I don't know if you pay much attention to the special schemes that are often painted on military planes or not. Lots of people like them and there are some truly superb ones done, especially over the last 20 years or so. They range from just something a bit special in lettering to the entire airframe being done. The Tiger Meet markings are probably ones that most will recognize.

As with everything else, there are distictively different styles of doing these markings in the US and overseas. Overseas, the markings are generally done so that they will reach full glory when one sees the plane flying. There are huge unit badges and other motifs on the underside that one really won't be able to fully appreciate when on the ground.

In the US, these markings are usually quite detailed and are best appreciated while on the ground (a place where a military aircraft spends 95%  of its life anyway). This decal sheet is one of those types of markings, painted to commemorate the retirement of the last of the US Air National Guard F-4E Phantom IIs back in 1992.

In addition to the one plane, Expert's Choice has provided the standard tail band and enough additional tail numbers in this 1993 sheet for the modeler to piece together his favorite aircraft from the 163 TFS. By this time all the planes were in the Hill Grey II scheme of FS 36118 and FS 36270 (info that the instruction sheet sorta seemed to have left out and there is not even any painting drawing, only a decal placement section). Real F-4 builders don't need any painting info anyway, right?

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