| Click the Pics & Text
|
Posted on 07/31/2017 9:26:51 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The F4 is larger than you imagine it to be. I got close up to them in St Louis as a kid since they were made in a factory close to the airport...my dad worked in nearby Ferguson so I was often near the airport and loved watching the planes come and go.
They seem to always leave a trail of smoke.
| Click the Pics & Text
|
The ‘57 Chevy of fighters back then. Still a gorgeous classic.
The ‘57 Chevy of fighters back then. Still a gorgeous classic.
One of the planes my father worked on during a 39-year career with McDonnell. Dad is gone now, but this brought back good memories. He loved the planes and he loved his work.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-7_Sparrow
AIM-7 Sparrow was more of a turkey back in F-4 days.
During Vietnam it had about a 10% chance of hitting the target when fired.
A friend of mine had a step-dad who worked there where they built the planes. He was an electrical engineer.
We were talking one day about how they put the planes together and he remarked that a lot of the plane was welded with silver....I believe he meant the F4. If so there must be a lot of silver in those airplane graveyards.
A bike shop nearby my home welded bikes together using silver so I guess it’s pretty common.
The design goal of the Phantom was very simple: just take the biggest pair of engines you have and wrap an airframe around them. The result was not very maneuverable, but it was fast. With the advent of guided missiles in the Vietnam war, maneuverability was less important anyway. They just needed to go in, launch a volley, and ride back home on afterburners.
My father worked at Mac also. He was a flight line mechanic working out the bugs before finial delivery. Started with the F-4H. Worked a lot of OT in the early 60’s.
In their day nothing could touch them!
Standing close alongside the runway at night watching/hearing/feeling a Phantom do a double burner take off is like watching something blow open the Gates Of Hell!
You don’t just hear the sound - you can feel it through your whole body.
Even your insides feel like they’re being churned.
Thanks
Regards
alfa6 :>}
I grew up in Valdosta GA, home of Moody AFB, which had Phantoms at the time. They flew over my house just about every day.
Was working at an Israeli air base in the late 90's when they were still running missions with the F-4s - they took off just like that on the runway right behind our hangar at 0'dark-thirty.
The workday went downhill from there....
My favorite memory of the F-4s was when our battalion was pinned down while we were approaching what turned out to be a heavily fortified VC battalion headquarters about 20 miles southwest of Danang in January 1967. We had started one attack across about 500m of open ground and had to stop where we were when we had taken a lot of casualties. I remember the sharp crack of the rounds near-missing and the rows of grass falling in lines near me as the bullets cut them around me.
A Marine F-4 showed up and while a FAC directed him to the target in front of us, he did a very slow approach directly above us to make sure he had the right alignment. We had two more battalions in blocking positions on the other side of the enemy, so there was no room for error. I remember being shocked to see the whole length of the enemy treeline light up with muzzle flashes as the F-4 made his approach. The enemy was standing up to shoot at him!
That F-4 came around again, same direction, same altitude - low - making that moaning sound F-4s made when they were very slow and he released four "Snake eye" bombs (retarded bombs that had fins that opened into a cross shape when the were released: very accurate weapons). He hit them dead center and I remember trees, roofs and all sorts of crap flying in the air when those bombs hit.
We went in immediately and nailed what remained of the enemy.
Always hoped I could find the guys flying that thing and give them a case of whatever they liked to drink.
Fascinating comparisons with P1 Lightning and Hunter - two of my all-time favourites.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
