SHAH ALAM:REMEMBER the AW109 which seemed to be painted in the desert camouflage? Well the helicopter (most likely it was the same one) was seen conducting test flights around Subang this week. And it appears that desert camo turned out to be standard Army digital camouflage.
The picture below is a bit grainy I must admit but it is the best picture I have of the newly painted helicopter. Perhaps I will get lucky and I will get a better picture or someone will send me one.
Even from the grainy image, we could make it out that it has more green on it compared to the digital camoed Nuri which were handed over to the Army’s Air Wing in LIMA 2015. That said this is a preliminary assessment based on the grainy picture and it may changed when a better picture of the aircraft is available.
As I reported before the digital camoed Nuri will also be sporting a greener tone in the future and it appears that paint job on the AW109 (if its more like the Army digital camo) will be the benchmark. For perspective below is an Adnan spotting the Army digital camo look.
And the AV4, which was probably painted in Thailand.
The Weststar G-MK1, painted in Port Dickson.
Anyhow here is a picture of the AW109 while it was undergoing its digital camo paint job.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (21)
Look garang!
Sometimes TD goes over the top, literally, with their camo paints, IMHO.
I'm not sure if they're just trialling the paint job, but won't a helicopter painted in camo in woodland colours, pixellated or otherwise, stand out -- as dark specks -- when looked at against a background the colour of the sky? It's well, erm, illustrated in ZR's pic. Just like how the 4 RMR guys, albeit in non-pixellated camos, look like dark figures when seen against the shrubbery in the last posting.
The helis would be better off 'camouflaged' in battle-ship or light grey like RMN or RMAF a/c. All right, if we're worried about silhouetting against wooded and hilly ground, and the sky, plain PD Green will be a better compromise. Even the Nuri paint job with lots of grey is better than woodland camo. All this paint is more about 'gah-ness' than anything else.
Many years ago the RN conducted trials on a Trafalgar painted in light blue. The idea being that a sub operating in very shallow waters would be harder to spot from the air if painted in light blue rather than the standard colour all subs are painted in. Makes sense when one thinks about it.
This is not as crappy as the proposed new tudm "digital blue" combat uniforms. Why does tudm ground personnel need a digital camo in blue?
Camo pattern is also about a unic identity of any army, and i'm pretty sure that our pattented digital camo is one of the best looking among the others.
Ferret
I'd prefer solid green for army choppers...
We've went through this topic before Marhalim. Some of our friends were hell bent on saying that we are going to be joining the saudi's in Yemen. Looks like it was simply going to be a normal army digital camo after all (as i side before). I dont want to say it but.. "ahahhh what did i tell u guys???!!". Joking aside bro i still dont see the need 4 this digital camo. Concealment? Nope. "Gahness"?. Nope. Now the US is transitioning to the multicam pattern. Are we going to follow suit? Coz what the US is doing seems to be the current trend. And as u know we are trend follower. Not trend setter.
No, I think the AW109 is painted to conceal it being seen from above! That's why it has green and brown shades.....I think.
@ zekMR
Digital camo's unique? It is almost indistinguishable from most other digital camos! If you want unique, should have maintained the old belang harimau camo.
As for the heli's, I.wonder how many kg of max load was sacrificed for that many layers of digital camo paint...
Azlan
The Todaro class submarine had the same light blue pattern. I guess if it worked out 4 the Italian then why not us? But im a sucker 4 tradition.. black it is then. Btw is the KD TAR operational?