Thank you!
There is more to this old airplane than meets the eye....... This machine was used for bombing trials in it's early life and it was severely stressed with high G-loading. The wings were damaged so badly that the airplane was trucked to McClellan AFB (heavy maintenance facility for the F-106) and a wing swap was performed. When 083 eventually was assigned to my buddy, Mike, at the 49th FIS he asked for and received permission to sand the entire airframe and have the paint department repaint it. After that he kept it sparkling clean for as long as he was crew chief. I reckon the paint on it the day it was shot down was still the same paint job that Mike was responsible for.
As an aside, I don't think my friend was all that happy to see me depict his airplane during its drone service, but as I told him--the airplane still exists as pieces on the bottom of the sea!
