We put smokeless kits on our F-4s eventually. Otherwise it was follow that smoke trail to the F-4 in front.
LORD! When I was a little tyke? The "Blue Angels" were still flying F-4s. For the "Chicago Ar & Water" show each summer? They'd do their turn around over the "most unbuilt subdivision" that I lived in, in Geneva (about 45 miles outside of Chicago). Quite honestly? At the time, there were a VERY few homes in the area, and they WOULD go supersonic over our area, such that they could hit their lakefront appearance dead on time. BIG booms, but never broke any of our windows. Parents would take me & my brother out to the end of the cul-de-sac, for the very best view, and we'd have a picnic.
Remember the fiction great novel that focused quite a bit on the F4? “Wild blue”. Boyd? I can’t recall. we have one up at Tulare, CA. Static display on hwy 99.
Double Ugly was a lot of fun to fly. I only had sorties in the back seat of the F-4G and RF-4C, but you could really feel the air loads on the aircraft control surfaces, something damped out in later fighters. Really short legs, though, with two J-79s burning.
Image Unavailable, Please Login I would not miss an opportunity to post these. All originals. Enjoy Image Unavailable, Please Login
In the early 80's the Air Force conducted a fatigue test on the F-4 at WPAFB. I was a co-op at the test facility at that time. After 16000 (simulated) hrs, during which time they fixed various fatigue issues, they decided to test it to 24000hr without any further fixes. Even with a few cracks growing in various locations it made it. Afterwards the plane was disassembled to be shipped back to McDonnell for inspection. We couldn't get the wing root attach bolts out as they as deformed, so we called the Base fire dept who came out with their big rescue saw and cut the wings off about a foot from the root. They got a big kick out of that. Tough bird. There was a reserve squadron at Wright-Patt at that time so got an ear full quite often on a SW departure. The test facility at WPAFB, Bldg 65, was specifically built to static test the B-36. The height was defined to allow a B-36, with complete wing, to be lifted and rotated to be upside down. Image Unavailable, Please Login For someone who liked his erector set as a kid, this place was the adult version.
Yep. Spent a summer at NASA Langley while in grad school. Once had the opportunity to fly into Langley AFB on the school's business plane (690A). For me at that time it was pretty cool seeing up close the lineup of the 1st FW (lots and lots of F-15's!).
To circle back to the thread topic, I went to an airshow at Tyndall AFB around 03/04 and they had F-15s & F-22s but they also had their entire f-4 drone operation there. Collings flew their F-4 as part of the airshow. That F-4 was something else.
I spent some time at Langley in '44,45' watching and riding in some really neat stuff. I wasn't old enough to be in grad school or much of anything else at 18 years old but I got a lot out of it. Good memories.
Years ago I saw a Deuce drone depart Randolph AFB. I assume a rated pilot was flying the airplane cross country to another destination. Holloman had a few Deuce drones years ago. I believe Sperry was the contractor. Quite a few F-4 drones also were at Holloman along with the Luftwaffe and the F-4F. Image Unavailable, Please Login
The 523rd Fighter Squadron, the Crusaders, was an F-111D unit at Cannon AFB last time I was stationed there in 1980.
Image Unavailable, Please Login The patched changed to the Crusaders after the 523rd returned to Cannon and picked up the F-111. The 523rd with the Spook is from it's deployment, to Udorn A.B. I have also included the patch used by the 523rd before the Spook was adopted. This was worn by the unit, at Misawa A.B., in the early 1960's. The 430th patch was fabricated in Thailand and the unit flew the F-111A out of Takhli A.B. and participated in both L.B. I and L.B. II. The 2nd F-111 deployment to SEA was very successful. The US made 430th, is from when the unit flew the F-100D out of Cannon, in the late 1950's. 17th W.W.S. F-105G.
The Phantom was such a cool, HUGE fighter. In our squadron hooch at the Kun, we had a tail hook from one of Robin Olds’ Wolfpack F-4s...the hook was so big it just sat on the floor next to the crud table...no way to get that thing on a wall as it was absolutely massive compared to the little spring steel howyadoin’ we had on the Viper.
No. Not sure anyone has ever. The plane has whimpy little spindly spider leg landing gear. It’s a light weight G-pulling machine. Gear collapse events aren’t that infrequent so I think pounding it into a flattop would be a really bad idea. I’ve taken a cable with it though but that’s nothing compared to taking a wire like the carrier guys do. Big hat tip to them.
The Navy would not let the F-16 do any carrier trials because of the hydrazine in the onboard APU. GD offered to change the propellants, but the Navy never really wanted the thing anywhere near a carrier. They liked the F/A-18 with two engines for overwater use. Of course, now they are stuck with another single engine aircraft, the F-35C.
I remember seeing the YF-17 at the Hawthorne airport. Compared with the F-18, the YF-17's landing gear looks so wimpy it almost looks like it might break in a hard landing on a normal runway!
Jim- Yup, there was a reason they were called Light-Weight Fighters. Just about everything on the YF-16 and YF-17 was stripped down to the minimum to maximize turn and acceleration capabilities. GD stated that if they had known what USAF would do to the F-16 (F-4 replacement), they would have designed a different airplane. If the Navy had wanted the F-16, the landing gear and hook structures would have been beefed up considerably.
I never had any problems with the choice of the F-17 for the Navy part of the deal, nor the changes needed to make it carrier-capable, which turned it into the F-18. Having two engines can be handy when over the ocean in the middle of nowhere. What I objected to was them taking the program away from Northrop and giving it to McDonnell Douglas (which already had the F-15 and AV-8), and the adoption of the "F/A-18" designation, which I still think is illegal and stupid and which I refuse to use! (There isn't a current fighter that doesn't also have an attack role. Where are/were the F/A-14, F/A-15 and F/A-16? And the F-111 and F-117 weren't even fighters at all!)