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Honorable Mention
Spirit of America 1976
By Roy Stafford / Updated Dec. 2025
I was the Aircraft Division Officer during this period and designed the paint scheme after seeing an Air Force Bi-Centennial paint scheme (F-106) while on a cross country... I went to the C.O. and asked permission to paint the aircraft and received a luke-warm reception about the idea The skipper said we could not use duty time to do such a task... He was afraid that someone would rat us out and we'd get called on the carpet. But he didn't say I couldn't do it. Being resourceful... I volunteered for SDO over a three day weekend... Myself, along with three of my men laid out and painted the aircraft over that three day weekend. The key player in this was a L/Cpl DeLaurier, a 39 year old first time enlistee... He was a hell of an artist... If I recall right, he was the "black sheep" of his family... brothers were all doctors, lawyers and such... said he'd joined the Corps just to piss everybody off. He worked his butt off over that weekend as did the others. My second EPD'er was another L/Cpl whose real name escapes me... his nickname however was "Spacekitty"... Good guy, but always on the edge of trouble.

The third man was a Sgt. from the hydraulics shop, who did a lot of the line tapeing and spray painting (volunteer). 101 was the first aircraft we painted and it was beautiful... however, we lost it in an accident shortly afterward. We lost Bob Bach, but Bob Anderson ejected successfully. 101 was by far the most complicated of the three aircraft painted... It had the red, white and blue stripes running from the rear of the canopy toward the nose until the nose was primarily blue. It also had the tri-color for the squadron identifier and large red, white and blue, Spirit of America on the center of the fuselage (the colors ran horizontal through the letters)... below the Spirit of America, DeLaurier painted a huge Liberty Bell... bronze in color, complete with crack and inscription. The tail was also different from the others... the RF was handpainted... with notches like the old time wooden printing presses would make. Just forward of the circle of 13 stars... Harry Gann gave me two large Marine Corps emblems (originally intended for the Corps' first C-9) that we placed on the vertical fin. We did this in almost total secrecy... I think the only guys I let in on it were Denny Fitz and Larry Rannals... as I recall, Monday was the off day for the extended weekend and I'm almost certain Larry came down to look at it when we were finished... I think T A Toth may have stumbled in on us as we were cleaning up.

We waited until dark to pull the aircraft out on the flightline... and parked it on the end of the line closest to 531 and the Group headquarters... I waited until the next morning... figuring I was either in deep shit (again)... or the skipper would like it. My first feedback was from the troops and they loved it... Most of the JO's however, gave me a wide berth... not wanting to be too close to me if the dumper came my way... Paul Burrows said, "If nothing else Stafford, ya got balls"... but I heard nothing from on high until the Group Commander called down to the SDO and said... "Paint 'em all that way"... 'Bout then I felt I was off the hook. There were very few pictures taken of this aircraft... Harry took a few and some of the guys from MACAIR did also... I think I still have a couple. I am still proud of the fact that MACAIR's Phantom Phlyer News Letter, said it was the classiest Bi-Centenial paint job of them all (I'm sure we'd get a lot of argument on that... but that's what they said). After the crash... the metal and hydraulic shop painted the next aircraft during duty hours... That aircraft was photographed extensively and some of the most beautiful were of Larry Rannals flying it out by Edwards and China Lake (the pinnacles), taken by Harry Gann. The Midway bird was painted by Det One... with JJ Morrissey in charge

Visit My Photo Album
Check out a Decade of transitional paint schemes of the RF-4B Phantom.

Green Tail RF-4B Phantom
1979- 1980
By John Riddleberger / Updated Dec. 2025
I was a corporal in VMFP-3, I was in the squadron from April 1979 until approximately March of 1981. I am the one who drew and made the original template for the fox head design. The tail design was indeed a variant of the fox used in Gallery magazine. The reason for the use of it was in response to another squadron's use of a Playboy Bunny, we thought we could get some exposure for the squadron and maybe get to get to see a photo-shoot, but I was sent on a westpac before the shoot was done. The reason that the "Kelly green" was used was because the maintenance chief had come from VMFA-333 and love the color used on their shamrocks. I don't remember his name, but he was a smaller GySgt with a lot of clout. I tried to argue the color scheme during the meetings when these things were being discussed, I had told them that I thought they should make a light or sky blue tail with a gold colored fox, but GySgt's easily overrule corporals. The "ghost scheme" was used after about 3 - 6 months when CMC directed that the colors will be changed because the birds green tail could be seen from great distances. Later, I was surprised to see a Testor's model with our green tail on it

Sub-Dued Fox Tail
1980 - 1981
By Rich Rentrop / Updated Dec. 2025
Although the green didn't last more than a few months, the "fox" scheme remained through 1981 in several variations. The "foxes" were toned down with different shades of gray, with all other colors (including the red, white, and blue insignia colors) now gone. At El Toro, stencils, such as "MARINES" and the modex remained in black on several aircraft, while others had all of there markings toned down in similar shades that made them difficult to distinguish. At Iwakuni, Japan the "fox" Phantoms received more prominent dark gray markings over the glossy gray fuselage

Year of the Spook
1981 - 1983
By Rich Rentrop / Updated Dec. 2025
In late-1981, the infamous "Spook" figure began to replace the "fox". This also marked the return of black stencils and color insignias after a short hiatus. "Spook" was depicted pointing towards the "RF" tailcode. The three chevrons were also replaced with a single chevron. The "Spook" scheme remained on several aircraft until early-1984.

The Final Year
1987 - 1990
By Rich Rentrop / Updated Dec. 2025
During the final days of VMFP-3 the squadron paint shop received a request to paint RF06 151981 in the old gloss gray over white scheme prior to its induction to the MCAS El Toro Command Museum for permanet display. When the job was complete it was decided to repaint the remaining RF-4Bs in the same scheme.LtCol Pastuf also had Col Reisch's name painted on the canopy rail. Once the job was finished, he then showed it to Col Reisch, who was the MAG-11 CO at the time. Col Reisch liked the paint job. I believe once that hurdle was passed, we got cleared to paint all the aircraft that way, on the understanding that if something happened and we were required to deploy, the planes would be repainted. The squadron was already down to the last six jets at this time and the deactivation was about 9 months away. The rest of the jets were painted in the old gloss gray scheme.

Deactivation Paint Schemes
1990
By LtCol Larry "Schlong" Longi / Updated Dec. 2025
LtCol Pastuf was the CO at the time. He authorized the paint job, and as best I recall, said that we would paint it like a "CAG" bird, with the colors of every MAG-11 squadron on the vertical fin. The colors were changed after the first painting when someone pointed out that the colors were not the correct "official colors" for some of the MAG-11 squadrons. The first set of colors were the incorrect colors (left photo), but the second photo shows the final "official" colors

The Negative RF-4B
1990
By LtCol Larry "Schlong" Longi / Updated Dec. 2025
Somewhere in the midst of the repainting, someone pointed out that since we were a recon squadron, we should have at least one "negative". LtCol Pastuf gave the okay, and that is how the black RF-4B came about. I don't think that the Group CO or Wing CG (MGen Royal Moore at the time) were overly enthused about the paint schemes, but with the impending deactivation, they let us have our fun.

FlashBack Trivia
By Kevin Hurtle / Updated Dec. 2025
Yes there was a picture of the green tail RF in the magazine gallery. The tail stayed green until the A/C tail got struck by lightning, the cause was said to be metal particles in the paint. I also believe that the pilot was Major Beam. There is another tidbit about the green paint. The X.O. had his volkswagon bug mysteriously painted green with the fox, side# and the whole 9 yards.

By Mark Henson / Updated Dec. 2025
In 1980 Gallery did send out a crew and some women to do a photo shot and publish it in the Mag.(Gallery) July or maybe Sept. I remember they washed a bird up real clean and put it on the Hangar Bay for the shot and locked everyone out. The Romeo Fox call sign was the Idea behind the guys contacting Gallery to use there trade mark.

By LtCol Larry "Schlong" Longi / Updated Dec. 2025
We had lots of cross countries going out as the end approached, and everyone wanted to get to some odd destination in the RF-4B for the last time. Everything was fine until the Black RF-4B took a trap with a Hyd problem in South Dakota. Such an unusual event made the headlines in that small city with full color photos on the front page of the local newspaper. That got some folks concerned and from that time forward, we were not allowed to take 00 or the Black RF-4Bs on the road

Alright, you glorious Rat Phixers and Phlyers, if we ever survived a TAD, a Det, or a BOHICA, who haven't, and you didn�t think I was the biggest gaff off in the squadron. Got a sea story, or some grainy photos your ex didn�t set on fire, and they�re only slightly illegal? Send �em by email, snail mail, or safety wire it to a carrier pigeon. I collect �em all, just nothing that would incriminate me.
80svmfp3@gmail.com

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