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Phantoms


Subdeacon Joe

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My all-time favorite combat aircraft.

 

Had some of them side with us during a political discussion outside of Nha Trang in 1969. We won the argument very quickly. Some day I'll run into a former F-4 jockey bragging about bailing out an Army convoy with the stupid call sign of "Swampy Wrench 6" and he won't buy another drink or meal all night.

 

Watched them doing night touch-and-go practice at Iwakuni in 1974 on a brittle cold night. A friend and I were running around the end of the runway and they would come right over us, touch the ground and hit the afterburners. The heat would vaporize the moisture in the air (considerable moisture at Iwakuni) and it would almost instantly re-freeze. The "cone" that resulted was lit up by the flame from the exhaust for a second or two and was absolutely beautiful, like a gold Christmas tree sideways behind each engine

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My Uncle was with VMFA-115 (Silver Eagles) in Chi Lai and Da Nang.

 

There's two aircraft I want to fly before I take a dirt nap, the P-51 and the F-4. I will fly both when the time is right.

 

The Rhino flight http://www.collingsfoundation.org/tx_f-4dphantom_training.htm

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When I was a young Lt. in Germany one of my duties was training 8" howitzer gun crews on gun handling and preparing for action. Our training area was about a mile from a Hawk AntiAircraft installation.

The Air Force tried to catch the Hawks off guard by flying nap of the earth missions to try to get under the radar and surprise them. (Never happened)

 

I had a gun crew in training when one such mission was flown. It was of little interest to us because it happened all the time so we gave them minimal attention and returned to training.

 

I was bent over looking into an aiming circle(used to align the guns) to see if the section chief had done it properly when an F4 at about 50 feet flew right over my backside, pulled the stick, hit full after burner and went vertical blowing sand and any equipment that was not tied down to unknown places.

Apparently the Hawks had caught them coming in but the pilot saw us and decided he could surprise some of the Army.

 

After I crawled out of the hole I had dug I marveled at how big an F4 is at that distance.

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Why, why, why, do people ruin perfectly good airplane videos with horrible unnecessary background music :angry:

 

+1!

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"Like a 60's muscle car in the air!" F*#&in' A, GG!

 

Just rewatched the video to kickstart my Monday. Had the definite desired effect!

 

​Can you picture the pilot's brief for this mission:

 

"We're doing a promo video for the F-4. We have mountains, deserts, and lakes as props, and we're going to dub it with one of the best rock songs ever written. We need you guys to give everything you got: low speed and dirty; high speed; NOE; afterburners; water ripples. The whole shooting' match!

 

"Any questions?"

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The Rhino had twice too many seats and engines for my taste, but I spent 12 good years in it. 650 knots at 30 feet over the desert or the North Atlantic, or Mach 1.9 over the Gulf of Mexico, no bird was more stable at high Q (aerodynamic load). I never felt more at home in any other cockpit.

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