patrick dirksen wrote:How about the strange colour scheme of the P-116? I don't think I ever saw a non-camouflaged F-84 in Dutch service? But this one clearly looks like bare metal or so. Nice!
My dad was an F-84F crew-chief, first with 311 and then with 312 at Volkel, from '63 to '66. When he joined 311, they still had several eighty-fours in bare metal. Soon thereafter, they were all camouflaged. Funny anecdote: then famous Dutch aviation journalist Hugo Hooftman reported that because all Streaks were camouflaged, they were no longer capable of the strike-mission!
Volkel Streaks almost always flew with an asymmetric load, the LH inner pylon empty and a 450 gallon fueltank on the RH inner pylon. Left was where the nuke was supposed to go. Mostly they flew with three tanks. In the summertime they needed four ATO-bottles to get airborne!
Will upload some pics from my dad's collection shortly.
Mickey