Air Force blue - Misplaced Pages

(Redirected from Aero (color)) Shades of the colour azure For the racehorse, see Air Force Blue.

Air Force blue colours are a variety of colours that are mostly various tones of the colour azure, the purest tones of which are identified as being the colour of the sky on a clear day.

Some air force blue colours, notably the air force blue colour used by the United States Air Force and the colour used by the US Air Force Academy, may look like they are tones of blue instead of azure. However, they are actually dark tones of azure, not blue.

These air force blue colours are used by these various air forces for colour identification.

RAF blue

Air Force Blue (RAF)

Colour coordinates
Hex triplet	#6BA4B8
sRGB (r, g, b)	(107, 164, 184)
HSV (h, s, v)	(196°, 42%, 72%)
CIELCh_uv (L, C, h)	(64, 35, 220°)
Source	Vexillological:
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Moderate greenish blue
B: Normalized to (byte)

Air Force blue, more specifically Air Force blue (RAF) 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 medium sky blue coloured 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.

The field of the RAF ensign is specified as "NATO stock no.8305-99-130-4578, Pantone 549 C."

The shade of the colour that is shown in the colour info-box is the shade of air force blue used by the Royal Air Force. Some other air forces, notably those of the Commonwealth of Nations, use shades that closely resemble the shade of air force blue shown above, including the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

US Air Force blue

Air Force Blue (USAF)

Colour coordinates
Hex triplet	#00308F
sRGB (r, g, b)	(0, 48, 143)
HSV (h, s, v)	(220°, 100%, 56%)
CIELCh_uv (L, C, h)	(24, 69, 261°)
Source	USAF
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Vivid blue
B: Normalized to (byte)

Displayed at right is the colour Air Force blue (USAF).

US Air Force blue is designated as the colour Pantone 287.

USAFA blue

US Air Force Academy Blue

Colour coordinates
Hex triplet	#004F98
sRGB (r, g, b)	(0, 79, 152)
HSV (h, s, v)	(209°, 100%, 60%)
CIELCh_uv (L, C, h)	(34, 66, 253°)
Source	PDF, 1.4MB USAFA
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Deep blue
B: Normalized to (byte)

Displayed at right is the colour US Air Force Academy blue.

The US Air Force Academy uses a particular shade of azure, subtly different from US Air Force blue, in its sporting and other insignia, described as USAFA blue in official documentation.

Other variations

Other air forces of other nations of the Commonwealth of Nations, 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 French Air Force, the German Air Force, the Russian Air Force, the People's Republic of China Air Force, the Japanese Air Force, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, the Egyptian Air Force and the Israeli Air Force, for example, use a wide variety of brighter, lighter, or darker tones of blue.

Notes

On the RGB colour wheel, which has 12 major colours, blue is the colour at a hue code of 240 degrees and azure is the colour halfway between blue and cyan at a hue code of 210 degrees.
This is because their hue (h) codes are between 195 and 225, the signature of a tone of azure.

References

^ History of the RAF, Chapter 7 – Cultural & Organizational Heritage, p. 370]
FOTW website
"Trademark.af.mil". Archived from the original on 11 December 2015. Retrieved 10 December 2015. US Air Force symbol trademark information page.
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/afa/genrel/auto_pdf/trademarks.pdf Archived 12 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine PDF, 1.4MB, describing USAFA blue as Pantone 286.

Shades of blue

Aero	Air Force blue	Air superiority blue	Alice Blue	Argentinian Blue	Aquamarine	Azure	Azul	Baby blue	Berkeley Blue

Bice blue	Bleu de France	Blue	Blue Bell	Blue-gray	Blue-violet	Blurple	Bondi blue	Brandeis blue	Byzantine blue

Cambridge blue	Carolina blue	Celestial Blue	Celestial Blue (Crayola)	Celtic Blue	Cerulean	Chefchaouen Blue	Chrysler blue	Cobalt blue	Columbia blue

Cornflower (Crayola)	Cornflower	Cyan	Baby blue	Blue (Crayola)	Dark blue	Deep Sky Blue	Delft Blue	Denim	Dodger blue

Duke blue	Egyptian blue	Glaucous	Green-blue	Electric indigo	French blue	Honolulu blue	Ice blue	Illini blue	Indigo

Indigo dye	International Klein Blue	Jordy Blue	Lapis Lazuli	Lavender	Lavender mist	Lavender gray	Light blue	Light Sky Blue	Majorelle Blue

Marian blue	Manatee	Maximum Blue Green	Maximum Blue Purple	Maya blue	Medium blue	Medium slate blue	Midnight blue	Blue (Munsell)	Navy blue

Blue (NCS)	Neon blue	Non-photo blue	Oxford Blue	Palatinate blue	Pale azure	Penn Blue	Periwinkle	Periwinkle (Crayola)	Persian blue

Phthalo blue	Picton Blue	Polynesian blue	Powder blue	Prussian blue	Resolution Blue	RISD Blue	Royal Blue (web color)	Royal blue (traditional)	Ruddy Blue

Sapphire	Savoy blue	Silver Lake Blue	Sky blue	Space cadet	Steel blue	Tang Blue	True Blue	Tufts Blue	UCLA Blue

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