I am ready to start putting paint on the crew of a 1965 Phantom operational over Vietnam. I see two colors all over the place...nice orange with green, and green with green...

What would an operational crew wear on missions? I have a feeling orange is good to be found in water...but over land there and then?

Harald,
In response to your question on the flight suits for USAF pilots during the Viet Nam conflict. For operational units in-country (Viet Nam) the suits would be a light olive color when new, which would tend towards field-gray as they got worn. The g-suits would be a grayer color.





Note - The tiger stripe in the center of this picture is definitely non-standard, most likely put together by the locals.

This shot is US Navy which might differ in minor details but the color would be similar, possibly tending tending towards the olive drab vs the gray-green.
This is the orange flight suit you referenced and would usually limited to stateside use, mostly test units and some air-sea rescue units. The flight jacket was a shinny gray-blue nylon type material which often had an orange lining. Parachute harness and other web gear was a similar but slightly lighter gray-blue color.



Hope this gets you started.
DR

Oops - missed the navy suit, here it is:

That surely helps, thanks!
I see that the Olds moustache was rather popular, even when difficult to replicate;-)

No orange, just greens.

Orange was a high-visibility colour which made the rescuers' job easier, but at the expense of the poor pilot who had to hide from the Bad Guys. They were phased out of operational use fairly rapidly once that fact penetrated the minds of the planners at the Head Shed. They ended up being used by SAC and Air Defence Command were the chances of ending up on the ground being shot at by unfriendly people were far smaller. After the last orange suit got used, they were replaced by the new sage green suits.

It also should be noted that in the photos provided by dmiller the absence of the "Mae West" life jacket. This was bright yellow and also provided the Bad guys, as Jessica stated about the orange flight suit, a calling card on the pilots location.

If I remember correctly, U.S. pilots were told to ditch the "Mae West" life jacket before they bailed out over land so they had a better chance of avoiding capture.

See ya in the funnies............

As Brian C. noted, the yellow "Mae West" type life vests were superseded at some point in the 1950's. By the early '60's this was the standard issue flotation device:



This was a water wings type device that inflated under each armpit, and at least on my monitor it gives a pretty good representation of the actual color. Here's a shot of the device on the pilot:



You can see the inflatable pouch under each arm and, if you look close the black knobs hanging from the front of each that activated the CO2 cartridge that inflated these things. If memory serves me right, the inflatable portion was orange. If your down to the point where your bobbing all alone in the middle of the South China Sea, you don't care who picks you up.
DR

Thank you all, very helpfull.
For me it's the people that makes the machine come alive, no plane without a crew...

Here's what caused the original question, it just didn't feel right:

That picture is actually quite accurate for a 1960s US Navy flight crew. They were most concerned about visibility in the water, so the orange suit was standard issue until about 1970 or so, once the aforementioned planners in the Head Shed got it into their brains that a shot-down crew on land might not want to be so conspicuous...

After that, Sage Green was the go-to colour of choice for pretty much all US military flight suits right up to the present day.

Here's another thread on the topic, complete with pictures.

I'm not so sure about that second pilot's hat though; that's a USAF colour. US Navy hats are khaki-tan. Perhaps he's a USAF exchange Officer?

Ex Navy Seals here, cam confirm.