Grey USAF F-4s

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Louisiana ANG the 'Coonass Militia' - not too certain how long they were allowed to keep that 'nom de guerre' but I'd be surprised if they still use it today. Dork the Kit Slayer and I spent so many hours arguing and referencing these schemes in the mid eighties - mind-you we were both out of work at the time - Allan built at least one of the La ANG F-4C's and may even still have it laying around somewhere. As this is written, I've got the Microscale sheet here in front of me for 63-7704 and 64-0841..... how about that for instant research !!

Ian

[Radish]

They had to remove "Coonass Militia" even while they had Phantoms, I believe.

[tigercat2]

Louisiana ANG the 'Coonass Militia' - not too certain how long they were allowed to keep that 'nom de guerre' but I'd be surprised if they still use it today. Dork the Kit Slayer and I spent so many hours arguing and referencing these schemes in the mid eighties - mind-you we were both out of work at the time - Allan built at least one of the La ANG F-4C's and may even still have it laying around somewhere. As this is written, I've got the Microscale sheet here in front of me for 63-7704 and 64-0841..... how about that for instant research !!

Ian

Excellent research!!  I had never seen that particular camo scheme on F-4s before, and it looks like a very attractive one.  Too bad it wasn't adopted by more units.  I did not know that ANG units had the flexibility and autonomy to create their own camo schemes.


Wes W.

[Daryl J.]

At Northern Neighbors Day in 1981 at Minot AFB, there was a Phantom up from Grand Forks and it was painted really dark.   I remember walking up to it wondering why they had  a flat black Phantom only to see it was far from flat black once we got close.   I asked the pilot why it was painted like that since it made him a very dark spot in a brilliant blue sky and his reply was ''I don't know.  It doesn't make much sense to me.''      I somehow remember it to be a very dark grey and one tone of dark green wrap around but that is likely not quite right.  It was quite weathered too with significant variations of tone/sheen within each color region.    Some day I'll have to see if mom and dad still have my photos from then.   

[Sentinel Chicken]

Another F-4 question:  In the excellent book "Phantom" by Stewart Wilson, on page 137 there is a color photo of F-4C-20-MC  63-7637 in what seems to be a very attractive light blue/medium blue scheme.  Can't tell from the photo if this is an ANG bird, but I just found a reference on the internet at http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=172092&pid=1635877&mode=threaded&start=
that states that these birds were from the  122 TFS in the LA ANG.  Very interesting scheme, as you can see from this photo.

Wes W

That was a two tone gray disruptive pattern that some ANG/AFRES units had. There were some F-4s at Carswell and Bergstrom back in the early 1990s that had those colors. If I remember right the darker gray was Gunship Gray, can't remember what gray the lighter colors was, but it wasn't blue, it just looks blue in that particular shot.