From the looks of it, I think the 2 tone camo workup happened after 1980.....
Shot of a late 70's 805 bird bein lauched...
http://www.skyhawk.org/6e/html/ran-launch_laurie-hillier.htm
Hmmmm, shot of 885 in 1979, different camo job...
http://www.skyhawk.org/5e/g154903/html/154906.htm
1981 shot of 876:
http://www.skyhawk.org/5e/g154970/html/155063f.htm
Heres a pic of the incident in 1979 where 805 lost a plane on launch.... U can kinda see the camo job in the one pic of the Scooter in the water....
RAN Skyhawk Loss
Little bit of info here, no dates tho:
After a number of the squadron crests (which were decals) ended-up being digested by the engine, they were moved to high on the vertical fin, immediately in front of the rudder flutter damper access panel. Still later, they ended-up high on the f'lage sides, approx mid-way along the length of the a/c.
VF-805's practice of painting the a/c flight controls (rudder) in a colour other than the USN specified Gloss Insignia White was frowned upon by the RAN's higher authority and hence we reverted them to plain white. (This example matt dove grey scheme exactly matches the first batch of A-4G Skyhawks for the RAN until they started to change to gloss colour scheme.) At the same time we considerably enlarged the red white checkerboard pattern and moved it forward onto the vertical fin, taking up the whole of the fin upwards from the lower edge of the rudder. The squadron crest was moved to high on the f'lage sides, approx midway along the a/c's length. This scheme, when applied over the standard Gloss Gull Grey (all fuselage upper surfaces) and Gloss Insignia White (undersides flight controls) made for quite a colourful little a/c !
Still later, our a/c went to a so-called 'air superiority' camouflage scheme (Aircraft Grey BS 381C-693 Matt and Light Admiralty Grey BS 381C-697 Matt) and the bright red white checkerboard on the vertical fin was lost forever. In its place was a Matt Black horse's head (the 'Rook' in chess) with the slightly inclined (to the rear) horse's head facing forward. At the same time, the national insignia (still full colour) was considerably reduced in size and deleted from the underwing surfaces.
At one stage, while our a/c still 'wore' the Gloss Gull Grey over Gloss Insignia White scheme, we tried various representations of the horse's head, sometimes on a circular red white checkerboard background. We never 'settled' on this scheme for all our a/c however (much to the chagrin of our corrosion control team, who were carrying out all these paint re-paint evolutions !) and at no stage did ALL our a/c appear thus.
Similarly, when we ran out of Matt Black paint (probably because of the above carrying on !), several of our a/c ended-up with dark grey anti-glare panels in front of the cockpit ! So much for 'standardisation'.
Unfortunately, I don't have the dates all these changes took place (we seemed to be forever changing something in the paintwork on our a/c !) and probably don't have detailed photos of them, either, but I do know most of what happened over time.
Laurie Hillier
Heres a shot of 886, no checkers on the tail tho.... Sept 1979:
BuNo 154907, #886 rolled off the deck of the HMAS Melbourne in a storm 355km off east Australian coast... Pretty sure the pic is of the actual plane, so gotta be taken before the mishap...
http://www.skyhawk.org/5e/g154903/html/154907.htm
U may know a couple of these Blokes???
http://www.skyhawk.org/5e/g154903/html/154908l.htm