shaped - replace them with wire ones - large coat hangers work well.
I knew it!!! I had always been wondering about that, especially recently. I had been reading one of my books(for the hundreth time) and noticed that some -W’s had the airfoiled shaped and some had the rounder shaped fairings. I just didn’t know why. Thanks SC!
Firehawk Ordie posted his 1/35 AH-1W a while ago… I remember it because I thought he did a nice job updating some of the antennas, and especially the round skid crosstubes. I found the old post, but the links to his pics are dead. Maybe he’ll repost them if he see’s this… 
Andy
I hope these are helpful.
I ran across these images on the militaryphotos.net website, and I thought that they might be useful in this thread. They show the Cobra paint schemes from different angles, most notably from the rear, looking down the tail boom and between the new horizontal exhausts.
Enjoy!
-Adam
Thanks for pics!
Andy
They were also on the Js, and Ts too but at least on the Ws for the past 20 years we removed as`soon as we got them. 1) they cracked easilyand they made it hard to inspect the skids.
Note the new turned IR suppression exhaust kit that is installed.
Even the G model had the crosstube fairings when delivered new. I suspect the original design requirement had them on and it is more costly to have the drawings changed than to just accept the aircraft then remove them when they become a pain.
The two antennas mounted atop the engine cowling have also been removed. These were on the earlier W’s, the radios were upgraded and the antennas remained but not connected. It looks like the turned exhause cowling eliminated them completely.
Nice pictures.
Thanks for that explaination on the fairings snakedoctor. Makes sense. Probably explains why they still install ashtrays.
I’d like to clarify the antennas. I think they went away well before the turned exhaust mod. I haven’t seen any installed in years. Those shark fin antennas were FM homing. The capability went away when the EGI (Embedded GPS/INS) was added beginning aorund 92/93. Removal of the actual antennas started with the NTS canopy mod - mid 90s - although it took awhile to get to all aircraft. Another minor antenna change was the new style of upper and lower UHF antennas (with addition of the horizontal IFF rod) that came abou in the mid to late 90s with another comm/nav upgrade.
Thanks for explaining what Marines are doing or did. I left supporting Marine aircraft in 1999. ECP 1686 was the ComNav Upgrade, and Canopy Mod was just that a mod to accept the front CDU, and probably a few other things I don’t remember. I still support aircraft that have these shark fin antenna and they do have canopy mod. We had a question regarding levelling the aircraft, having lost all four levelling locations. We thought we were going to have to remove a wing and use that location, then found out EGI is levelled to the sight. As it turns out they lost only the right levelling locations so we used the left.
Did you know Gunny Heidt or Kline?
The names don’t sound familiar - flight liners I take it? I spent the first half of my career west coast then went east coast.
Canopy mod was everything the NTS mod had except for the NTS (flir and TSU). That is because those weren’t made or bought fast enough to keep up with the mod. Most of these went to the training squadron until they could be made full up rounds. Not really interesting to modelers except for the odd reference picture that shows an NTS aircraft without the flir on the starboard side of the TSU. Ws are like that - a lot of reference pictures out there that may not be typical of the type.
I just finished this same model. I painted it based on an actual aircraft on the flight deck of the USS Bataan. I am not an expert or anywhere near that. But I did enjoy building this bird. A couple of hints that I had as a novice.
For the rotors I experienced a marked sag in the blades. It helped me to drill and pin them with some fairly heavy gauge wire that corrected the sag in the blades. I had to use CA glue to secure them.
The canopy had a large noticible gap between the bottom of the canopy and the body of the fuselage. I filled this using several applications of white glue.
The paint job for my bird mirrors the aircraft on the flight deck.
The nose art fangs I painted by hand. The custom numbers and lettering I did in photoshop and hand cut out of lamination paper.
Here is a photo of the actual aircraft. If you would like some more PM me and I will snap some pics for you.
Gamewarden5
Hey Thanks
I thought the rotor thing was just my kit i guess not. My oune blade actually broke after 24hrs of setting( most pissed [banghead].) My canopy is great though?!
Any more photo’s will be great as many as i can get. I’ve actually got a folder on pc over a gig of just various aircraft/helo’s pics, sort of a collection i’ve got going.
Thanks again for tips[bow]
Cheers
sorry forgot
cant see your pics in forum or mail
There is no issue with the rotor blades. If you use too much glue and don’t let it fully cure (this can take a week sometimes), it may break off. I have one that I built over 10 years ago and the rotors are holding together just fine on it.