Helkbird

Nice work! Wanting to get back into model and miniature after a very long hiatus, I decided for a first project to do up an F-4. I lost dad coming up on 2 years ago and his last assignment was hydraulics on the Phantom. We were stationed at SJAFB when the plane was decommissioned and dad retired right after. One of my first jobs was at the commissary. But the many hours friends and I spent at a small open field (accessible only by a tiny dirt road at the end of a neighborhood), sitting on the hoods of our cars, drinking beer. There was a chain link fence there, marking SJ property, and only a couple hundred feet past the end of the runway. I'm sure the pilots saw us and usually gave us a show, scratching paint on the tops of the trees over us... I had many many years up close with this plane going back to Nellis AFB (What a base!!! Wow!). Memories. So much to my surprise, the first model I came upon was this one, with the tail designation "SJ." I was stunned. Almost felt like a wink from dad. He loved building models with me as a kid. EDIT: The model shown here is a German base I believe. (?) But a second decal option, and the one shown on the box, is the SJ option.