Canadian Sabre in the Warbirds area recreates Royal Canadian Air Force's Golden Hawks team motif.

Unusual gray and green camouflage adorns this F-86 on the Warbirds ramp.

Part of the fun of AirVenture is the spectacle of color adorning the airplanes.

As modelers have known for decades, not all military aircraft are drab copies of each other; some are brilliant celebrations of the painter's palette.

Two Sabre jets from the 1950s on display at AirVenture 2010 illustrate the point.

Oh, Canada…
From Vintage Wings of Canada comes a 1954 Canadair-built Sabre 5 repainted to replicate Canada's 1959 jet demonstration team, the Golden Hawks.

The jazzy gold paint is surmounted with a red and white hawk running the length of the fuselage, accurately capturing the essence of the Royal Canadian air force team.

The original Golden Hawks celebrated 50 years of Canadian flight in 1959; this recreation made its debut last year in time for the centennial of Canadian flight.

This Canadian Sabre 5 is no stranger to Oshkosh; Vintage Wings acquired it from the EAA Aviation Foundation. It previously wore USAF livery as the Korean War-vintage F-86 nicknamed The Huff.

North American F-86
A little farther out on the Warbirds flightline, a most unusual gray and green camouflaged F-86 carries USAF markings.

Like a big model kit, this Sabre provides the venue for recreating an exotic test paint scheme applied to another Sabre of the 461st FDS in 1965.

The original was used for tests in Europe. Though USAF F-86s did not adopt camouflage en masse, gray and green were later embraced as "European One" camouflage markings for Air Force aircraft likely to spend time in wooded Europe.

The green and gray F-86 at AirVenture 2010 is flown by Dale Snodgrass.