Bet it would be the most unique scale scheme ever entered into Top Gun! Apparently landed on wrong aircraft carrier and so the crew decorated it before sending it home. LOL!

I'm sure his commander was impressed.

That's a lot of paint to remove with your toothbrush!

John.

Remember to read in a old national geographic magazine about a grumman panther that landed in the wrong carrier, that was written with chalk a few jokes about the mistake.. but with this one there must be a story behind.

Uncle Joe is the right person to explain this better...

Erbroens
Back in the OLD Corps, this practice was done (although not condoned )when a AVIATOR would land on a boat (Avaitors tearm for a Ship) whether it was a maintenance issue or Aviator error . the aircraft was TAGGED with either white wash or later on rattle cans. If a aircraft would require maintenance from another squadron the Tags would appear. I can recall a F8U Crusader from VMF 333 (Trip Tres)which had three green Shamrocks on its ventrial fins and Vertical stab which departed MCAS Cherry Point with VMCJ 2 squardon logo (Playboy Rabbit) tastefully done to the center of each shemrocks . Sure wish I would have taken photos of it. Another tagging was the BUNNY would appear on Air Froces F104,which were deployed to NAS Boca Chico during the Cuba Crisis, but that's all i'll say.
BTW the photo shown above is a F2H banshee
Semper Fi
Joe

Emergency's might or might not depending on the issue .

Great story U.Joe! The bunny would looked funny in this one...