F-4 Phantom love!

TRUE STORY:

In ~1993 I was part of a small detachment that left MCAS New River, Jacksonville NC en route to the Dominican Republic by request of the State Department with 3 CH-53E aircraft planning to do some external lifting of a statue of some famous Dominican aviator.

Apparently when they attempted to lift this bust of Herman Bolivar the fighter pilot it weighed about 4,000 more than the max lift of whatever it was they used and the bust and helicopter ran out of lift and lost tail rotor about 7,000’ agl. They planted the statue in some trees after pickleing it the 2nd time around after tail rotor failure. The helicopter impacted the mountain about 300 meters away.

We picked up the statue and put it where they wanted it about 9,000 feet up the mountain and then externally lifted the helicopter down the hill so they could salvage parts.

I tell you all this shit because when we landed there on arrival I was druelling all over their airfield because there were 21 beautiful P51Ds we taxi’d by to park Seems yhey were replacing their frontline fighter aircraft from P51s to 21 gorgeous F4s brandy new out of rework at the Navy Rework facility. Nice light grey paint, clean exhaust areas and no drag hooks for shipboard landings.

Boy they ere pretty!

The P51s gave me a chubbie though. They went straight to the air race circuit.
 
The Flying Brick or the Flying Weapons Platform. Was at the Louisville (I think) airport like 30 yrs ago and they had a Air Guard base there. I was sitting in the terminal watching my life pass by when a F4 took off. The whole building shook and there was a deafening roar. Damn those engines were powerful. I had a 1/48 scale model that I painted with the "sand and spinach" color scheme. Many years later I had a controls vendor who I worked with a lot. We got to talking at lunch one day and turns out he was a radar tech for a particular model of radar that went in the nose of a particular model of F4 during the Viet Nam era. Small world.
 
I worked the deck as a A6 intruder troubleshooter/final checker on the USS Independence 79-82 we still had 2 F4 squadrons on the ship with us. The Phantoms made you cry!!!!!!!! the amount of unburned fuel in the exhaust caused your eyes to water, at times it was painful. The F4 used a "bridle" system to launch as opposed to the more modern nose tow if you look at older carriers they had extensions off the front of the decks where the cats ended this was the bridle catcher it caught the bridle so it could be reused
 
The F-4 is probably my favorite jet aircraft of all time. To me, there's nothing that comes close to her looks, lines. It's the last fighter used by all three services.

Here's a pic from an Oceana air show from years back. The "Heritage Flights" are always my favorite part of every air show. This Phantom was one of 19 brought back into service to be used as remote controlled target drones. It was bitter sweet to see her fly, knowing she would be blown up soon.

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My 1st night working alone on the flight deck a F4 hit the round down on landing and went past me in a ball of flames killing both the Pilot and the RIO. There I was 18 years old halfway around the world from home doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, Thinking to myself what the______ did you get yourself into. I retired in 1998 and I still miss working the deck. I also still have bad dreams about accident and friends lost
 
vaskeet said:
I worked the deck as a A6 intruder troubleshooter/final checker on the USS Independence 79-82 we still had 2 F4 squadrons on the ship with us. The Phantoms made you cry!!!!!!!! the amount of unburned fuel in the exhaust caused your eyes to water, at times it was painful. The F4 used a "bridle" system to launch as opposed to the more modern nose tow if you look at older carriers they had extensions off the front of the decks where the cats ended this was the bridle catcher it caught the bridle so it could be reused
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The bride (below).

I have read F-4 pilots talk about the AOA landing, how it was hard to see the deck well because of the long nose and radome, and taking off the nose was high because of the unusually high landing gear, so they had a hard time seeing then, too.

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I had a Marine Corps poster on my bedroom wall in high school (mid '70s) with a nose on view of a Phantom sitting on a runway with fully loaded racks that I thought was the coolest airplane pic ever. I have no idea what happened to it and occasionally do a Google search for the image, but have yet to find it.
 
GeorgeBush said:
That one is a mod, a very good one, the official should be coming out soon. Do you play?
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I'm an Ace Combat/Project Wingman fanboy, but I'm thinking about getting into DCS, I just don't know if I have the time or hardware for it.
 
Exspiravit said:
I'm an Ace Combat/Project Wingman fanboy, but I'm thinking about getting into DCS, I just don't know if I have the time or hardware for it.
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You can shoot me a message with your system specs I'll be able to guess if you'll have a bad time. Time really depends what plane you're most interested in.
 
Diablos said:
How low cam an F4 go was the title of a vid back in the day

Retiring pilot had it low enough to go in between a couple hangars
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From the last half of the 70's into the early 80's I fished a lot at C.J. Strike reservoir here in southwestern Idaho. (approx. 50 mi SSE of Boise)

During the summer we would anchor the boat and fish for catfish at the backwaters of the Bruneau River arm. The river is only 1/4 mile or so wide there, and the surrounding terrain is mostly low, rolling, sandy hills and short sagebrush.

Every now and then we would be sitting there just enjoying the perfectly still, dead quiet, peacefully serene afternoon/early evening..........WHEN.........from out of nowhere, over the low dunes, a pair of Idaho Air Guard F4 Phantom II's from Gowen Field would come "SCREAMING and THUNDERING" right over our heads, turn out over the reservoir and vanish back out over the dunes.
They would practice flying down through those low dunes below radar and the answer to "How low can an F4 go?" is this........"Damn Low".
With my 7ft catfish rod, a fair-sized weight, and a good cast, I bet I could have hit the belly of one.

They were "LOW and LOUD"!!! And I bet those guys were LTAO every time they did that to someone.
 
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