Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Even with a fancy paint job, the Phantom is still ugly. Tornado is much prettier.
Where can I get larger resolution versions?
Say 1920 x 1200 or so?
Now if only their political masters would let them DO something in Afghanistan with all those pretty airplanes…:-p
Sorry, couldn’t help myself. (I should add, I know that they deployed a couple of Tornadoes recently…that doesn’t count.)
My favorite planes hands down, are still the ones the guys seemed to personalize in WWII, naming them after women. I loved those.
It was nice to see some truly original art though! Its amazing what some folks can do with a lot of paint and large surface area. Very very fun.
Oh and thank you for the h/t, NEVER necessary, but appreciated nevertheless.
Mmmm! Pretty fer sure! But, I still prefer a machine that can HOVER!
(if I could remove the male profile avatar I would–he’s crampin’ my style, nonetheless, he follows me everywhere : )
Someone’s clipped them out from
a website page and it’s been making the rounds
the last week or so-original page here:
http://www.fighterpilotuniversity.com/index.cfm/Kickass?&startRow=4
it’s a regular flying circus!
I’d like to file a minority report. The F-4F (German) Phantom looks best, that is dirty and ugly, in its standard grey camo scheme. Proof:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Germany—Air/McDonnell-Douglas-F-4F/0738011
The last plane entered service on June 21st 1976. It is said that one third of the German Phantom pilots are younger than their planes.
If I’m notmistaken, the Germans have a history of this. I believe there was an entire squadron in WWII that painted their aircraft in wild paint schemes.
I can almost imagine Elmer Fudd and his spear and magic helmet…
Put that up for me, did’ja?
Phantoms. Big, ugly, fast, high maintenance.
I love ‘em.
Yes, I’m a sophisticated professional. I consider myself fairly articulate and insightful. And yet, all I got is the usual – WOOT!.
And I like the red “monster” in the middle.
I wonder where these were taken?
Luftwaffe has it’s Top Gun school in Alamogordo, NM. German government won’t give ‘em the airspace they need to train.
Oh wow, I am drooling!!! Phantoms are the ultimate, but of these shots I like 4 and 5 the best (grey tiger stripe and monster w/teeth).
I saw a Luftwaffe Tornado in El Centro at the airshow a couple of months ago, but it had a pretty standard paint job. The New Mexico based birds have a stylized NM flag emblem on their tails. I would guess that these pix are all from der Fatherland. …oh, and not sure about airspace or lack thereof. I asked the Luftwaffe pilots about it, and they said the planes are based in NM because the weather is better than home, they have more flying time out here.
/BeachBum
Guess who turned 50 this year?
http://www.f4phantom.com/content.asp
The wx is a real problem. Ever looked closely at a map of northern Europe?–stone’s throw from Scandi- navia and Arctic Circle. When I was stationed in England (68-71) we went down to Wheelus in Tripoli for bomb & gun practice 4 mo/yr until we got kicked out in ‘70 revolution by Ghadafi . My squadron was there the night of–still have key to my BOQ room as a memento. We then deployed to Sardinia where we shared the range with both the GAF & RAF.
While I was there the USAFE base with the BEST wx in terms of no-fly days/yr was WORSE than the WORST USAF base in here CONUS.
PS: Most European nations have a tradition of customized paint jobs for special occasions. NATO has a “Tiger Day” (or used to anyway)fly-in weekend every year in which every sq with a Tiger insignia in every country creates a special paint-job for the fandango . Really something to see.
I’m sure the weather is bad for flying in Germany, and it’s very congested with air traffic too so that’s a major part of it. There are some significant airspace issues for training on top of that, though. Was true in Italy. According to my husband it was a nightmare to train there, airspace-wise.
And one of the German pilots at Holloman AFB told him that the German government is kind of anti-it’s-own military and doesn’t give them the airspace needed to train in. I wasn’t just presuming, although who knows…it might have been sour grapes on his part.
AFAIK (which is not much with respect to the Luftwaffe) it does not do serious combat training in Germany, but either in Goose Bay (Canada) or Decimomannu (Sardignia, Italy). Flights in Germany are either air-policing, or some kind of customization training and logging flight hours.
Germany is crowded in the air and on the ground, even the rural areas are quite populated. The Luftwaffe recently thought it had found a large air-to-ground training area in the north-east of Germany, nick-named “Bombodrome”, but stiff resistance from some locals, the left, and the eco-movement have put that into question again.
Back in the Seventies I remember seeing a Phantom in the air or hearing a sonic boom quite often, always exciting for a child (or probably I just want to remember). In retrospective I find that remarkable, because I did live in an industrial area somewhat remote from every airbase and that means there must have been quite some level of NATO air-traffic for alertness and preparedness.
If the German public could have it as it wanted, it would sell all Luftwaffe aircraft on ebay and use the money on kindergardens, public-health and other things it finds more worthwile. It is open talk in the German press that the Eurofighter Typhoon is the last manned jet-plane the Luftwaffe will ever get, and after that only UAVs and that was it.
Interesting insight, hajo-hi, thanks.
Well, we’ll take ‘em if Germany doesn’t like the sound of them.
The desert is pretty good training ground…
I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the Luffwaffe first hand when I move to Holloman next month! Too cool!
[...] Tornadoes and Phantoms in eye-catching paint schemes (via JMH). I think the grey tigerstripe and monster musculature are my favourites. This one has [...]