page_title: Aircraft camouflage
section_title: Ground camouflage
hierarchical_section_title: Aircraft camouflage / Methods / Ground camouflage
caption_attribution_description: An Royal Navy Westland Sea King HC.4 helicopter carrying British Prime Minister John Major lands at the helo-pad on Ilidza Compound in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during operation Joint Endeavour on 24 May 1996. The Sea King was assigend to the NATO Implementation Forces (IFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
context_page_description: Aircraft camouflage is the use of camouflage on military aircraft to make them more difficult to see, whether on the ground or in the air. Given the possible backgrounds and lighting conditions, no single scheme works in every situation. A common approach has been a form of countershading, the aircraft being painted in a disruptive pattern of ground colours such as green and brown above, sky colours below. For faster and higher-flying aircraft, sky colours have sometimes been used all over, while helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft used close to the ground are often painted entirely in ground camouflage. Aircraft flying by night have often been painted black, but this actually made them appear darker than the night sky, leading to paler night camouflage schemes. There are trade-offs between camouflage and aircraft recognition markings, and between camouflage and weight. Accordingly, visible light camouflage has been dispensed with when air superiority was not threatened or when no significant aerial opposition was anticipated.
  Aircraft were first camouflaged during World War I; aircraft camouflage has been widely employed since then.
context_section_description: Ground camouflage is used to delay visual acquisition from the air of an aircraft that is on or near the ground. Light sand has been used for aircraft used over deserts, blues and greys for aircraft over the sea, and greens and browns for aircraft that are expected to operate in forested areas. However, a camouflaged aircraft either on the ground or flying low over the ground in bright sunlight remains vulnerable to being detected from above because of its own shadow cast on the ground. This can reduce an aircraft's camouflage effectiveness at altitudes up to 3,000 feet (910 m), particularly if the ground surface is pale and relatively uniform. Helicopters are often painted in ground camouflage, sometimes in regional or seasonal forms such as snow camouflage. Fixed-wing aircraft, too, are occasionally painted with snow camouflage, as for example on Soviet fighters and Luftwaffe Stukas on the Eastern Front in winter, in Swedish trials in 1970,  and RAF Jaguars on exercise in Norway.
caption: Sea King helicopter in snow camouflage
exif: {}