Hey, I'm new here. I spent 8 years in the Navy as an airframes and hydraulics technician on the mighty F14 with VF211 (sadly now flying the "puny" F18
) and I agree with the Gent who could see both sides. The "retro" schemes look very cool but are a pain to keep that way. On the Tomcat, as well as all the other aircraft that had the gray TPS paint, after two weeks at sea they looked like crap. The corrosion guys had their hands full maintaining the paint and preserving all of the scratches and scapes. Heavy tool boxes were hard on paint. I think the scheduled interval for washes was every two weeks. It washed the salt spray off of the aircraft but not much else. The oil, hydraulic fluid stains, and boot sole scuffs tended to be difficult to remove.
I remember VF211 had a Tomcat that was painted slightly different than the rest of our birds. All squadron markings were painted in dark "engine gray" on the newest buno number bird we had. This is somewhat in keeping with Navy squadrons from the mid 70s to the mid 80s before the overall gray TPS schemes began to show up. All of the squadrons had a "CAG bird" in which all of the markings were in full color. Some were VERY colorful. My personal fav was VF111 Sundowners CAG bird with the sun burst on the tail.
Anyway I think the current retro schemes are cool....while they last.
Barry
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