I have been building models off and on for most of my life. I have recently retired and now have time to get back into modeling. I build mostly 1/72nd scale aircraft. My big retirement project is to start working on my Vietnam Era aircraft collection.
Best Regards,
John
Welcome aboard John. Looking forward to seeing your modeling works as well as chatting with you along the way bud.
See you round,
Joe
Welcome, John! Glad to see someone from my neck of the woods. 
Gary
Welcome aboard and I’m glad that you found your back to the hobby bench!
When you start your Vietnam collection, which aircraft will you start with?
Hello and welcome to the forums
Welcome to FSM. You’ll really learn some some stuff from this group
Welcome @Novicemodeler. Looking forward to seeing your Vietnam-era aircraft.
I’m planning on starting small. I’m planning on the first aircraft to be the re-issue Airfix O1-E Birddog. I’m having trouble figuring out what the FS# is for the actual Gray color they were painted during the Vietnam war. I know the Army O1-E;'s where Olive Drab. I think something small and simple is what I need to get the first model built to start the collection.
@Novicemodeler AI is telling me FS16473 (air defense grey).
There may be other brands with this specific FS color. While this looks like the right color, understand that my AI search was a quick one. AI has this unrealistic reputation of being all-knowing when it makes mistakes all the time. I am a software engineer who is encouraged to use the technology when my particular client will allow for it. But I never just blindly accept what it tells me to any given prompt; I always evaluate what it says against my own knowledge. Please do the same with your paint search through whatever resources you have or can find online.
Welcome to the forum John. I like your interest in the Vietnam War era. Do you plan to just build in 1/72 scale? I sure hope that you plan on building a B-52.
Most of my kits are 1/72nd scale. I do have a few 1/48th scale Vietnam era. The main collection will be 1/72nd scale. I don’t have a B-52D at the moment. I have an early KC-135.
I want to shamelessly plug my favorite paint app here. The Hobby Color Converter app is free and helps you choose the best paint to match your subject. I have been using it since shortly after I reentered the hobby. Here is what it shows for equivalent colors from various brands for FS16473. If none of these work for you, you can click on calculate equivalences and it will provide you with a list of equivalent colors and the percentage that indicates how close they are to the original color.
Welcome to the family!
Hey John,
Congratulations on retirement. Retirement is awesome! Look forward to your builds!
Hi, John, and welcome! As @dadoffour has already mentioned (indirectly) FS16473 is also ANA 512 (ANA Bulletin 157/166), if it helps find other paint sources. From the Monogram guide, back in the day it was known as “Aircraft Gray” and the Munsell 595B series is 8.8BG 9.6/06. This is way, way, way more information than “Hi, I’m new here” warrants, but figured I’d throw my $0.02 into the pot. I think the color grey gets sooo much discussion here…
Welcome to the forum. Great group of folks here.
I built the Tesoro’s O-1. My uncle flew that in Vietnam. Fun little build.
Welcome! Excited to see some of your builds 
Welcome John, and congratulations on your retirement. I’m very new here too. Jump on in and start posting your work.
