Jamie Hunter
Jamie Hunter
I’ve heard the 60 year old F4s perform better than our new strike fighters.
Basically an airframe wrapped around the biggest pair of engines available in 1960.
You mean that somebody is still operating the Flying Hog?
Met some Luftwaffe pilots at the Dayton air show several years ago. They’d flown their Tornadoes up from training in New Mexico for the show. They stood out with the planes on the tarmac and were very accessible and friendly to the crowd. Got to practice my German with them.
Led Sled! Helluva plane. There was a squadron of NJ Air Guard at McGuire when we were stationed at Ft Dix with F4’s. Awesome sight seeing them take off full afterburner.
What a bird!
Made our A-4s look mighty small.
What a sound on take off too.
We were flying off of Marston matting
when I got to chu lai, the next year they
brought in F-4s and they really had a time
with the unevenness and their greater weight.
It was awesome to see them come rocking all
over the place.
Was not unusual to see them lose a whole rack
of ordinance on take off. Mostly they didn’t
go off but every once in a while...
My father spent a lot of years working on these. I’ll have to share this with him.
I grew up in Valdosta GA and at the time Moody AFB had Phantoms. Not unusual for them to fly over the house a couple of times a day.
I always loved the look of the F-4 Phantom. Beautiful planes.
Well, since the Blue Angels are sequestered...maybe this one can fill in..
I thought the article meant these F4F’s.
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Former F-4e/g Asst Shop Chief A.M.S. Calibration Docks, George AFB, where the WEST German Luftwaffe trained in F4f’s........
(Slow Salute)
1973, Naval Air Station, Albany, GA (primarily A-5 Vigilantes stationed there)...a Marine F-4 flew in, landed, taxied and parked on the tarmac for a short while. Pilot called a little later for clearance to taxi back out...cleared him to taxi...heading to MCAS Cherry Point. As soon as the pilot was on the parallel taxiway, he started calling immediately for takeoff clearance. Not unusual for a pilot to do that...very often cleared for takeoff like that if there was no traffic. Couldn’t clear him though...had a T-38 on short final already cleared for touch & go. He was gonna have to stop at the end of the taxiway and wait for the T-38 to clear. Pilot asked a few more times, wanting to get out in front of the T-38...really pushing for clearance. Then I noticed smoke coming from under his aircraft...looked like a wheel fire. Grabbed the binoculars...sure enough, his left wheel was on fire. Told the F-4 pilot about the fire...”Roger, tower, shutting down.” Rolled the trucks and the fire was put out.
As it turned out, there was something wrong with the aircraft. Engines were spooling up and pilot couldn’t bring them down, so the plane was in an uncontrolled acceleration down the taxiway. The pilot’s answer? Stand on the brakes until he could get clearance...which led to the wheel fire.
He knew the plane was broken and he wasn’t going to be able to stop at the end of the runway. All he wanted to do was get off the ground, get to Cherry Point, call an emergency while inbound, land and be on a Marine base for dinner.
damn i feel old...Damn! I had a little over 700 hours in the F-4E/G. I’d gladly come out of retirement of fly them again, but I guess I’m not the only one getting old...
For all you puppies who weren’t around in 1967.
F-4 Phantom Departure Vietnam DaNang Air Base
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T906S0E62g
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