Air Force roundels and markings thread

I can't believe there hasn't been a thread for Air Force roundels before. The first one: The Icelandic Air Defense Force in a world where the US and UK are in a perpetual transatlantic Cold War. Iceland is caught between them and must remain neutral and well-defended. The "roundel", therefore, is designed to be easily distinguishable from the USAF and the RAF.

IcelandAF%28HiaAv1%29.PNG
 
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True. I only searched this forum, Media, since other image-based threads seem to be here. I'll leave the thread here if anyone else has roundels to post. The other thread seems to be a much more in-depth talk about the whole history of air force roundels. Maybe this one can just be for images people want to post.

I'll repeat that I'm still surprised how few TLs seem to have roundel work done. I love designing them, the few I've done.
 
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Here's an older one: the roundel on the patrol craft of Te Pito 'o te Henua (an independent Kingdom of Easter Island). The turtle symbol comes from the island's flag. The honu, or turtle, has been used as a symbol for the island for many years because of its longevity, intelligence, and steadfastness. It is also a sacred animal throughout Polynesia and a very old motif in local art.

henua_roundel.png
 
Great roundel, Ben. There has never been a nation that had a turtle as its symbol, prior to yours. Nor has any country ever had green and yellow as its national colors. Vexillologists, please correct me if I'm wrong!
Military aircraft roundels are a subject of special interest to me. There are some emblems, belonging to defunct regimes, that have been lost, and no one has ever been able to find out what they were, such as the emblem of the Taliban air force.
 
Great roundel, Ben. There has never been a nation that had a turtle as its symbol, prior to yours. Nor has any country ever had green and yellow as its national colors. Vexillologists, please correct me if I'm wrong!
Military aircraft roundels are a subject of special interest to me. There are some emblems, belonging to defunct regimes, that have been lost, and no one has ever been able to find out what they were, such as the emblem of the Taliban air force.

Brazil is mostly green and yellow. But of course, it adds in the blue of the globe/sky thing.
 
Great roundel, Ben.

Thank you!

There has never been a nation that had a turtle as its symbol, prior to yours. Nor has any country ever had green and yellow as its national colors. Vexillologists, please correct me if I'm wrong!

Hm, that is weird, since so many 2-color combinations are used by multiple countries. I had to do a quick search, and the closest I could find was Australia, which weirdly uses green & gold as its national colors, but not on its flag. Interesting. My flag design for that same Easter Island country also has some blue.

Military aircraft roundels are a subject of special interest to me. There are some emblems, belonging to defunct regimes, that have been lost, and no one has ever been able to find out what they were, such as the emblem of the Taliban air force.

No surviving photos? I'm guessing something black.
 

Thande

Donor
Roundel of the Pepsi Corporate Fleet:

coree_du_sud.jpg

Very good :D

I always think this one would work as the roundel for a Communist US Air Force (USSAF?)

800px-Roundel_of_the_Vietnamese_Air_Force.svg.png


(It's actually that of Vietnam, apparently because they used a lot of captured repainted US aircraft or something).
 
You know, it is surprising how many nations adopted the hideous US "bar" addition to the national roundel, such as China.

It also never really made sense to me why the USAF and USN did not just go back to the white star in blue circle with red circle pre-WW2 roundel which is so simple and elegant.

Speaking of alternative insignia, it somewhat surprises me that the reconstituted postwar Luftwaffe of West Germany did not (or wasn't pressured to) adopt a circular black, red,gold roundel, rather than the Iron Cross, especially since the Iron Cross was eliminated as a legal military decoration.
 
I can't believe there hasn't been a thread for Air Force roundels before. The first one: The Icelandic Air Defense Force in a world where the US and UK are in a perpetual transatlantic Cold War. Iceland is caught between them and must remain neutral and well-defended. The "roundel", therefore, is designed to be easily distinguishable from the USAF and the RAF.

IcelandAF%28HiaAv1%29.PNG

This is truly a wonderful insignia. Unique shape, yet simple. Quite believable, In this AH, however, I wonder if it would appear sufficiently distinct from the British roundel at a distance. All pilots might see is a red-white-blue blob.
 
This is truly a wonderful insignia. Unique shape, yet simple. Quite believable, In this AH, however, I wonder if it would appear sufficiently distinct from the British roundel at a distance. All pilots might see is a red-white-blue blob.

Thanks! It took a long time (actually, months) for an idea of a new, workable shape to occur to me. I'm not sure if I can be sure of the feasability of the Icelandic symbol (I don't think that shape even has a name) without, you know, painting it on a real plane and having military pilots react to it alongside RAF planes. My hope is that the RAF circle symbol would be distinct enough from this triangle. Also, the RAF roundel has a good deal more white between the red & blue.
 
You know, it is surprising how many nations adopted the hideous US "bar" addition to the national roundel, such as China.

It also never really made sense to me why the USAF and USN did not just go back to the white star in blue circle with red circle pre-WW2 roundel which is so simple and elegant.

Speaking of alternative insignia, it somewhat surprises me that the reconstituted postwar Luftwaffe of West Germany did not (or wasn't pressured to) adopt a circular black, red,gold roundel, rather than the Iron Cross, especially since the Iron Cross was eliminated as a legal military decoration.
I can't for the life of me understand how they convinced the Marines to give up this for the star and bar.

USMC_Roundel2.jpg
 
No surviving photos? I'm guessing something black.

No surviving photos of Taliban aircraft, unfortunately (the Taliban banned photography officially, although a few photos were permitted to be taken for purposes of identification). We may never learn what their roundel was. But maybe Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar will be able to tell us, after we capture them!

Roundel of the Pepsi Corporate Fleet

This is actually the roundel of the ROKAF (South Korean air force)

It's actually that of Vietnam, apparently because they used a lot of captured repainted US aircraft or something.

The Vietnamese Peoples' Air Force has used this emblem since its first aircraft were aquired in 1959. But you're right, many VNAF planes (most American-made) were captured in 1975. Few remain in service today.
 

Thande

Donor
This is truly a wonderful insignia. Unique shape, yet simple. Quite believable, In this AH, however, I wonder if it would appear sufficiently distinct from the British roundel at a distance. All pilots might see is a red-white-blue blob.

The RAF roundel might well not exist in TTL; it only exists in OTL because Britain was on the other side to Germany in WW1 and so adopted a roundel based on the French one (because just using the Union Jack was apparently too similar-looking to the Iron Cross).
 

Thande

Donor
I can't for the life of me understand how they convinced the Marines to give up this for the star and bar.

That's the same as the old Tsarist Russian roundel...not that that should be a problem nowadays of course (though I hear the Russians are dropping the communist star, so they might be going back to it).
 
The RAF roundel might well not exist in TTL; it only exists in OTL because Britain was on the other side to Germany in WW1 and so adopted a roundel based on the French one (because just using the Union Jack was apparently too similar-looking to the Iron Cross).

The TL's actually not mine - it's an AH Wikia project that I'm not too terribly fond of, actually, but for which I was moved to create a national TL for Iceland. POD is before WW1 but does not affect it - major changes begin to be felt in the 1930s, and in some countries not until *WW2 begins in 1938.

http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Iceland_(Hitler_is_an_American---Version_1) if you're interested. Again, I never liked the POD or the cause-effect sequence behind the main premise, but thought the geopolitical situation it created was interesting.
 
That's the same as the old Tsarist Russian roundel...not that that should be a problem nowadays of course (though I hear the Russians are dropping the communist star, so they might be going back to it).

The Russians are dropping the red start emblem? Really? I'm very glad to hear it. I hate that red star so much! By the way, the old Czarist Russian, and early US roundel, was also used by the short-lived Republika Srpska air force.
 
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