"Official" F-4E Livery Discussion

[LanceCriminal86]

Let's get this show on the road! This will be the centralized discussion for all things Livery for the upcoming F-4E. References, stories, photographs, videos, equipment, stencils, patches, all will be helpful towards continuing the tradition of sexy Heatblur skins.

First, let's talk about priorities. As I see it, here's how I'd lay out important skins starting from Must Haves and Essential down to Eventually, and group them by the general periods laid out in the announcement:

 

Pre-'74/Late Vietnam E

1. Frontline Fighter Squadrons / Fighter Groups
2. MiG Killers and other notable jets/crews (E crews please, let's hold off on the C/D requests)
3. Squadrons operating in/around existing DCS maps
4. Training squadrons
5. Foreign operators (ideally aligned with the avionics/capabilities that reflect the export variant as best as possible)
6. Special commemorative jets, McD factory paint, etc.

 

Later 70s-80s E

1. Jets/Squadrons from any Cold War incidents, peacekeeping, Desert Storm, etc.
2. Squadrons operating in/near DCS maps
3. Foreign operators (ideally aligned with the avionics/capabilities that reflect the export variant as best as possible)
4. Training squadrons as applicable
5. Special commemorative jets, Demo Team jets, fancy birds

 

I am definitely not THE guy on Air Force jets, so I'm calling to all our AF Phantom folks to help fill in on Fighter Squadron, Wing, Group, etc. structures, training commands, weapons schools and the like to help guide this. Especially would like to find stencil and panel marking guides, maintenance notes or instructions, anything like that.

For the USAF I see a few main paint schemes going off of photos and Cybermodeler:

Southeast Asia and SEA "wraparound"

Europe One

And for the later E, the Hill One or modern tactical gray

 

For the Foreign Operators, let's for now stick with "line" jets and leave the special commemorative stuff for later!

Japan (F-4EJ stand-in)

 

Greece

 

Israel

 

Republic of Korea

 

Turkey

 

Iran (Imperial and IRIAF)

 

 

Germany (Stand-in for the F-4F and other upgrades/modernizations)

 

 

And, if we can find a way to have the pilot and WSO hidden:

QF-4E

Edited January 26, 2022 by LanceCriminal86

[LanceCriminal86]

*Reserving for Flight Gear/Helmets*

USAF Helmets

 

HGU-2 (single visor)

- MBU-5 mask

Squadron decoration/Painted

 

Camo painted

 

HGU-26 (Dual visor)

- MBU-5

Painted/Stickers

Camo Tape

 

- MBU-12 (later)?

 

 

HGU-55 (End of 80s, Desert Storm, Foreign users)

- MBU-5 or MBU-12 ?

 

 

Primary USAF Flight gear

 

Foreign Operator helmets

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by LanceCriminal86

[LanceCriminal86]

* Reserving for general requests, ideas, corrections, details *

USAF Squadron requests

- 523rd Fighter Squadron

USAF Test/Demo/Commemorative

- Final sendoff/demo jets of QF-4E

Foreign Operator Squadrons

Foreign Operator Special/Demo/Commemorative

 

Special differences for foreign jets (that can be done in textures/normals)

[Bremspropeller]

And then there's the oddballs, like 57th FIS at KEF:

Were there any ADC-squadrons flying F-4, or were all air defense F-4s just regular ANG-birds under NORAD?

Talking of ANG squadron...a royal duckton of ANG squadrons - all wearing SEA, Euro One and Egyptian One.

[MBot]

So many skins important skins for the Phantom...

 

Ok, here are some notable/interesting pre-ARN-101 Cold War frontline liveries:

57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, Keflavik, Iceland. Defending Iceland from Soviet bombers 1978-1985. Southeast Asia camo.

 

57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, Keflavik, Iceland. Air Defense Command camo.

 

11th Tactical Fighter Wing, Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, 1977-1981. Southeast Asia camo.

 

526th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, 1973-1986. Wraparound SAE camo.

Edited January 26, 2022 by MBot

[LanceCriminal86]

What squadrons/wings would align with DCS maps we have so far? Were Es ever based in Guam? If a squadron had to be hustled over there any thoughts on likely candidates that would be deployed there during a crisis? Maybe a squadron out of Japan or Korea, Hawaii? Or just choose a CONUS squadron to ramp up?

Also thinking Caucuses, squadrons based in NATO countries like Italy or Germany would probably make sense. Spangdenhelm, Rammstein, Aviano, something like that.

Nevada may need to stand in for the Edwards commands, how about any Weapons Schools? Nevada ANG? I guess any USAF squadron would fit there, but maybe pick some that attended Red Flag or similar exercises further back.

Syria, probably the same situation as Guam or Caucuses, either flying rreeeaallllyyyy long missions with tankers or forward based in Turkey or Israel if you're doing a Cold War type scenario. For modern obviously Turkey and Israel would already be covered.

Persian Gulf, did the Air Force base out of Saudi or the region back to the 70s and 80s? And naturally Iranian IIAF and IRIAF would be a given there.

Normandy or Channel are obviously way out of timeframe, but perhaps could still be somehow used for some Cold War stuff until something better comes along? I doubt any of the runways would even support an F-4E.

[MBot]

And here are some notable Cold War units with late DMAS aircraft:

3rd Tactical Fighter Wing, Clark Air Base, Philippines. Final combat deployment with 6 F-4E to Desert Storm.

 

52th Tactical Fighter Wing, Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany. From 1983 on the dedicated European air defense suppression wing with a F-4E/G hunter-killer mix until 1987.

 

4th Tactical Fighter Wing, Seymour Johnson Air Base, North Carolina. 1980-1991 this wing was committed to the Rapid Deployment Force for the deployment of two squadrons within 48 hours to anywhere in the world. So this unit would fit any DCS map.

Edited January 26, 2022 by MBot

[MBot]

Here are some birds of the 57th Fighter Weapons Wing at Nellis AFB, Nevada, which we have the right map for in DCS. Operated F-4E for training, testing and evaluations 1969-1985.

DMAS aircraft in SEA camo, 1980.

 

Pre-DMAS aircraft in SEA camo, 1981.

 

Pre-DMAS aircraft in Europe One camo, 1984.

[ustio]

I just wish the official livery isn't locked to specific nation. yes there is a mod to unlock it but i would rather keep my DCS vanilla

[Nexus-6]

27 minutes ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

Also thinking Caucuses, squadrons based in NATO countries like Italy or Germany would probably make sense. Spangdenhelm, Rammstein, Aviano, something like that.

I'm most interested in a Germany/Austria/Czech Republic map, but a playground encompassing the Agean Sea would be pretty badass too.

[LanceCriminal86]

This gentleman has an ABSURD amount of F-4 albums, it appears he was at Edwards from the 80s into the 90s. I think I've seen some of the above mentioned units in there. He has them grouped by different events and squadrons.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/147861202@N07/albums

Weapons School F-4s for example:

 

4th TFW album

All kinds of goodies in there. And Tomcats, Navy F-4s, A-7Ds, Eagles, Warthogs, list goes on!

4 minutes ago, Nexus-6 said:

I'm most interested in a Germany/Austria/Czech Republic map, but a playground encompassing the Agean Sea would be pretty badass too.

I don't think we're going to get that, but I could see the existing Syria map having some Greek Phantom play, and Caucuses if you want to have them as an "allied" or peacekeeping faction. Same applies for the A-7E eventually. Maybe Greek Phantoms on Cyprus or something.

There's been zero talk of new maps so I'd keep the expectations very low. But it's always good to have skins that are plausible for the maps we have.

[Akatsuki]

For the JASDF there's also these two:

 

 

I know, the last one is a RF-4 but still a livery worth doing.

I started doing the stencils for the JASDF F-4, so far i have the main ones, i will try to do all the small ones as well.

[ebabil]

1-

2-

 

3-

[LanceCriminal86]

The RF-4 throws a slight kink in things. I mean you can probably paint the E to have some fake camera windows but for a "default" or included livery I'm not sure RF-4s are going to fit.

But I would love to have an AI RF-4 asset someday....

[Nexus-6]

19 minutes ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

This gentleman has an ABSURD amount of F-4 albums, it appears he was at Edwards from the 80s into the 90s. I think I've seen some of the above mentioned units in there. He has them grouped by different events and squadrons.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/147861202@N07/albums

Weapons School F-4s for example:

 

4th TFW album

All kinds of goodies in there. And Tomcats, Navy F-4s, A-7Ds, Eagles, Warthogs, list goes on!

I don't think we're going to get that, but I could see the existing Syria map having some Greek Phantom play, and Caucuses if you want to have them as an "allied" or peacekeeping faction. Same applies for the A-7E eventually. Maybe Greek Phantoms on Cyprus or something.

There's been zero talk of new maps so I'd keep the expectations very low. But it's always good to have skins that are plausible for the maps we have.

In the near term? No, probably not. However, I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that someone will turn their attentions in that direction as the DCS map lineup continues to expand.

[Dauntless]

[upyr1]

4 hours ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

 

Camo Tape

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we get this I am using it. 

[Zad Fnark]

My fav.

I know I cheated, since it's a "D".  Eventually...

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by Zad Fnark

[Fangs Out]

A couple of my favorite ones, got to admit, the F-4F's Shark looks like its up to no good lol

[Elf1606688794]

10 hours ago, MBot said:

And here are some notable Cold War units with late DMAS aircraft:

3rd Tactical Fighter Wing, Clark Air Base, Philippines. Final combat deployment with 6 F-4E to Desert Storm.

 

52th Tactical Fighter Wing, Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany. From 1983 on the dedicated European air defense suppression wing with a F-4E/G hunter-killer mix until 1987.

 

4th Tactical Fighter Wing, Seymour Johnson Air Base, North Carolina. 1980-1991 this wing was committed to the Rapid Deployment Force for the deployment of two squadrons within 48 hours to anywhere in the world. So this unit would fit any DCS map.

 

The Phantom depicted from SJ is the wing commanders plane, note the multiple colored tail stripe, one color per squadron. There is no red tail stripe so this pic was from before or after the existence of the 337th TFS. I can't read the tail number either and that's important to the following story.

In Sept 81 I arrived at Seymour Johnson fresh out of tech school at Lowry AFB in Aurora CO. (It's been shut down for a few years now.) About 2 weeks after I arrived I was going through AGE training (to the left and behind the aircraft depicted). We were learning how to operate the various power units and such that we'd be using on the flightline. Two flights of 4 Phantoms each was preparing to sortie. Our instructor stopped the class and told us, you guys have to see this, it's cool as <profanity>.

The ground crews cart started the first flight and 40 years later, I have to admit, the memory is still impressive. You'd hear a loud boom when the cart fired, and about the time you saw a plume of smoke coming from the aircraft, you'd hear that engine spooling up. It was pretty impressive watching 4 fighters being started like that in quick succession.

The 2nd flight had some issue that I don't recall except that the aircrew stopped it's preflight and went to a spare. That spare was the wing commander's aircraft and by the time that aircrew and his wingman (or maybe it was the other way around) were ready to start engines the other two F-4's in their flight had already started taxiing to the end of runway operations. When they fired the cart to start the starboard engine of the wing commanders jet we heard a boom and then almost immediately another, much louder, BOOM!! And that's when the feces hit the rotary oscillator.

The aircrew abandoned ship immediately, the WSO jumped down onto the port wing and from there to the ground. The pilot went over the windscreen and slid all the way down the radome and fell off the pitot tube to the ground, both of them ran across the red line (some of you know what that is lol) to safety. When his wingman saw what was happening he gave an order over the comm headset to the crew chief, they kicked the chocks and the pilot didn't wait to be marshalled out of his parking spot. (He was in the parking spot right next to the wing commanders jet.) Ground crew folks were grabbing CB fire extinguishers and pulling them to the stricken aircraft and by this time, you could see the flames. One guy was using the extinguishers as fast as they could get them to him and he used 9 that day.

Coleman tow vehicles with towbars attached showed up seemingly from nowhere and started towing Phantoms that were within two rows of the burning aircraft. I never saw that many Coleman's at one time ever again. A fire truck showed up with the "cannon" mounted in the top front and before it came to a stop the airman manning it started foaming the aircraft and the fire finally went out.

The damage was pretty severe, titanium panels on the underside had drooped from the intense heat. When they fired the impulse cartridge (a really big one) to start the engine the cartridge retainer failed due to a hairline crack. When the retainer blew apart, among other things, it cut a fuel line and the fuel ignited instantly. The aircrew in their zeal to exit and escape a certain death trap failed to shut off either the fuel pumps OR the onboard battery. In fact, they didn't shut anything off. The fuel pumps kept feeding the fire with fuel making a bad situation much worse.

That was the only time I ever saw the Phantom get cart started and it turned out to be a pretty memorable event. A depot team showed up a few days later and disassembled the stricken aircraft, crated all the pieces parts and flew the entire mess to a depot in Ohio. Incredibly, about a year and a half later that Phantom landed back at Seymour Johnson looking all brand spankin new, like nothing ever happened. We all stopped working to watch it land and those of us who saw it burn explained why we were in awe, so they could be too.  

Edited January 27, 2022 by Elf1606688794
Grammar

[Elf1606688794]

I forgot to mention, the livery for the wing commander's plane would be pretty sweet indeed.

[Admiral_ZIPANGU]

It is gratifying to me that you are interested in JASDF skins in Japan. I would be very grateful if you could recreate the appearance of the Last Phantom in Japan.

JASDF is very fond of the phrase "Phantom Forever".

Quote

 

[upyr1]

 can we get the 523rd? 

[IronMike]

pinned

[LanceCriminal86]

9 minutes ago, IronMike said:

pinned

Thanks! We've got some good discussion going already on some solid USAF choices to start with, as well as some good ones for the foreign operators.