Air Force blue
Air Force blue is a variety of colours that are a form of blue. These colours are used by airforces for colour identification.
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[edit] RAF blue
Air Force blue or RAF blue is a medium shade of the colour azure. The shade derives from the light blue uniforms issued to the newly formed British Royal Air Force in 1920, which were influential in the design of the uniforms of some other air forces around the world. Similar shades are still used in Royal Air Force uniforms and the Royal Air Force Ensign.
The choice of blue uniforms for the RAF was the result of a surplus of inexpensive sky blue herringbone twill in the United Kingdom, which had been intended for use in the uniforms of Czarist Russian imperial cavalrymen before the Russian Revolution occurred. [1]
The field of the RAF ensign is specified as "NATO stock no.8305-99-130-4578, Pantone 549C."[2]
The shade of the colour that is shown in the colour info-box is air force blue. Many air forces use shades which closely resemble the shade of air force blue shown above, including the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom and other nations of the Commonwealth of Nations primarily inhabited by people of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, i.e., the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
[edit] US Air Force blue
US Air Force blue is Pantone 287 [3]
[edit] USAFA blue
The US Air Force Academy uses a particular shade of blue, subtly different from US Air Force blue, in its sporting and other insignia, described as USAFA blue in official documentation.[4]
[edit] Other variations of Air Force Blue
Other air forces of other nations of the Commonwealth, such as the Indian Air Force, the Pakistani Air Force and the South African Air Force, or other air forces of other nations that are not in the Commonwealth, such as the United States Air Force, the French Air Force, the German Air Force, the Russian Air Force, the People's Republic of China Air Force, the Japanese Air Force, the Egyptian Air Force and the Israeli Air Force, for example, use a wide variety of brighter, lighter, or darker tones of Air Force blue that may differ markedly from the colour shown above. These other variations of Air Force Blue can be seen by inspecting the logos or flags of the air forces in each of the articles linked to above about these different air forces.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ History of the RAF, Chapter 7 – Cultural & Organizational Heritage, p. 370
- ^ FOTW website
- ^ http://www.trademark.af.mil/symbol/colors/index.asp US Air Force symbol trademark information page.
- ^ http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/afa/genrel/auto_pdf/trademarks.pdf PDF, 1.4MB, describing USAFA blue as Pantone 286.
