Heh!
I worked for VMFAT-401 when they first stood up, and got the Kfirs. Plank holder. Got a nifty little plaque and everything
The one picture I looked at in that download you linked, oddly, the US Marine one, was close. Missing a few little details, but overall, not too bad. Things like the canards are too long and pointy, IE, they shouldn't extend so far from the fuselage, the pitot tube should be painted flourescent yellow, where the tip attached to the rest of the assembly, the "fat" part in the middle, missing the plane number on the nose, things like that. Maybe put some nice lady's base make up onto the yellow part.
Watched a dingbat reporter doing an interview with one of our pilots, on camera, walk right into the pitot tube, it hit her right above her eyes, on her forehead. At the yellow part. Knocked herself silly(er). Took us a couple of hours to get the make up off it, too. Didn't help we couldn't stop laughing. Not one of us had never seen anyone do that. I mean, it's BRIGHT yellow, and in the middle of the day. In Yuma.
She apparently only had had eyes for the pilot, a Capt. "Tans" Tansy. He was as short as she was, and very happily married. Handsome guy, really.
They didn't include that part in the newscast, oddly enough.
Sadly, I also saw a close friend, from Seat Shop, older gentleman named Don Henderson, take a short flight up and out of the cockpit one morning, while he was arming the seat after a phase inspection. His fingers slipped, the main gun went bang (thankfully the rest was safed), and he went about 50 feet up, with the seat. It hit his jaw on the way, destroying it, and when he came down, he hit the top of the plane, bounced, hit the wing, bounced again, and hit the concrete flight line. He was only barely alive when we ran out to help him. Thankfully, the fire department was in the next building down the line. The paramedics ran over with their gear, and then the ambulance from Station Medical arrived a few minutes later.
Don survived, but it took him a couple years to learn to walk, again, not to mention speaking, after they managed to rebuild his jaw. He still drives around in his VW modified for desert SAR work, but he doesn't participate with them any more...
Sorry, some very good times, and people, some very bad times. Memories...
I did learn to speak Hebrew pretty well.
I had long hair, and a goatee at the time, and the Israelis insisted on calling me Yeshua...
Sorry. Have fun all!
Pat☺
