{"id":992,"date":"2011-12-16T18:44:15","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T16:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/?p=992"},"modified":"2019-07-22T18:21:02","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T16:21:02","slug":"usaf-f-4-phantom-ii-paint-schemes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/?p=992","title":{"rendered":"USAF F-4 Phantom II paint schemes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In its 30+ year career with the US Air Force, the F-4 Phantom II wore several distinctive paint schemes, unlike its&nbsp; Navy brothers. They started out in the same scheme, though &#8211; Gull gray and white:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1001\" title=\"McDonnell Douglas F-4C\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/gullgray2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"413\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/gullgray2.jpg 413w, https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/gullgray2-300x161.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 413px) 100vw, 413px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This scheme was still in use during the first months of the Vietnam War, but quickly replaced by the famous South-East Asian scheme of medium green, dark green and tan, with light gray lower surfaces. A &#8220;wraparound&#8221; version (green\/tan also on lower surfaces) existed as well. The SEA scheme remained in use into the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-994\" title=\"sea\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/sea.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/sea.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/sea-300x193.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The European One scheme replaced the tan of the SEA wraparound scheme with dark gray. As the name implies, this scheme was popular with USAF squadrons stationed in Europe.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-995\" title=\"european\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/european.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/european.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/european-300x197.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Phantom squadrons tasked with air defense used a different scheme, ADC (air defense command) gray, an overall semi-gloss gray.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-996\" title=\"adc\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/adc.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/adc.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/adc-120x90.jpg 120w, https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/adc-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Late in their career, some Phantoms (especially the F-4G Wild Weasels) wore the Hill Gray scheme, which it shared with the &#8220;Teen&#8221; fighters F-15 and F-16.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-997\" title=\"hillgray\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/hillgray.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/hillgray.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/hillgray-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Pictures are from <a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/F-4_Phantom_II\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defensemedianetwork.com\/photos\/f-4-phantom-50th-anniversary-photos\/\">Defense Media Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In its 30+ year career with the US Air Force, the F-4 Phantom II wore several distinctive paint schemes, unlike its&nbsp; Navy brothers. They started out in the same scheme, though &#8211; Gull gray and white: This scheme was still in use during the first months of the Vietnam War, but quickly replaced by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78],"tags":[77,79,53,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech","7":"tag-aviation","8":"tag-coldwar","9":"tag-history","10":"tag-vietnam","11":"czr-hentry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/plKIk-g0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2410,"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions\/2410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wittwer.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}