"Official" F-4E Livery Discussion

[Kerbo 416]

On 7/23/2024 at 10:56 PM, SgtPappy said:

What resources do you use to make such stunning skins?

I'm trying to find 3rd TFW liveries but I'm having trouble reading the names on the canopy rails:

 

Now I don't do US liveries much, so I'd follow Lance's advice in that regard, but also a little tip I'd give is to use the reverse image search function (set it to exact image so it doesn't just spit out images of fighter jets). Using that method allows you to find sites that hosted the image you looked with, and they will most likely have other images as well. For example for the Komatsu air meet livery I only had one image of one side, and when looking for the other I couldn't find it anywhere, not even on Japanese sites like flyteam.jp, but I reverse searched the one image I had and it led me to, of all things a Hungarian blog that had a few other images of the air frame and allowed me to finish my work.

[aaronwhite]

5 hours ago, badger7966 said:

Im kinda surprised at how slow the skin guru's are at releasing skins for this beast......anybody care to have a bash at these ?

 

 

I'll definitely be down to give those Luftwaffe ones a shot. Those look awesome. Sadly, just waiting on the official paint kit for now. The F-4 is going to be a blast to throw some liveries on, and playing around with the base textures, it doesn't look too terrible to figure out what's where.

[badger7966]

A few more odd Luftwaffe birds I found....plus another Vietnam E.

[aaronwhite]

There's also a very high chance that I'm going to do an IRIAF RF-4E, even if it's not entirely accurate. This pattern just looks too good: 

[SgtPappy]

On 7/24/2024 at 1:17 PM, LanceCriminal86 said:

Sorry I missed your message, I was out of town on vacation. Typically, I troll through places like Flickr, Facebook F-4 groups, the US National Archives for photos and search them. I also use ForgottenJets serial number listing to search for squadrons or wings and note the serial numbers that were tracked to them, and then search by serial in the above resources and Google image search. Most of the time I'm not able to make out full crew names, especially when only one side of the jet is photographed as the far side usually has the crew chief and assistant crew chief. So it's similar to the challenges with the Tomcat like attempting to get full and accurate crew names and callsigns.

No problem, thanks Lance. I hope you had a good vacation! It's good to know I'm not the only one having trouble. I've found a few photos of that SN but nothing detailed enough. 

 

9 hours ago, Kerbo 416 said:

Now I don't do US liveries much, so I'd follow Lance's advice in that regard, but also a little tip I'd give is to use the reverse image search function (set it to exact image so it doesn't just spit out images of fighter jets). Using that method allows you to find sites that hosted the image you looked with, and they will most likely have other images as well. For example for the Komatsu air meet livery I only had one image of one side, and when looking for the other I couldn't find it anywhere, not even on Japanese sites like flyteam.jp, but I reverse searched the one image I had and it led me to, of all things a Hungarian blog that had a few other images of the air frame and allowed me to finish my work.

I'll try this next. Thanks for the advice, guys!

[ZON]

I like F-4E very much. I used to spend more time playing FS2020. Because of F-4E, I now play DCS more.

[sa63114200]

Couldn't wait any longer for the official paintkit to come out and went ahead and used the homemade one (thank you!) to create an IRIAF Sky Camo Reconnaissance skin standing for RF-4E.

See: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3345515/

 

 

Edited Friday at 11:00 AM by sa63114200

[SgtPappy]

I also decided to use the templates available to make this. Working with the roughmets for the first time was fun.

Hopefully I'll find the full names on the rails but for now, this will do! F-4E 68-0483 of USAF 90th TFS, 3rd TFW, Philippines.

[LanceCriminal86]

4 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

I also decided to use the templates available to make this. Working with the roughmets for the first time was fun.

Hopefully I'll find the full names on the rails but for now, this will do! F-4E 68-0483 of USAF 90th TFS, 3rd TFW, Philippines.

There's a few Clark jets we've had our eyes on to add, I don't *think* this was one of them so that's good. One of our SMEs was with the 90th so I think we're looking at some of their photos for references and which scheme/jet to do. I think the one I settled on is SEA wraparound and the pattern is somewhat different from our existing ones, so it would need a new base camo layout.

[SgtPappy]

3 minutes ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

There's a few Clark jets we've had our eyes on to add, I don't *think* this was one of them so that's good. One of our SMEs was with the 90th so I think we're looking at some of their photos for references and which scheme/jet to do. I think the one I settled on is SEA wraparound and the pattern is somewhat different from our existing ones, so it would need a new base camo layout.

That's awesome to hear. I'm always happy to hear about more Clark liveries, being Filipino myself.

If convenient, let me know if your SME or you find some reference pictures with the canopy rail names of this jet or any other that could fit which you are not making already.

[Kerbo 416]

On 7/30/2024 at 1:45 PM, SgtPappy said:

I also decided to use the templates available to make this. Working with the roughmets for the first time was fun.

Hopefully I'll find the full names on the rails but for now, this will do! F-4E 68-0483 of USAF 90th TFS, 3rd TFW, Philippines.

nice work on the roughmets

(side note: if you aren't already, you can put the green channel of the default rm over yours as a hard light layer and get a pretty good "template")

[SgtPappy]

On 8/2/2024 at 9:42 AM, Kerbo 416 said:

nice work on the roughmets

(side note: if you aren't already, you can put the green channel of the default rm over yours as a hard light layer and get a pretty good "template")

Thank you and thanks for the advice! I haven't worked with the various channels directly yet but I aim to next time. 

[Alpiinoo]

On 7/30/2024 at 1:45 PM, SgtPappy said:

I also decided to use the templates available to make this. Working with the roughmets for the first time was fun.

Hopefully I'll find the full names on the rails but for now, this will do! F-4E 68-0483 of USAF 90th TFS, 3rd TFW, Philippines.

Great work! Are you gonna make whill two of PN Tail? 71-1086

Gunsmoke winner. 

The squadron also deployed to Incirlik AB, Turkey. 

So it will makes IRL ops in Syria map.

Edited August 6, 2024 by Alpiinoo

[SgtPappy]

1 hour ago, Alpiinoo said:

Great work! Are you gonna make whill two of PN Tail? 71-1086

Gunsmoke winner. 

The squadron also deployed to Incirlik AB, Turkey. 

So it will makes IRL ops in Syria map.

 

You bet! It's one of my favourite liveries and I made it for the F-4 in Ace Combat 7

It is more appropriate for the DMAS F-4E we will be getting, but when I have a bit more time, I plan to make this for our F-4E since it's not visually too different.

[LanceCriminal86]

Been building a list of the DMAS jets for when that time comes, that jet or another from 3TFW that were in Desert Storm are high on the list, and of course a number of the SJ jets, and the Spangdahelm jets. There were somewhere around 180 of the late jets upgraded with DMAS/ARN-101 but fewer wings and squadrons had those jets.

[Omega417]

Anyone working to bring this one into game?

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

This is a depiction of Phantom II, QF-4E-60-MC, S/N:74-1638 of the Air Force Heritage Flight Foundation at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2012. The aircraft has a very glossy "wet look" paint job, probably something similar to Imron paint. I've wanted to do a shiny and relatively un-weathered skin and this seemed to be a suitable subject.

Link:
https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3340370/

[Gözcü]

https://forum.dcs.world/forum/1270-f-4e/

Edited September 5, 2024 by Gözcü

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

Luftwaffe RF-4E 35+76 from 1984 Tiger Meet

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3340850/

[Volator]

On 10/3/2024 at 8:12 PM, II.JG1_Vonrd said:

Luftwaffe RF-4E 35+76 from 1984 Tiger Meet

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3340850/

Hi, thanks for this nice skin! The helmet might be wrong though, the GAF never used French helmets. The original photos you provided show the backseater with that helmet, and he also wears a green flightsuit which was not used by the GAF at that time (GAF flights units were orange-red in the 1970s-1980a), so I think the backseater in those photos was simply a guest from the French Airforce flying the backseat at the Tiger Meet, a common practice at that time.

Edited October 7, 2024 by Volator
Wrong information on Luftwaffe helmets, looking at old videos the French models were very common indeed

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

9 hours ago, Volator said:

Hi, thanks for this nice skin! The helmet might be wrong though, the GAF never used French helmets. The original photos you provided show the backseater with that helmet, and he also wears a green flightsuit which was not used by the GAF at that time (GAF flights units were orange-red in the 1970s-1980a), so I think the backseater in those photos was simply a guest from the French Airforce flying the backseat at the Tiger Meet, a common practice at that time.

@Volator, thanks for the compliment and the reply!

The Gueneau helmet was mostly a challenge for myself as a skinner but I found bits of evidence that it was being used by this crew. Zoom in to the pilots on the photo of the aircraft taking off as well as the already zoomed photo of the pilot. You can clearly see the medallion shaped earpiece as well as the internal visor which matches a Gueneau 316. Many sites for the Gueneau confirm it's use by the GAF. See this: http://www.best-of-flightgear.dk/guene316g_text.htm:

• The Gueneau 316G was the German version of the French-made Gueneau 316 flight helmet. Photographic evidence suggests that the helmet entered service around 1974 and was used till around 1990.

As for the flightsuit, I've seen evidence for both orange and green for that period. Attached are two screenshots from a Youtube chronicling the daily life in AG52 for that period. One pilot has orange while the other has green. 

I found this research to be somewhat difficult because information was sorta sparse. If you have more info I would be delighted to see it.

[Volator]

Thank you for the info, I learned something new today concerning the helmets. I only ever saw the American models in service.

I think the pilots in the screenshots from the movie above are wearing the "Frankenstein" protection suits, used mainly for flights over (cold) water or arctic regions, not the regular flight suits. Indeed these came in red and green, nowadays they are green only. 

In the photo below these are regular flight suits, you can see that the GIB has pulled up his sleeves which would be hard to do in the "Frankenstein".

 

 

 

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

Ah... good point. But here's an F-104 pilot suiting up in Nevada Nov. 1982. I still think that both green and orange are correct. I might revise this skin giving one of the crew an orange suit.

EDIT: I just noticed your avatar... are you a former or present member of the GAF? 

Edited October 6, 2024 by II.JG1_Vonrd

[Volator]

On 10/6/2024 at 11:17 PM, II.JG1_Vonrd said:

Ah... good point. But here's an F-104 pilot suiting up in Nevada Nov. 1982. I still think that both green and orange are correct. I might revise this skin giving one of the crew an orange suit.

EDIT: I just noticed your avatar... are you a former or present member of the GAF? 

 

Your photo from 1982 shows two GAF student pilots in flight training in the USA. There GAF pilots wore and still wear the standard US CWU 27 flightsuit, but once posted to units in Germany, they wear the GAF flightsuits.

Green flightsuits where issued to all flying personel in the late 2000s, but in the 1970s and 1980s they certainly were orange-red. There are some photos from that era were you can see some wearing light-grey ones. I have no information though on which basis those were used, maybe they were issued as a "war time" alternative, along with the reds, but most photos and videos show pilots wearing the red ones. (Green flightsuits were introduced for German flying crews in the late 2000s, but they differ from the American CWUs.)

I am ex-GAF, but not as a pilot or in the 1980s, but being a kid of the 80s, I dig that stuff The pilots of the 1980s were my childhood heroes. My avatar was made with the HB F-4 to represent that.

Edited October 7, 2024 by Volator

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

Thank you for the info! I probably will change their flight suites to orange. 

What are your thoughts about the HB Default skins? It looks like only 37+83_n81a_jg74 has orange flightsuits.

13 hours ago, Volator said:

Green flightsuits where issued to all flying personel in the late 2000s

Would you happen to know which year?