Ruff Stuff (serial 44-27231) flew as a P-38 Lightning on the airshow circuit for years in its own identity before being repainted as 'Scat III' — adopting the exact markings of Colonel Robin Olds' F-4 Phantom II from the Vietnam War. The choice of tribute was well made. Robin Olds is one of the most singular figures in American aviation history.
Olds became a WWII ace flying P-38 Lightnings and P-51 Mustangs with the 479th Fighter Group, credited with 12 aerial victories in Europe. He went to Vietnam in the F-4 Phantom — a generation later, an entirely different aircraft, an entirely different war — and shot down four more MiG-21s, becoming one of the last American double aces. His Phantom was named Scat III, and it wore a distinctive black nose that Olds never painted with kill markings, because he thought it was bad taste. He was famous for his oversized handlebar mustache, which he grew in deliberate defiance of Air Force regulations, daring anyone senior enough to make him shave it to try.
The Scat III repaint is a tribute worth having on any aircraft. But the Ruff Stuff markings are gone now. The photos of this aircraft in its original P-38 livery are the historical record of what it looked like before the transformation — every warbird that gets repainted creates exactly this situation, and the archive is how the original identity survives.