F-4 Phantom love!

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The Republic of Korea Air Force paid tribute to its remaining F-4E Phantoms at Suwon Air Base on 08 March 2024.

The ceremony was joined by 25 aircraft consisting of F-15K, KF-16, F-16, FA-50, F-5, and F-35A. The F-4 entered service with the ROKAF in 1969 beginning with the F-4D. At one point, ROKAF operated up to around 220 F-4 Phantom variants. Phantoms have guarded the South Korean airspace for 55 years.

As of March 2024, only 10 F-4E Phantoms remain, having been mostly replaced by 5th generation F-35A. The remaining aircraft are scheduled to be fully retired in June 2024.
 
Watched an F4 make a low pass down Normandy DZ, low enough that when he pulled up near the end, it made two swirling dust clouds on the DZ. He got down to about tree top height and the afterburners were cooking with flame clearly visible. It was hot summer and the ground was dry, big dust clouds, very cool to see up close.
 
1968. Dad was assigned to the embassy in Tel Aviv. We lived outside the city a ways, with a 2 story house having a view down to the Mediterranean. One summer day I watched 4 groups of 12 F-4s fly along the coast just barely high enough to see above the 100 ft high cliffs.

When dad got home from work I asked when we sold f-4s to Israel because they weren't on the lists of a/c types they had in service. I was an airplane nut even then at 10, and knew types and rough numbers of everything in their inventory.

He asked me who told me they had Phantoms? I told him how many I counted; he told.me to keep it to myself because "we haven't sold them any phantoms" wink wink.

Later found out they had flown in wavetop height and weren't supposed to be seen. Official announcement wasn't for 6 months or so.
 
around 1980 on the USS Independence they were taxiing a F4 his nose wheel hung on the arresting cable, the yellow shirt turned him and had him advance the throttle. I was behind him after the turn and I was sliding across the deck toward the side, I could not get to a padeye to grab it. my feet hit the scupper and I went over the side. I fell about 5 feet into the metal catwalk. hitting metal never felt so good. If I had been 5 feet to the right it would have been 70 feet down to the water
 
I saw one do a low pass over Duxford back in the late 80s, maybe early 90s.

Very, very cool.
 
Jim C. said:
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.
Click to expand...
Holy crap. I decided to make a crawl through the web again and found this listing on Worthpoint, which archives eBay sales. Now I might have to set up a search and then convince my wife how great it will look on the wall.

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