[KarlInOhio]

What Couldn’t the F-4 Phantom Do?

Sneak up on anything. The F-4 was originally an experiment to turn jet fuel into noise and smoke. Flight was an unexpected but useful side effect.

[WayneS]

Excellent description.

[pfflier]

So true. The drag on the double ugly made it unique to fly. As long as there was gas and two engines burning it would blow throught the air.

Eliminate gas or the engines and it became ballistically equal to a brick striving to prove that gravity always win.

Also nose up (high alpha) approaching stall speed the rudder became ineffective and it said so in the -1 owner's manual.

You fell off wherever the beast wanted to go. The Navy gave the USAF the AOA indicator and it made a difference in how well you slept at night!

[TheGipperWasRight]

I’m glad I didn’t have anything in my mouth when I read that, or else it would be all over my laptop. :)

[red-dawg]

I have two memories of that loud beast.

First time I stood plane guard on a destroyer behind a carrier holding an M-14.
By the time my watch was over, I was covered in jet fuel and soot from head to toe and couldn't hear a thing.

Second time was when I got transferred and I had to sit outside the terminal at Clark AFB,
*RIGHT NEXT TO A TAXI LANE*.

It blew me and my seabag about fifty feet when he turned and pointed the exhaust at me.