Posted on 07/31/2017 9:26:51 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
These have different engines that don’t smoke as much. The original Phantoms used J79 engines, which while very powerful and able to absorb damage, did smoke a lot.
The RAF Phantoms use a Rolls Royce/Detroit Diesel Allison TF-41 engine with a higher bypass, IIRC.
The knock on those engines (I worked on them in the A7E Corsair) as that the turbines were susceptible to cracks caused by high temperature, and when you installed and calibrated the engine, its maximum power was limited by turbine temperature. You had big, yellow boxes with thick cannon plugs you had to hook up, then high power the engine and set the top temperature.
Basically, they had a temperature governor.
They also had a smoke suppression system, where a nasty chemical could be added to a reservoir (that had a skull and crossbones on the access hatch for the filler) but we never ever used it. I recall it was Hydrazine or something like that, and when serviced with it, they had to wear full bunny suits, but...I never saw it.
As a child I lived near El Toro Marine Base.
The F-4s there were dirty and loud!
Even then I knew it was the sound of freedom.
Hydrazine?!
That’s BAD stuff there, component of rocket fuel if I remember correctly.
Old V2 stuff....
Great story - thanks for your service!
It definitely wasn’t hydrazine, but they treated it the same way and was supposed to be extremely toxic. LOL, never saw it used or the support equipment for filling it, either.
Flying an F4 British-style these days would be to allow a muslim to occupy the cockpit and bomb the nearest soccer stadium full of children.
Me 163s used that stuff too...one poor pilot was literally dissolved in his seat when a fuel line ruptured.
Fortunately I managed to get 400+ hours in the J/S models before they were retired.
I also remember seeing the Blue Angel Phantoms from a distance performing at Willow Run in MI. I don't think they were too good as display aircraft since their loops were so large they almost went into the summer cloudbase at the top of the loop. I think their shows with the later A4 Skyhawks - and then F-18s - were better to watch since they could keep it closer to the audience.
Later on the ANG were using Phantoms based at George AFB in CA when I was flying sailplanes in the Mojave desert - they were really easy to spot from a distance with their really prominent smoke trails.
They were around for a long time, and a lot now reside nearby in the D-M "boneyard".
Only recently read that it was intended for an early IR sensor. It never was developed and the F-4 went into production with the appendage all set to go. Disappeared on later aircraft, of course.
Bike frames used to be steel with joints braised together, still a soldering technique.
[HMAS Hobart]
What? No story about the 2 UFO’s? You know how an F-4 Phantom II fired a missile the previous day and it struck the ship the very next day?
Well, according to the TV UFO shows, anyways.....
“Hydrazine?! ... Old V2 stuff....” [Bobalu, post 23]
“Me 163s used that stuff too...one poor pilot was literally dissolved...” [M1903A1, post 28]
There are many types of rocket fuels.
Germany’s V2 used alcohol as fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidizer.
The Luftwaffe’s Me-163B used a mix of methanol, hydrazine hydrate, and water as fuel, and an 80/20 mix of hydrogen peroxide and water as oxidizer. They were hypergolic (ignite on contact with each other) and very corrosive. The leak-prone fuel lines of the 163 often led to fires and severe pilot injury.
Titan II ICBM used Aerozine-50, a mix of hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine as fuel, with nitrogen tetroxide as oxidizer. Both were storable (compared to liquid oxygen) and hypergolic, but very corrosive. Later rocket motors, including those on Apollo’s Lunar Module and Service Module, used hydrazine compounds as fuel.
“... he remarked that a lot of the plane was welded with silver....A bike shop nearby my home welded bikes together using silver so I guess it’s pretty common.” [Bobalu, post 10]
They were not welded.
Welding is the joining of one material to another by the melting of the materials, and filler as needed. Commonly thought of as joining metals, but plastic and glass can be welded also.
The friend’s step-dad was likely referring to soldering: joining components by means of a filler, which melts at a lower temperature and bonds to the components.
High-temperature soldering uses filler alloys containing 56 to 80 percent silver; they penetrate the component parts and can create a joint stronger than the original metal.
Scrapping and salvage processes typically scavenge precious metals.
Wow, some great stories and information in this thread. I love reading this kind of stuff. Thanks to all!!
Mike
It is pretty cool...all things Phantom turn me on...what a Boss plane. I used to draw them incessantly as a little kid...
There was a famous picture years ago of a Soviet Bear taken from a US fighter sent up to escort it, and in the waist bubble, when the intelligence people blew it up, showed a grinning Soviet airman holding up a bottle of Coke!
This was long before the days of Photoshop, and I had no doubt the picture was genuine and unadulterated!
IIRC, when I was on a carrier, we used to intercept the Bears all the time...during our transatlantic crossings, we always had a Tomcat tied down on the bow cat, armed with a standard load out of two Phoenix, two Sparrows, and two Sidewinders. They would occasionally get close enough for us to see them, they were flying at relatively low altitude (maybe 3,000-5,000 feet?) with a Tomcat alongside. But they never flew over the ship, usually they were a few miles off our bow somewhere. I think that was a common US Navy experience in those days...:)
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