BELGIAN SPECIAL COLOURS

The practice of painting military aircraft in special colours is almost as old as military aviation itself, with some of the first schemes dating back to World War One..

In Belgium, the introduction of special paint schemes (other than that of display teams like the famous "Red Devils" or "Swallows") really took off in 1978. During the NATO Tiger Meet, held at Kleine Brogel, F-104G Starfighter FX-52 was the first Belgian aircraft to appear in a full tiger scheme. It would not be the last tiger around!

Dozens of other festive schemes followed over the years. Some were for display aircraft, some celebrated Squadron, Wing or base anniversaries, and others were for jubilees of a particular aircraft type in Belgian service. Yet others marked the disbandment of a squadron or the closure of a base. Finally, less official "zappings" and "one-off" schemes or nose-arts could be seen on Belgian aircraft. With this, the Belgian Air Force has set a track-record that it can be proud of. Belgian special schemes attract a lot of attention, wherever and whenever they are around.

This book aims at mapping and preserving the history of as many of these schemes as possible. It sets out with Tiger F-104G FX-52 as seen in 1978 and ends with... Tiger F-104G FX-52 as seen, in 2009! The authors hope that, by compiling this selection of more than 400 photos of more than 135 aircraft spanning more than 30 years, they have succeeded in bringing this colourful history to life.

About the authors

Jack Bosma and Cor van Gent, the two Dutch authors of this book, have been photographing military aircraft since the nineteen-seventies. Over the years, they have amassed hundreds or even thousands of photos portraying aircraft in special colours. In particular, this was the case in Belgium. They therefore collected the most striking examples from their own files and combined them with air-to-air pictures (courtesy of well known air force photographers and pilots) and pictures taken by squadrons, painters or other fellow-aviation photographers.

Although this is their first book on a Belgian subject, Cor has published works on Dutch Starfighters, and NF-5's; together they have written several articles on aviation and they published a book on 25 years of F-16 in Dutch service.