Age 13, I did a project on the UK Phantom models. I wrote to McDonnell Douglas and got 2 full colour lithographs of the RAF and Royal Navy variants plus full cutaway drawings and press articles. I was gobsmacked and have loved the plane ever since.
I seem to recall that the Phantoms used by the RAF were equipped with Rolls Royce engines that had multiple advantages : no revealing smoke trail, lower consumption and more thrust. Not the first time an American plane was greatly upgraded by the fitting of a british power plant (#P51 Mustang)!
My favourite math teacher in high school was an f4 pilot in Vietnam during the war. He was the only front line soldier I knew in that conflict that founf his service to be a good experience. My Advanced Math grade with him went D C B A through the year - he gave me a lot of time. I apreciated it - his name was Mr Cushing. That was 4 decades ago.
My high school teacher for computer science and physics was an A4 Skyhawk pilot in Vietnam, was shot down and taken prisoner (even shot in the leg having tried to escape). Great teacher and like yours, if you put in the effort he was right there to help. Excellent man, Mr Higdon.
You were lucky to have a teacher like him. And Mr. Cushing lucky too have a such a student. Raising grade such a haste isn't an easy task. Great job man. Tumbs up.
have over 2800 hrs in the Rhino - three combat tours in Nam - used every system on the jet including the MB H-7 seat! My first love - and in my opinion the best fighter of its era!
I was a crew chief on F-4 fighters and then A-7's and F-16's, my experience told me they all were good aircraft in their roles and they all had their problems. I have a soft spot for the F-4's, I crewed 67-463 which is on static display at the Air Force Academy, it got the most Mig kills in Viet Nam. There were a few F-4's that were put through an upgrade program called "new life" and were issued a new tail number of 90 or 91-XXX. I inspected a few of these at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson in about 96. They were stored at the "boneyard" but were still flyable. I was told they were rebuilt and had new engines and avionics in them. I don't know what happened to them but they were beautiful to go through from a mechanics viewpoint. BTW, for those who have seen 67-463 at an air show, that is not really 463, if you look at the tail it has a N registration number and is owned by the Phantom Society and was flown to shows by Gen. Steve Ritchie who made ace in the real 463.
Close to 300 F-4s were converted to QF-4s over the years and used as drone and aerial targets. I was at WSMR in 2004/2005ish and got to see one in action for a missile test. They were saying then the F-16 was going to take over as they were running out of QF-4s and especially guys that knew how to fly them remotely. Did a little research and it seems they carried on for at least another decade before the switch.
I had the honor of flying her from 1974 thru 1983, then moved on to newer fighters. To this day, almost 40 years later, I still have wonderful dreams at night about flying her.
Definitely not the greatest jetfighter of all time. Much more affordable and simpler Russian Mig fighters or shooting them down in Vietnam add about a one to one ratio, if the truth be told. It’s easy to fall in love with the airplane that you flew, I’m just a private pilot, but one of my trainer pilot was a Navy fighter pilot and he told me this about the Phantom, “ it’s a piece of shit.”
Maybe, however it was the first real "weapons platform" and so pointed the way for how all modern jet fighters are now.....the migs you mention from the Vietnam era had lots of restrictions, range, payloads etc plus the phantom could operate from a carrier which they couldn't. I suppose the easiest test is - which would you rather have in a fight!
When I was a kid I built tons of WWI & WWII models. A friend of my brother's who had served in Viet Nam gave me a Phantom kit and I was stunned at how huge it was in comparison. Numbers just didn't do it for me.
@@barbaratodd1288 Where the comparison was most noticeable was head on. The Mig had a fraction of the frontal area. Also the smoke trail wasn't a help.
I grew up near a US Airforce base. These used to thunder, shriek, and smoke over my house in formations of 2, 3, and 4, like angry Norse gods. The glasses in my parents cabinets rattled and sang. I credit those F4s for the fact that I am an aviation fan 40 years later.
@@madmaximus2836 There were times that it did, especially at night, but no matter. It used to really irritate my parents.. Cool is cool. BTW, there were F105s at the base too. Those bad boys were really fast, loud and screechy.
@@nonamesplease6288 Nice, nice! I bet you "feel" the power! I grew up close to an air force base in South Africa in the 80s. They had Mirage F1 and F3s. Not nearly as cool as US fighter jets, but did see a F3 doing a very low level inverted pass over the runway during an airshow. Had posters of US fighter jets plastered all over my bedroom walls as child. I immigrated to the US and now go to US air museums and shows. My one son is in the Army and the other Navy and so we visit military places when possible. Looking forward to see Top Gun: Maverick on May 25th. So much nostalgia from the first Top Gun...
we were rebuilding a runway and during the day in slow times F4s would do touch and goes (on the other runway) and by golly (god if ur from W.Virginia) and those rascals were louder than the big commercial birds (we're talkin 4 engine jobs on take off mind you) like riding in a cab or bus and seeing a Ferrari zip by effortlessly but strong loud.
I once gently tapped the aluminum skin of an F4 at the Deutsches Museum's annex, Flugwerft Schleissheim, which is by the way a nice bicycle ride north of Munich Germany, but don' tell anyone that first bit. I'm always amazed at how "soft" and lightweight these relatively light but absolutely fast things really are.
When I was in Abu Dhabi in 2015, I got to visit the Solar Impulse 2, the airplane that flew around the world on solar power. When no one was looking, I touched the fuselage. If you think the F4's skin was delicate, you haven't touched a carbon fiber solar electric airplane that has been mercilessly optimised for weight 😉 The skin gave so much under even a light tap that for a moment I was *sure* I had punched through it, and I nearly fainted.
I had the pleasure of working around RF-4C’s (recon birds) from ‘83-87 at Bergstrom AFB, Austin,TX. I was fire protection right on the ramps and runways. They had their issues but they were still amazing to watch. Night flying was the best when they took off in 2 ship formations with those legendary full afterburners! I miss both the base and the aircraft.
I was at El Toro USMC air station in 1971. I got stuck walking guard duty on the flight line one night, when 2 F4’s rolled up to the end of the runway and hit their afterburner’s an took off together. I was like 50 yards away and the exhaust almost knocked me over. My god that was something to behold. The sheer power of those engines!
In '70 and '71 I spent way too much time on a big boat named the U.S.S. Independence. My favorite activity (BY FAR!) was standing beside my squadron's F4's at the cats when they were shot at night!! Becomes part of your blood! Watch ed the Blue Angels last November fly 3 days straight!
@@michaelleitner1245 I was on USS Forrestal in 1981 w/ VMFA-115 [ Med Cruise] I was lucky and had the Hoor of BINGO Det Sigonella Sicily the 1st 30 Days
the majority of non US hornets are land based, and theyve done pretty good (admitting that the og design has weaknesses due to its carrier based origins), but your right its incredible how well the phantom did in its history given all the design decisions and trade offs due to it (how many other naval fleet defense fighters became the backbone of large nnumbers of entire air forces)... i still think it and the F8 crusader have the best silhouette of the mid cold war... but then again im also partial to the buccaneer and scimitar's shape and i have to admit theyre kinda fugly... like fictional jets made by people that dont know how they work, but get the whole "rule of cool" thing right, kinda like halo's ridiculous M808 scorpion...
It's actually quite easy to operate carrier-type a/c from land. They in fact spend much of lives operating from land bases during training. Not so for the reverse.
Maintenance on the F4 could be frustrating. Each weapons shop had several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of test equipment and associated cables. To fully ring out the electrical system could require several days to several weeks. There were no self test features and no LRUs or line replaceable units. Any performance issues or faults required a trip back to the hanger ( we actually did most maintenance out on the parking ramp ) and a potential delay waiting for CRS ( component repair squadron) to repair and send a unit out for replacement. The A7 on the other hand had self test LRUs which could be replaced while the engines were running at EOR. Those units were stocked in CRS for that purpose. The F4 went by by simply because newer planes built upon the lessons learned and made significant improvements in performance and simplicity of maintenance. For instance the F16 and F15 had roughly 25 percent commonality of parts which went beyond just using the same engine.
I was a weapons mechanic and worked on F-4C’s and D models at Cam Ranh Bay, I extended in order to save up enough money to buy a new car when I got back to the States, I spent 10 months at Cam Ranh, then I was sent to DaNang for 8 months, where I worked on D and E model F-4’s. The E model was the most beautiful of them all. Some maintenance was difficult for us though! When I got home I bought a 1971 Plymouth 340 Duster for $3,100. They sure were expensive!
wow, thanks Ed, much appreciated. between you and Rex's hanger, TH-cam is getting some great obscure/lesser known aircraft content. thanks for your work.
I was a Marine F 4B pilot and when we deployed to Vietnam in 1965 we did not, as usual, have the latest model of the F 4. The Navy always got the latest and we got their used ones. We were flying missions with our older planes but had requested more. One finally showed up and it was one of the test planes that McDonnell had used for setting records. It was a Ferrari compared to the other F 4Bs we had but it didn't have any weapons stations on the wings. It was the fastest plane we had but was almost worthless as a Marine support plane. It was a pleasure to fly and would push you back into the seat when the afterburner was selected. It was sent to Japan where we had an overhaul facility and turned into a truck like the rest of our fleet. I loved that plane and it always got me home!
@@mill2712 When the Mars colonies eventually insurrect, we're gonna be launching ships full of B-52s and M2s modified for low gravity use, I just know it.
I served in the ROK in the USAF during the late '70s, with the 8th TWF (the Wolfpack). We were flying F4 Ds and Es in counter armor and Wild Weasle roles. We called it the "Lead Sled" and "The Bent Wing Bugsucker". I found Super 8 film I still had from back in the day and I gave it to the "Together We Served" film archive and it is digitized.
@@thekinginyellow1744 We had "D's and "E"s 1n 1978 at Kunsan. I was a missile trooper, Most of the F4s got loaded with LGBs, early Mavericks, Sparrows and Sidewinders with a 20mm Gatling in an underslung pod. The Weasels got Shrikes.
As was mentioned in the video, the F100 option was indeed exercised on one airframe. when the Lavi program was canceled, the engines of the two completed prototypes were installed on an F4, significantly improving it's performance. As far as my limited research has showed, this improved F4 was presented in a few airshows, demonstrating its improved capabilities. Exporting this improved model, or at least upgrading a few old F4s then in service was briefly considered, but the inflow of new F16s and the fact an export model would hurt potential F16 sales to other airforces put a stop to those plans. You can still see this prototype F4 in the Israeli air force museum, though last I was there it was out of display, and I doubt it will return considering the sorry state of the whole place. If you do manage to sneak out to the side areas, the prototype can be identified by the various logos on its tail rudder (IAI, Pratt and Whitney, etc)
Israel only installed one PW1120 and everything was great till they checked the bulkheads and found they were cracked. That is why all Israel upgrades of the Phantom II didn't replace the J79 including the "Kurnas 2000" that lasted till past 2000. Love this plane but it was a nightmare to maintain.
@@yaronk1069 I can believe they had problems with the PW1120! The F-4 was designed around the J79. That's what the inlets were constructed for and the plane was stressed for it. It would have taken many months and a lot of money to resolve the integration issues. There probably would have been rebuilding of the inlets and engine mount areas. As a design that was nearly 30 years old by the time the upgraded F-4 Super Phantom flew, it must have seemed questionable to spend the money on a new powerplant that late in the plane's life. I think in the end it was better to spend that money on the avionics upgrades. The J79 was perfect for the F-4 Phantom and had a very good service record overall. It's very difficult to incorporate new engines into an established design AND be successful without major redesigns of the existing airframe. A famous example of this is the Lockheed P-38 which used an Allison-original engine. They looked at incorporating the Rolls Royce Merlin engine (which was built under license by Allison in the US) but it was realized quickly that incorporating the Merlin into the P-38 would have required radical redesign of the engine to fit into the existing engine booms OR major redesign of the airframe for the Merlin. The way the inlet/turbosupercharger(?) system was laid out in the P-38 made installing the Merlin engine in that airframe impractical. With World War II raging on, it made less sense to make radical changes that might delay production for months and more sense to improve the engines the P-38 was already using! Both the F-15 and F-16 had their engine compartments redesigned in the early 1980s to allow them to use alternative engines (the F110 family) from General Electric. The planes were selling well enough and were still early in their production runs when the change was made so it made sense. The F-15 and F-16 were both designed around the Pratt&Whitney F100 which was intended to be the definitive powerplant but it ran into all sorts of technical issues and was not as reliable as the US Air Force wanted. The F-16 redesign in particular forced General Dynamic to redesign the Viper's inlet to suit the increased airflow of the F110 turbofan. That had adverse effects on the plane's handling at high angle of attack and probably affected supersonic handling at the high end of its flight envelope. The change in the inlet design probably increased drag, possibly slightly slower than the Pratt&Whitney-powered F-16s which kept the original inlet designs and boosted thrust in later production Blocks 42/52 by boosting internal engine temperatures. The competition with General Electric forced Pratt&Whitney to "up its game" and the majority of the F100's problems were resolved with refit F100-PW-220 engines (compatible with both the F-15 and F-16) by the mid/late-1980s and the highly redesigned F100-PW-229 which debuted in service in the early 1990s. ** The F-14 was one of the few military planes that benefitted from a complete engine replacement. The thing is that the existing airframe itself had few alterations to install the new engine and it was the GE F110 that was altered to fit the airframe! The F110-GE-400 (-400 means it's a US Navy engine) integrated fine into the Tomcat airframe but was heavier than the equivalent Air Force model (the F110-GE-100 installed in the F-16C Block 30 and Block 40). The main cause of the engine weight increase (+600 lbs) was a steel pipe extension/band that stretched the length of the engine by over 4 ft to fit the existing F-14 engine nacelle. It essentially shifted the compressor section forward and the afterburner unit aft to integrate with the inlet and exhaust end properly. They DID have to attach a new afterburner unit and nozzle section; these were basically versions of the designs used for the F-18's F404 turbofan which was also a General Electric product. They had some vibration issues (resolved quickly) and some fanblade cracking early in the F-14's F110 service (this was normal; all the Teen Fighters had fatigue issues with their turbofans which were resolved with improved manufacturing and hardware refits) but even with those hiccups it was a much more reliable engine for the F-14 than the P&W TF30 ever was...
There's a substantial difference between "having to" and "choosing to". Lobbyists from the military industrial complex would much rather newer airframes be produced than upgrade older ones, something you might have gleaned if you had like...watched the video you're commenting on.
Former Phantom Phixer here. RF-4B of VMFP-3 USMC out of El Toro back in the late 70's. I got out just as they were recruiting for the new F-18 coming on line. Aircraft was a pain in the backside to work on, but I still love it. Smoke trails? From the J-79's? Never noticed it ... lol
Long live the Rhino!! I lived near Homestead AFB in South Flordia back in the early 80's and used to love when they would train above our skies. They would send up a single F-4 and intercept it with 2 other F-4's. Back then they would break the speed of sound at altitude and the double booms would shake our house. What a time that was. We would after school go thru dirt roads and right by the runwawy behind the metal fence we would see them light the candles and takeoff.. Rock on Phantom!!
I worked on the RF4C between '77 to '80. I was an Autopilot/ Instruments Tech. I tested and inspected many flight controls. I would say many were already worn badly with excessive play. The Brass frowned on Red Xing the planes trying to wait for the F16s to arrive. It was a great plane originally but at the end it was technically obsolete. Lots of memories working on them.
A balmy summer Sunday 40 years ago at the old family farm in Shelby county Southeast of Springfield. The big red barn had a corrugated iron roof coated with aluminum paint that shown in the afternoon sun like a searchlight. The ANG squadron at Abraham Lincoln airport flew F-4s in those days, and they flew low-level practice circuits around the central Illinois countryside on weekends. The big red barn of native timber sat alone on a small ridge near the farmhouse and made a great landmark. The kids were playing outside in the sunshine when I heard the sound of distant thunder. A mile north, a Phantom was sideways, low against the sky. Southward, two more turned likewise. I snatched up the two year old daughter and ran to the barn and pointed east, and said “Look!” just in time. In seconds, a green and brown F-4, hunkered down and smoking like a house on fire, wings bent up and down, slammed up the ridge and straight over the barn at 100’, outrunning it’s own roar. The two year old screamed, laughed and clapped. She says she doesn’t remember it, but I do. The barn is still there.
In 1971, dad took me to see the Thunderbirds perform at the Long Beach California shoreline. Of course, they flew those amazing F-4 Phantoms. To see those awesome-looking airframes doing their magic is a sight no other aircraft can touch, I think. They’re just awe.
The Blue Angels were using the Phantoms at that time too. They were going to fly at my base at Oceana, Va, and darn if it didn't just rain hard for the entire weekend!! After the Phantoms, the Blue Angels flew the A4 Skyhawks, and I think the top speed of the aircraft was only about 685 mph!!
Ex-USAF here: maintained the "black box" tactical recon/intelligence electronics in some RF-4Cs. They had the distinct elongated noses for optical & infared cameras. Fuel, film, and recorders-no weapons. As far as I know, less than twenty were ever outfitted with the above mentioned avionics. It enjoyed all the hands on maintenance on the flight line at Kadena & Osan ABs. The F-15s were coming on line, and the SR-71 would roar off occasionally. I had an air show most every working day. It was an honor to serve. Please keep this content coming, Mr. Nash! Well done!
@Bruce Goodwin Got to repair RF-4s in the IAF. They were immaculate with perfectly fitted panels, not loaded to the gills like the bomb-trucks, only the centerline tank. Tail Nr. 495 is now in the Israeli Airforce Museum.
@@trespire Salute, trespire. I remember maintaining 555…can't remember the other tails. The underrated RFs (my opinion) are a good example of the Phantom design: reconfigurable, reliable, and pretty darn fast!
@@brucegoodwin634 Talking about fast, roumour had it, some of the RFs, not all, could reach Mach 2.5 and a bit. With the right tactics, at high altitude zoom, they were practically untouchable. The above mentioned 495 was in all gray, no gun, no pilons, super slick. IMHO, looked better than any Eagle. Thinking back, that was probably the fastest jet the IAF ever flew.
Thank you, Ed. I served as a grunt in the mid 70's to early 80's and always loved the Phantom. You sure as heck couldn't mistake it for anything else in the sky.
did u happen to know bill/william holcombe..aslo a weasel driver? man he had stories. and his helmet was all painted dark and green and with crack marks on top where it had hit the canopy from i guess explosions going off around or under him
I was a F-4G crew chief at Spangdahlem Germany from Fall of 85 to fall of 87 (480th AGS) that extra bump under radar dome at 2:36 does not look like the G bump in this pic, it’s too small and not as round and the tail markings are not from the 3 bases that I remember having F-4Gs. Tail markings would be SP, WW, and I am brain farting on the base in Philippines that had Gs. If I recall most of the Gs that were converted were all from the year 69- xxxx edit after google search the Philippines base was Clark AB with tail letters of PN
I loved the Phantom. We had 2 squadrons on most, if not all, US aircraft carriers for many years. I made 2 cruises to Vietnam with the Phantoms onboard. I've watched them land and takeoff hundreds of times. Not only did they have the missiles, they all had various different bombs underneath their wings. I walked around them on the hangar and flight decks almost every day. Bumped my head more than once on the wings when I wasn't paying attention. A super Phantom would've been so cool.
Flew F4E for 5 years in the 70's before transitioning to F-15A. I will always love the Phantom and they could have been hugely valuable as attack aircraft in Gulf War II but now we have shot them all down and are using F-16's for target drones. Time marches on I agree with the Air Force decision, no sense in spending the money on a might have worked modification with 15/16's coming down the line.
I was young during the Gulf War, 7th grade at the time. I might be mistaken, but didn't the Air Force at the time still have some F4's operating as Wild Weasels?
@@dougc190 Yeah, as I just now reread what he had posted, I see that. Eh, yesterday was a long day. At any rate, thanks for confirming something that I was obviously far too lazy to look up for myself, ha.
I just want to say that your channel is awesome! You have found and shed light on the many oddities and variations of many main fighters! I've learned a ton and everyone of your videos keeps me watching the whole time! Thank you so much and I'm now a subscriber!
It is somewhat ironic that Boeing's F15X is playing a similar role in the procurement drama as the Super Phantom did. The difference is that only one company, Lockheed Martin, is playing the antagonist.
Except instead of three new airframes, we have one (the F-35) proving problematic in certain versions. We need aircraft added to the fleet to maintain numbers. If my understanding is correct, the F-15x is oriented towards new air frames.
@@Caseytify In fact, the F-35 is one aircraft with three different air-frames. The USN isn't in love with their "C" air-frame. The USMC is reducing their "B" air-frame acquisitions. Only the USAF "A" will likely see full production, unless the USAF NGAD produces its first series sooner than expected.
@Fraser Fir LMAO...all Lockheed talking points. For all the money LM is dropping in to the campaign coffers of Congressional representatives and Senators, the F-15EX still survives. Looking at the USAF operational and readiness requirements, it is conceivable the F-15EX will not only continue replacing old F-15C/D air-frames, but also aging F-15E air-frames. The F-35A (the most reliable and capable Lightning II model) continues to post disappointing readiness statistics and requires specialized maintenance. Ultimately, the USAF will be willing to reduce all existing platforms for NGAD. The USN has also made no secret that they are prioritizing NGAD (F/A-XX) .
I grew up 5 miles from McChord AFB from 1976-1991 in a Boeing Company town (Tacoma). My childhood is going to airshows at McChord and seeing F-4s all the time. I fell in love with the F-4, it was just so powerful. Really wish Boeing had been engaged and the Super Phantom been adopted. I wonder if the two crewmen required on the phantom was a strike against it 🤔
Once again a very well researched and presented video, thanks. Add this to the recent HP Hampden , just one example) and with your channel we "airyplane freaks" really DO have one of the best, if not THE best channels available. Thanks Ed.
my Dad was an F-4 crew chief, first in Viet Nam 67-68 then with the Kansas Air Guard late 70's early 80's. I remember how excited he was when news of the Super Phantom project was released, and how disappointed he was when it didn't happen. He loved that airplane, wanted it to live forever. I miss them both.
My father was in the U.S. Foreign Service, and for our final return Stateside from South America we took a ship (R.I.P., Grace Lines) instead of flying. During a full-day stopover in Norfolk, my folks, my sister, and I -- along with our German Shepherd! -- took the long, long walk from the docks to a nearby shopping area. On our way back, moving even more slowly due to shopping bags, we noticed the Blue Angels on a practice flight... which shortly thereafter became what seemed like a series of mock strafing runs on us, the only people on foot for probably a mile in any direction. Those F-4s passed over us at least 6 or 7 times each at an altitude that left us *feeling* their passage overhead. They were so low that a couple of boards shook off an abandoned old house nearby. I don't think I've been that close to an F-4 since, even in museums... and as much as we all disliked having to duck and cover our ears (or the poor dog's!), they were definitely impressive aircraft under the circumstances.
There's a... problem... with relying on industry data and calculations generally. That problem is, generally, called "having no way to understand if they're lying to you for profit - and if they're also actively corrupting the higher echelons of the Air Force pursuing the same goal". The modern DOD and USAF have a well known problem.
That's procurement for you. The government rules makes it so easy for contractors to rip off the taxpayers because they are in collusion with our representatives in Congress.
I retired from an F14 squadron in 1995. I don't recall anyone being happy with the idea of another go with the Phantom. My first ship, Nimitz, still had occasional visits from F4s. Big and clunky, needing bridles to launch, they were a pain over the newer catapult attachments on the rest of the planes embarked. Notice that all US bird farms no longer have the bow tooth required for bridles. I'm saddened that the Tomcat is gone, a superior plane to it's so called replacements.
...and then in a repeat of history there were the proposed 'Super Tomcat' versions. That would have been some aircraft. And finally it looks like a 'Super' version has made it through with the F15EX
@@FinsburyPhil - There was even a Semi-Stealth Variant proposed of the F-15 Eagle. I believe it was designated F-15SE Silent Eagle. Was more a Partial Stealth Variant than a full on Semi-Stealth Variant. Only about 15% of the plane was stealthy, the result of Congress and as a result, Boeing couldn't get it sold despite interest.
I flew F-4Ds and Es. We performed Red Air DACT against Tomcats. The best kept secret of military aviation was that the F-14 never lived up to the hype. It came and went without actually having to prove itself. It was not a “superior” aircraft. That was just the cover story.
During a "mission" in support of Critical National Security my late wife rode in the backseat of an F-4 from the States to SE Asia, non-stop in the middle of the night. Tanker, to tanker, to tanker. She rode back the next day ASAP because there was nobody in SE Asia cleared to "debrief" her. This was back in the early 1970's.
That is a brutal commute. The intel she had must have been very, very important. But do you mean she wasn't able to deliver the info? No one to deliver it to, properly?
@@donjones4719 She accompanied an AF Major, he was in another F-4. Both of them had brief cases handcuffed to their wrists. When they got there a Special Forces Team took them into the jungle in Laos. There was something there they had to do/see/touch. They had to "come home" to report. There was nobody cleared high enough in SE Asia. She never told me any of this until after we were married! This "flight", all-in-all, is a long story but, when she first started to tell me I was "WHAT! You were a clerk typist!?!" "Well, yes and no. When the call came in, I was the only available person who was Cleared for the mission". She was a Field Operative! The first time she went to Langley, she/they knew that something Big had happened, or was going to happen. She said it was Very Upsetting so, she asked "the General" what the President was going to do about it. He told her to sit down, and that he was only going to tell her once and he Never wanted to hear another word about it. "The President is a civilian. He has not been cleared".
I spent time at MAC and worked on the F4, F15, and F18. It was like the set of Star Wars in the final assembly area, all these incredible planes. Later I worked with and became friends with a guy who had been an RF-4 pilot in Vietnam. Unarmed and unafraid, he said. He survived it, but then he survived four wives, too, so I'm not sure if it was skill, balls of steel, or just simply being nuts.
Worked at McDonnell Aircraft in the sixties in a paint shop, Building 27 applying zinc chromate primer to thousands of F-4 parts. If you ever saw the miles of wiring and hydraulic plumbing inside the F-4, you’d wonder how they got off the ground! These fighters were an engineering masterpiece. ONE BADASS AIRPLANE!!
I still think it's the coolest design of any jet ever. Still my favorite jet of all time, I loved watching them buzz my parents village in Greece when I was a kid.
There was also the F-4X, a Mach 3 aircraft, with water injection, new nose, steel inserts, and recontoured rear with water tanks. Israel was briefly interested in an extreme interceptor, but costs and needs didn't match up.
Yep - my old sergeant worked on that project. They had to swap the nose because the original fiberglass couldn't handle the pressures and temperatures.
I’ve used quite a few hulks of retired F-4’s as targets for many tests. The F-4 is legendary to me and I always pay my respects before absolutely destroying and turning the hulks into popcorn sized pieces. Such a beautiful airframe and had a unique beauty to it even with its big powerful engines that had that ever present smoke trail a lot of the times.
The Phantom was the plane that first made me obsessed with jet fighters. Had a lovely airfix model and everything. Big one it was as well. Cheers Wicked vid this one.
Another great watch, with great production quality. This guy gets me. Personally not a huge phantom fan, though for the time period, has to be in the top three of good looking aircraft...
I think another spanner in the works was the RAF F-4 with the Spey. The twin Spey arrangement gave a total of over 5000 pounds of extra thrust, but managed to be slower due to thoroughly nerfed aerodynamics. It could climb a fair bit faster but that was the only advantage.
On July 20th 1967 in South Vietnam. My CH47 Chinook was disabled by the Vietcong while delivering a double sling load. A 105 Howitzer and net full of ammo. Long story short most of us got out of the disabled ac and took fire under cover. A phantom support was brought in and dropped a Hugh napalm into the jungle and instantly silenced the issue…. So very thankful they were there. 213 th PhuLoi Black Cats.
in 1984 I was with the 9th Division during a large training exercise at the Yakima Training Center in the state of Washington. A few buddies and I had met up to coordinate things and grab some lunch. I was looking around and noticed a dot in the sky which was getting bigger. Real fast. In a few moments an F-4 flew overhead, just over the top of the trees and rocketed off. The noise was literally flattening, and everyone was trying to make themselves one with the ground. We had just become victims of a Red Force strafing attack. It was very fast, very loud, and very "exciting". I'm sure the aircrew had a good laugh over that. It was quite the experience.
My wife and I grew up near Westover AFB, near Springfield, MA. It was a SAC base, but would have the Thunderbirds in for the annual open house/air show. When they flew the Phantoms, the ground would shake and my belly would flutter as they flew in formation at FAA minimum along the glide path to the base.
There was also talk of modernising the F-4's cockpit to give it a smooth, near frameless canopy similar to that of the F-5. I think a handful of USAF F-4's underwent such a modification in the late 80s, early 90s.
I was around the "Rhinos". That aircraft had issue, lots of issue. First, it was heavy. Second, it's wing loading was terrible and nearly as much as the gawd-awful F-104. In a "rate" fight the Rhino was as nimble as the beast it's nicknamed after. Even with the better canopy the F-4 pilot & WSO sat low in the fuselage, their visibility was compromised. The USAF was right, the upgrade of the F-4 would have been tossing good money after bad. The F-16C block 50+ is one of the deadliest jets in the sky. The F-4E+ would have been like taking a re-engined pickup truck into the Indy 500.
@@doch.8039 ... The F-4 was a better all around aircraft than the MiG-21. The F-4 was a fighter, all weather interceptor, and bomber. The MiG-21 was a point defense interceptor and fighter (both the MiG-21 and F-104 have the dubious honor of killing its pilots more in training than the opposition in combat). If a nation had a limited budget then the French Mirage III was best. The F-15/F-16/F-14/F-18 are 4th generation fighters. The USAF & USN were wise in FY '93 and '94. BTW, a company out of South Africa will remanufacture the Mirage III as the Cheetah, a poor nations cheap F-16. Time has passed the F-4, MiG-21, and most of the mid-cold war aircraft.
I was an engine troop on the RF-4C in the ANG, we had two of our Phantoms go through the big upgrade with the new single piece windscreens etc. right before the announcement the aircraft were headed to the boneyard. I really liked the F-4 it was a rock solid machine, but the sad thing is satellites and drones took over the recce role so no need for the RFs anymore. I don't care what anyone says about the J-79 it was a great engine for when it was designed and built. BUT it would have been neat to see those PW's in from the performance standpoint.
My grandfather was in charge of one of the rework programs on the F4, before he retired. He truly loved that aircraft. Built models as a kid, deeply regret not building building a nice Phantom for his desk. I miss the old days, seeing A4, F4, A7, A1, S-2, F8, E2, CODs. Now it's F18, F18, F18, V-22, F18.........and the cool seaplane at NASNI.
Thanks Ed for this episode…I was in a committed long term relationship with a F-4j well 12 really … methinks another issue was the old fashioned hand built tube fuselage… and difficulty of maintenance…compared to the lifting body of an F-15 and it’s ease of maintenance.. F18’s engine removal took less than an hour… when the generals compared them on the flight line… looks may have won out…. Those access panels behind the canopies “ turtle backs” no two are alike … well we lost one at sea and they had to go to the boneyard and get the closest production # …. So They flew that one out to the Mediterranean… and You know that cost some $ … and the guy who didn’t secure that panel before the Helicopters rotor wash took it …. Well …panel 100 became his nickname or turtle back …
@Aqua Fyre I am. I don't put up with simpletons IRL. Why should I put up with the cretins here? I'm playing nicely with the other children and not being rude.
@Aqua Fyre to be honest , i agree with @iatsd , i had a super hard time understanding what the og commenter was saying, but to be fair , iam not a native speaker
@@retr0_fps I do have to say I agree. I found that whole post v difficult to understand. Perhaps the OP in this thread isn't a native English speaker/writer? NO disrespect intended.
@@joobinmcgroobin5181 : For small, poor African countries like Mali and Guinea, the choice is between the cheap MiG-21, or no jet interceptor at all. Obviously, it’s no use in a dogfight with modern fighters, but the 9/11 attack on New York in 2001 showed that even hijacked civilian aircraft can pose a serious threat, and any jet interceptor is better than none.
Worked with Phantoms at Osan AB, RoK and Carswell AFB, TX. They were maintenance/hangar queens compared to the new model aircraft as well. Still not upgrading the engines and not adopting the F-20 were the USAF biggest blunders of the Reagan Era. That and bringing on the B-1B which every maintenance guy back in the '80's knew was going to an even bigger headache than maintaining the B-52. The B-1B is a capable platform but that capability came at a cost, in service reliability rate never matched the B-52 or FB-111 is replaced.
I understand the F-4's radar profile played a large roll in it's fate as well and once DoD figured out that they could be used as life fire training drones, that rather sealed their final missions here in the states.
When I was working for the Turkish Air Force (TurAF) in the early 2000's, they were still flying the F-4 and the TurAF guys really didn't want to give them up since they were so versatile and powerful. Great plane in it's day - and it's day was pretty long actually.
Turkey still uses the Phantom, was the F-4E Terminator 2020. I believe those use the same radar and electronics systems as the Kurnass 2000, made by Israel
Ed, Another great vid, but may i suggest you do a vid on some of the wild 3rd party f-4 updates such as the f-xx and the british swing wing phantoms, or even just the spey phantom that entered service.
My grandfather use to tell me stories about why he was hard of hearing. He said their barracks were right along side the runway at one camp he was at in VN. The pilots would take off full afterburner and as soon as she had lift and was off her wheels they would pull the stick back and drag the tail at times to take off as vertical as they could because Charlie and anti aircraft artillery was that close to their position.
The UK Phantoms were actually slower than those of other nations. This was due to the deal that they would have to be 50% British built. In the end they were 49% British. With the fitting of Rolls Royce Spey engines they had a larger rear profile and larger intakes resulting in higher aerodynamic drag thus a lower speed.
I have lots of "Phantom bites" on my body from working around F-4Es. Still my favorite plane. We didn't get rid of our Phantoms until 1990/1991. Some of the F-15As we got were older than some of our F-4E Phantoms.
As much as I like the idea of the Super Phantom, I have to agree with the Air Force opinion.....an old airplane, regardless of improvements, is still an old airplane. What I am referring to is "metal fatigue". Aircraft are good for only so long before they become subject to sudden catastrophic failures due to metal fatigue. This is a problem that has not only occurred with military aircraft, but also with commercial air carriers. Spending $7-$9 million for an aged but upgraded airframe with a very limited lifespan is not that wise of an investment when a few million $ more gets you a spanking new bird.
And yet the B-52 is still flying and the last one of those was built 60 years ago. Also hundreds of F-4s are still in use world wide. What I am trying to say is that in today's day and age, with modern maintenance techniques there is no such thing as an "old" air frame. Just one that wont cost you nearly as much as the between 80 and 140 MILLION dollars a unit new aircraft cost.
@@deterrumeversor8680 The B-52 is not expected to dogfight, or make low level attack runs under fire. Even so metal fatigue is an ongoing and serious problem for the B-52s, one managed to drop an entire engine nacelle mid-flight in 2017, luckily it also made an emergency landing. Running costs on the B-52 are higher than the B-1 because of it. . But even discounting fatigue life, the Super Phantom looks like a bad deal to me. Re-engine it, fit new electronics package etc. If it serves into the 90s and 00s it's likely to face Mig 29s, SU-27s. Under all the upgrades it's still an aircraft built from a 1950s understanding of aerodynamics, no pilot would choose that over the F-16C. To a prospective buyer in the 1980s, the F-16 and F-18 were already out and well proven, why spend 65% of the cost of F-16s to upgrade a fleet of aircraft, only to replace them with F-16s in a few years time.
An old, improved airplane is still indeed an old airplane. I could have seen this as a good option for air forces that didn't quite have the money to spend or mission requirements that the US Airforce has.
@@deterrumeversor8680 - The F-15A and B models were phased out by the '90s due to age. The -C and -D models are phased out now, with mainly the F-15E model flying. The frames can only stand so much stress and abuse before they just are not safe. The B-52 is not pulling several Gs each time it takes off from a high traffic airfield.
My father was a crew chief on the F-4 and allowed me to sit in one while powered up at night when I was 7 years old. The lights … I’ll never forget all the lights in that cockpit!
used to love watching F4 displays at Mildenhall back in the 80's & early 90's & watching F4 flight ops at Raf Wattisham & making numerous F4 models in my younger days which i still have,luckily F4's esp ex RAF examples are still being preserved & the ex 74/56 sqn FGR2 display Phantom is beautifully preseverd in a HAS at RAF Wattisham,which i watched display at Airfete 92 & Raf Lakenheath airshow 92 sadly was one of its last displays flown by Pilot, Squadron Leader Archie Liggat and Navigator Flt. Lieutenant Mark Mainwaring,Fantastic video
Great stuff as usual Ed, thanks! Another Phantom you might like to do a feature on is the F-4X, a US/Israeli project to soup up the F-4 and give it a dash speed of mach 3.2. Sadly also killed by politics.
We lived in South St. Louis and in the late 50s we would hear Sonic Booms every week or so. Then in the early 60s we moved to Hazelwood, a few miles NW of Lambert Field and that was when I started hearing and seeing Phantom lls that were flying all over the place. A really beautiful and powerful airplane.
Just because Boeing bought McDonnell does not make this incredible aircraft a Boeing. Credit where credit is due. The F-4 and then the F-15 are McDonnell’s legacy to the air force and needs to be honoured.
IIRC, Turkey had a similar Super-Phantom program done by their aviation industry, including mating the PW1120 to a Phantom airframe, and a frameless windshield. This was in the late 1990s or early 2000s. I am not sure if they flew the test aircraft or not. Turkey was trying to market it to F-4 users at the time.
I would imagine also that the conformal belly pod, would increase the already large Radar cross section of the Phantom as I'm sure "Have Blue" (F-117) was already in the works at the time of considering this upgrade! I was an F-4 crew chief, and I believe the AirForce made the right call on pursuing newer airframes!
A truly, truly great fighter! Blindingly fast, multi purpose, carried a staggering amount of ordnance, and, damn, didn't it look mean, moody, and oozing threat!
And little tiny cheap Mig 🎉fighters shut them down over Vietnam at about a one to one ratio. That is the truth. The phantom is a flying pig. And is it ugly and thin.
My brother and his wife had their first child when I was 10. I thanked them for having a son and making me an uncle instead of having a girl and making me an aunt. It was funny at the time... some 50+ years ago...
I flew F-4 C's & D's in the late 70's. It was an awesome fighter. Would have loved to see it upgraded like they are talking about. It would be capable of holding it's own against any Soviet or Chinese block aircraft.
Althought 600+ were assigned in the late 1970's less than 40 could fly and conduct a mission. Combustion chamber "cans" ruptured easily if the throttle was operated too quickly for acceleration. Onboard fires and overheating were common if operated with an ambient temperature over 100 degrees. Over water, they faired better than inland over land during summertime. Zooming down for a close to the ground for a high-speed pass meant a huge risk of a can rupture and hot air "leaned" the fuel mix. Same engine dogged the 101 & 104. This vulnerability showed itself especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Phantoms were like VW Beetles of the skies - couldn't take the heat.
If you're going to make such an outrageous claim, you better provide a reference. George AFB was in the middle of the Mojave desert with temps regularly over 100F, and I recall no such problems as you describe when I was there.
Total BS. I trained on F-4C’s at Luke AFB, AZ during the summer of ‘74 with temps of over 110 with a few 115. No restriction on throttle movement. No mention of can rupture. Went PCS to Holloman, AFB NM and flew D’s. Total BS about can rupture!
Age 13, I did a project on the UK Phantom models. I wrote to McDonnell Douglas and got 2 full colour lithographs of the RAF and Royal Navy variants plus full cutaway drawings and press articles. I was gobsmacked and have loved the plane ever since.
I seem to recall that the Phantoms used by the RAF were equipped with Rolls Royce engines that had multiple advantages : no revealing smoke trail, lower consumption and more thrust. Not the first time an American plane was greatly upgraded by the fitting of a british power plant (#P51 Mustang)!
@@TheIndianalain indeed Rolls Royce Speys.
Do you still have those?
You were unfortunate that you couldn't do that for the F-15.
@@vaultsuit Alas, no, lost in the intervening 55 years 😂😂
My favourite math teacher in high school was an f4 pilot in Vietnam during the war. He was the only front line soldier I knew in that conflict that founf his service to be a good experience. My Advanced Math grade with him went D C B A through the year - he gave me a lot of time. I apreciated it - his name was Mr Cushing. That was 4 decades ago.
Lucky you!
My high school teacher for computer science and physics was an A4 Skyhawk pilot in Vietnam, was shot down and taken prisoner (even shot in the leg having tried to escape). Great teacher and like yours, if you put in the effort he was right there to help. Excellent man, Mr Higdon.
My HS art teacher in 1982 Mr Weatherbee was a tail-gunner on a B-24 during WWII. Told me some interesting stories because I had joined the Army.
You were lucky to have a teacher like him. And Mr. Cushing lucky too have a such a student. Raising grade such a haste isn't an easy task. Great job man. Tumbs up.
have over 2800 hrs in the Rhino - three combat tours in Nam - used every system on the jet including the MB H-7 seat! My first love - and in my opinion the best fighter of its era!
I was a crew chief on F-4 fighters and then A-7's and F-16's, my experience told me they all were good aircraft in their roles and they all had their problems. I have a soft spot for the F-4's, I crewed 67-463 which is on static display at the Air Force Academy, it got the most Mig kills in Viet Nam. There were a few F-4's that were put through an upgrade program called "new life" and were issued a new tail number of 90 or 91-XXX. I inspected a few of these at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson in about 96. They were stored at the "boneyard" but were still flyable. I was told they were rebuilt and had new engines and avionics in them. I don't know what happened to them but they were beautiful to go through from a mechanics viewpoint. BTW, for those who have seen 67-463 at an air show, that is not really 463, if you look at the tail it has a N registration number and is owned by the Phantom Society and was flown to shows by Gen. Steve Ritchie who made ace in the real 463.
Were those the ones that had the TISEO pod on one of the wings?
UK had loads , we loved them ! A great aircraft even today ....
What happened to the original 463? scrap?
@@crushingvanessa3277 it is at the AF academy
Close to 300 F-4s were converted to QF-4s over the years and used as drone and aerial targets. I was at WSMR in 2004/2005ish and got to see one in action for a missile test. They were saying then the F-16 was going to take over as they were running out of QF-4s and especially guys that knew how to fly them remotely. Did a little research and it seems they carried on for at least another decade before the switch.
I had the honor of flying her from 1974 thru 1983, then moved on to newer fighters. To this day, almost 40 years later, I still have wonderful dreams at night about flying her.
Retired (for 34 years) Navy Aviator, I still, still have dreams flying.
Amazing!! Pilots are the top skill man operators, my respect to you. 🇬🇷🤟
Definitely not the greatest jetfighter of all time. Much more affordable and simpler Russian Mig fighters or shooting them down in Vietnam add about a one to one ratio, if the truth be told.
It’s easy to fall in love with the airplane that you flew, I’m just a private pilot, but one of my trainer pilot was a Navy fighter pilot and he told me this about the Phantom, “ it’s a piece of shit.”
Maybe, however it was the first real "weapons platform" and so pointed the way for how all modern jet fighters are now.....the migs you mention from the Vietnam era had lots of restrictions, range, payloads etc plus the phantom could operate from a carrier which they couldn't. I suppose the easiest test is - which would you rather have in a fight!
@@steveperreira5850 What? Affordability is not the making of 'best'.
The thing that struck me the most seeing the F-4 up close is just how big it is. They're monsters.
It’s just wings attached to 2 huge engines, and a fuselage to carry the fuel it will guzzle 😂🤣
When I was a kid I built tons of WWI & WWII models. A friend of my brother's who had served in Viet Nam gave me a Phantom kit and I was stunned at how huge it was in comparison. Numbers just didn't do it for me.
@@mbryson2899 : Yes, my model 1/72nd scale F-4 dwarfed the little MiG 21 sitting beside it on the shelf.
It was a really big aircraft around 63 feet long especially with all the comparisons to the mig 21 at around 48 feet
@@barbaratodd1288 Where the comparison was most noticeable was head on. The Mig had a fraction of the frontal area. Also the smoke trail wasn't a help.
I grew up near a US Airforce base. These used to thunder, shriek, and smoke over my house in formations of 2, 3, and 4, like angry Norse gods. The glasses in my parents cabinets rattled and sang. I credit those F4s for the fact that I am an aviation fan 40 years later.
That's way cool. Did the noise not bother you?
Same here - Soesterberg Air Force Base - aka Camp New Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. In the 70’s. Love the F-4 Phantom.
@@madmaximus2836 There were times that it did, especially at night, but no matter. It used to really irritate my parents.. Cool is cool. BTW, there were F105s at the base too. Those bad boys were really fast, loud and screechy.
@@nonamesplease6288 Nice, nice! I bet you "feel" the power! I grew up close to an air force base in South Africa in the 80s. They had Mirage F1 and F3s. Not nearly as cool as US fighter jets, but did see a F3 doing a very low level inverted pass over the runway during an airshow. Had posters of US fighter jets plastered all over my bedroom walls as child. I immigrated to the US and now go to US air museums and shows. My one son is in the Army and the other Navy and so we visit military places when possible. Looking forward to see Top Gun: Maverick on May 25th. So much nostalgia from the first Top Gun...
we were rebuilding a runway and during the day in slow times F4s would do touch and goes (on the other runway) and by golly (god if ur from W.Virginia) and those rascals were louder than the big commercial birds (we're talkin 4 engine jobs on take off mind you) like riding in a cab or bus and seeing a Ferrari zip by effortlessly but strong loud.
I once gently tapped the aluminum skin of an F4 at the Deutsches Museum's annex, Flugwerft Schleissheim, which is by the way a nice bicycle ride north of Munich Germany, but don' tell anyone that first bit. I'm always amazed at how "soft" and lightweight these relatively light but absolutely fast things really are.
When I was in Abu Dhabi in 2015, I got to visit the Solar Impulse 2, the airplane that flew around the world on solar power. When no one was looking, I touched the fuselage. If you think the F4's skin was delicate, you haven't touched a carbon fiber solar electric airplane that has been mercilessly optimised for weight 😉 The skin gave so much under even a light tap that for a moment I was *sure* I had punched through it, and I nearly fainted.
"Hallo, BMJ? Ja, bitte guck das an."
@@SolarWebsite No touchy means no touchy.
If you had tapped Muhammed Ali’s skin it would have felt soft too. I just don’t recommend it.
@@theothertonydutch Well technically, no one had told me I couldn't touch it, and there were no signs 😉
I had the pleasure of working around RF-4C’s (recon birds) from ‘83-87 at Bergstrom AFB, Austin,TX. I was fire protection right on the ramps and runways. They had their issues but they were still amazing to watch. Night flying was the best when they took off in 2 ship formations with those legendary full afterburners! I miss both the base and the aircraft.
I was at El Toro USMC air station in 1971. I got stuck walking guard duty on the flight line one night, when 2 F4’s rolled up to the end of the runway and hit their afterburner’s an took off together. I was like 50 yards away and the exhaust almost knocked me over. My god that was something to behold. The sheer power of those engines!
So you were on the back side of the runway
In '70 and '71 I spent way too much time on a big boat named the U.S.S. Independence. My favorite activity (BY FAR!) was standing beside my squadron's F4's at the cats when they were shot at night!! Becomes part of your blood! Watch ed the Blue Angels last November fly 3 days straight!
@@steveowens913 I was a flight deck troubleshooter for VMFA-531 on the Forrestal in '72-3. In the cats at launch is indeed awesome. Hard to describe.
@@michaelleitner1245 I was on USS Forrestal in 1981 w/ VMFA-115 [ Med Cruise] I was lucky and had the Hoor of BINGO Det Sigonella Sicily the 1st 30 Days
@@edwardgoering1237 We had guys at Suda Bay, Crete. They allegedly just lounged all day and drank beer all night.😄
I'm still impressed that the Phantom was able to perform so well as both a land-based and naval fighter. It's in rare company in that regard.
It was originally designed as a carrier fighter
The other F4 - the Corsair F4U?
the majority of non US hornets are land based, and theyve done pretty good (admitting that the og design has weaknesses due to its carrier based origins), but your right its incredible how well the phantom did in its history given all the design decisions and trade offs due to it (how many other naval fleet defense fighters became the backbone of large nnumbers of entire air forces)... i still think it and the F8 crusader have the best silhouette of the mid cold war... but then again im also partial to the buccaneer and scimitar's shape and i have to admit theyre kinda fugly... like fictional jets made by people that dont know how they work, but get the whole "rule of cool" thing right, kinda like halo's ridiculous M808 scorpion...
It's actually quite easy to operate carrier-type a/c from land. They in fact spend much of lives operating from land bases during training. Not so for the reverse.
Oh look, an aircraft designed to operate from carriers can also operate from land airbases. Impressif. Who could have thought that?
/sarcasm
Maintenance on the F4 could be frustrating. Each weapons shop had several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of test equipment and associated cables. To fully ring out the electrical system could require several days to several weeks. There were no self test features and no LRUs or line replaceable units. Any performance issues or faults required a trip back to the hanger ( we actually did most maintenance out on the parking ramp ) and a potential delay waiting for CRS ( component repair squadron) to repair and send a unit out for replacement. The A7 on the other hand had self test LRUs which could be replaced while the engines were running at EOR. Those units were stocked in CRS for that purpose. The F4 went by by simply because newer planes built upon the lessons learned and made significant improvements in performance and simplicity of maintenance. For instance the F16 and F15 had roughly 25 percent commonality of parts which went beyond just using the same engine.
McAir (McDonnell Douglas Aircraft) learned a lot and applied those lessons to the F-18. An F-18 engine change is a 15 minute job.
I was a weapons mechanic and worked on F-4C’s and D models at Cam Ranh Bay, I extended in order to save up enough money to buy a new car when I got back to the States, I spent 10 months at Cam Ranh, then I was sent to DaNang for 8 months, where I worked on D and E model F-4’s. The E model was the most beautiful of them all. Some maintenance was difficult for us though! When I got home I bought a 1971 Plymouth 340 Duster for $3,100. They sure were expensive!
wow, thanks Ed, much appreciated. between you and Rex's hanger, TH-cam is getting some great obscure/lesser known aircraft content.
thanks for your work.
I fairly like 'Rex' hanger'.
But given the choice of watching 3 of Eds or 5 or Rex's It ain't going to be Rex's.
Obscure and lesser known doesn’t really apply to the F-4 does it?
I was a Marine F 4B pilot and when we deployed to Vietnam in 1965 we did not, as usual, have the latest model of the F 4. The Navy always got the latest and we got their used ones. We were flying missions with our older planes but had requested more. One finally showed up and it was one of the test planes that McDonnell had used for setting records. It was a Ferrari compared to the other F 4Bs we had but it didn't have any weapons stations on the wings. It was the fastest plane we had but was almost worthless as a Marine support plane. It was a pleasure to fly and would push you back into the seat when the afterburner was selected. It was sent to Japan where we had an overhaul facility and turned into a truck like the rest of our fleet. I loved that plane and it always got me home!
Fascinating on how hot rodding got as far as Boeing ... Obsolete doesn't mean that the design is no longer viable when ingenuity is allowed it's head.
Witness that the B-52 is slated to fly in frontline service another 20 years, and its first flight was ten years before the Phantom's.
@@johngregory4801
20? It's actually supposed to be 50+ years. Those planes are going to outlive a whole bunch of people.
@@mill2712
When the Mars colonies eventually insurrect, we're gonna be launching ships full of B-52s and M2s modified for low gravity use, I just know it.
... its* head (it's = it is)
@@einundsiebenziger5488 🙄 another control freak ? Phuleease .
I served in the ROK in the USAF during the late '70s, with the 8th TWF (the Wolfpack). We were flying F4 Ds and Es in counter armor and Wild Weasle roles. We called it the "Lead Sled" and "The Bent Wing Bugsucker". I found Super 8 film I still had from back in the day and I gave it to the "Together We Served" film archive and it is digitized.
Nice one buddy!
Was not the Wild Weasel during that period the F4G (developed from the F4E)?
@@thekinginyellow1744 We had "D's and "E"s 1n 1978 at Kunsan. I was a missile trooper, Most of the F4s got loaded with LGBs, early Mavericks, Sparrows and Sidewinders with a 20mm Gatling in an underslung pod. The Weasels got Shrikes.
I bet even that many years later,everyone in the 8th knew about Robin Olds.
@@bellakaldera3305 Ds had the gun pod,Es had the gun under the nose where the RHAW (radar homing and warning) gear was on the Ds.
As was mentioned in the video, the F100 option was indeed exercised on one airframe.
when the Lavi program was canceled, the engines of the two completed prototypes were installed on an F4, significantly improving it's performance.
As far as my limited research has showed, this improved F4 was presented in a few airshows, demonstrating its improved capabilities.
Exporting this improved model, or at least upgrading a few old F4s then in service was briefly considered, but the inflow of new F16s and the fact an export model would hurt potential F16 sales to other airforces put a stop to those plans.
You can still see this prototype F4 in the Israeli air force museum, though last I was there it was out of display, and I doubt it will return considering the sorry state of the whole place.
If you do manage to sneak out to the side areas, the prototype can be identified by the various logos on its tail rudder (IAI, Pratt and Whitney, etc)
That was the Super Phantom 2000. I saw it at Paris Airshow in 1987.
Israel only installed one PW1120 and everything was great till they checked the bulkheads and found they were cracked. That is why all Israel upgrades of the Phantom II didn't replace the J79 including the "Kurnas 2000" that lasted till past 2000. Love this plane but it was a nightmare to maintain.
Found this after reading your comment. Thanks. 😉th-cam.com/video/aePzMZbImNU/w-d-xo.html
@@yaronk1069 הייתי בט' תחזוקה בשנות ה-90 המוקדמות, במוסך קורנס ( הפטישים ). נהנתי לעבוד עליהם חוץ ממיכלי הדלק
@@yaronk1069 I can believe they had problems with the PW1120!
The F-4 was designed around the J79. That's what the inlets were constructed for and the plane was stressed for it. It would have taken many months and a lot of money to resolve the integration issues. There probably would have been rebuilding of the inlets and engine mount areas. As a design that was nearly 30 years old by the time the upgraded F-4 Super Phantom flew, it must have seemed questionable to spend the money on a new powerplant that late in the plane's life. I think in the end it was better to spend that money on the avionics upgrades. The J79 was perfect for the F-4 Phantom and had a very good service record overall.
It's very difficult to incorporate new engines into an established design AND be successful without major redesigns of the existing airframe. A famous example of this is the Lockheed P-38 which used an Allison-original engine. They looked at incorporating the Rolls Royce Merlin engine (which was built under license by Allison in the US) but it was realized quickly that incorporating the Merlin into the P-38 would have required radical redesign of the engine to fit into the existing engine booms OR major redesign of the airframe for the Merlin. The way the inlet/turbosupercharger(?) system was laid out in the P-38 made installing the Merlin engine in that airframe impractical. With World War II raging on, it made less sense to make radical changes that might delay production for months and more sense to improve the engines the P-38 was already using!
Both the F-15 and F-16 had their engine compartments redesigned in the early 1980s to allow them to use alternative engines (the F110 family) from General Electric. The planes were selling well enough and were still early in their production runs when the change was made so it made sense. The F-15 and F-16 were both designed around the Pratt&Whitney F100 which was intended to be the definitive powerplant but it ran into all sorts of technical issues and was not as reliable as the US Air Force wanted.
The F-16 redesign in particular forced General Dynamic to redesign the Viper's inlet to suit the increased airflow of the F110 turbofan. That had adverse effects on the plane's handling at high angle of attack and probably affected supersonic handling at the high end of its flight envelope. The change in the inlet design probably increased drag, possibly slightly slower than the Pratt&Whitney-powered F-16s which kept the original inlet designs and boosted thrust in later production Blocks 42/52 by boosting internal engine temperatures.
The competition with General Electric forced Pratt&Whitney to "up its game" and the majority of the F100's problems were resolved with refit F100-PW-220 engines (compatible with both the F-15 and F-16) by the mid/late-1980s and the highly redesigned F100-PW-229 which debuted in service in the early 1990s.
**
The F-14 was one of the few military planes that benefitted from a complete engine replacement. The thing is that the existing airframe itself had few alterations to install the new engine and it was the GE F110 that was altered to fit the airframe! The F110-GE-400 (-400 means it's a US Navy engine) integrated fine into the Tomcat airframe but was heavier than the equivalent Air Force model (the F110-GE-100 installed in the F-16C Block 30 and Block 40). The main cause of the engine weight increase (+600 lbs) was a steel pipe extension/band that stretched the length of the engine by over 4 ft to fit the existing F-14 engine nacelle. It essentially shifted the compressor section forward and the afterburner unit aft to integrate with the inlet and exhaust end properly. They DID have to attach a new afterburner unit and nozzle section; these were basically versions of the designs used for the F-18's F404 turbofan which was also a General Electric product.
They had some vibration issues (resolved quickly) and some fanblade cracking early in the F-14's F110 service (this was normal; all the Teen Fighters had fatigue issues with their turbofans which were resolved with improved manufacturing and hardware refits) but even with those hiccups it was a much more reliable engine for the F-14 than the P&W TF30 ever was...
The F4, so capable the US had to replace it with four new aircraft.
BOOM! Nailed it...
There's a substantial difference between "having to" and "choosing to". Lobbyists from the military industrial complex would much rather newer airframes be produced than upgrade older ones, something you might have gleaned if you had like...watched the video you're commenting on.
@@sgthop I think what KP was saying was that, because the F4 was so good, it took four aircraft to fully replace it.
@@markymarknj Possibly, but it can be read either way.
@@sgthop There a difference between lobbyist fantasy where everything is on time and on budget with no prod faults whatsoever and reality
The F-4 Phantom definitely in my top 5 Cold War jets. Always looked like it meant business.
It did !
Former Phantom Phixer here. RF-4B of VMFP-3 USMC out of El Toro back in the late 70's. I got out just as they were recruiting for the new F-18 coming on line. Aircraft was a pain in the backside to work on, but I still love it. Smoke trails? From the J-79's? Never noticed it ... lol
Hey Boot. My RF4-B MOS landed me with VMCJ-3 In 69. Trained there and by the end of the year was with VMCJ-1 In DaNang. Great times. SF
Long live the Rhino!! I lived near Homestead AFB in South Flordia back in the early 80's and used to love when they would train above our skies. They would send up a single F-4 and intercept it with 2 other F-4's. Back then they would break the speed of sound at altitude and the double booms would shake our house. What a time that was. We would after school go thru dirt roads and right by the runwawy behind the metal fence we would see them light the candles and takeoff.. Rock on Phantom!!
Worked in the F 4E engine shop at Homestead AFB in 69 - 70
I worked on the RF4C between '77 to '80. I was an Autopilot/ Instruments Tech. I tested and inspected many flight controls. I would say many were already worn badly with excessive play. The Brass frowned on Red Xing the planes trying to wait for the F16s to arrive. It was a great plane originally but at the end it was technically obsolete. Lots of memories working on them.
A balmy summer Sunday 40 years ago at the old family farm in Shelby county Southeast of Springfield. The big red barn had a corrugated iron roof coated with aluminum paint that shown in the afternoon sun like a searchlight. The ANG squadron at Abraham Lincoln airport flew F-4s in those days, and they flew low-level practice circuits around the central Illinois countryside on weekends. The big red barn of native timber sat alone on a small ridge near the farmhouse and made a great landmark. The kids were playing outside in the sunshine when I heard the sound of distant thunder. A mile north, a Phantom was sideways, low against the sky. Southward, two more turned likewise. I snatched up the two year old daughter and ran to the barn and pointed east, and said “Look!” just in time. In seconds, a green and brown F-4, hunkered down and smoking like a house on fire, wings bent up and down, slammed up the ridge and straight over the barn at 100’, outrunning it’s own roar. The two year old screamed, laughed and clapped. She says she doesn’t remember it, but I do. The barn is still there.
In 1971, dad took me to see the Thunderbirds perform at the Long Beach California shoreline. Of course, they flew those amazing F-4 Phantoms. To see those awesome-looking airframes doing their magic is a sight no other aircraft can touch, I think. They’re just awe.
The Blue Angels were using the Phantoms at that time too. They were going to fly at my base at Oceana, Va, and darn if it didn't just rain hard for the entire weekend!! After the Phantoms, the Blue Angels flew the A4 Skyhawks, and I think the top speed of the aircraft was only about 685 mph!!
I trained on these as a engine mechanic in the US Marines in the early 80's.
Ultra cool
What are they like to work on?
Is there any substance to the rumor that the phantom had issues catching on fire?
Thank you for your service, Dan!
I was the hydraulic mechanic on these from 1981 to 84 in Yuma
Ex-USAF here: maintained the "black box" tactical recon/intelligence electronics in some RF-4Cs. They had the distinct elongated noses for optical & infared cameras. Fuel, film, and recorders-no weapons. As far as I know, less than twenty were ever outfitted with the above mentioned avionics. It enjoyed all the hands on maintenance on the flight line at Kadena & Osan ABs. The F-15s were coming on line, and the SR-71 would roar off occasionally. I had an air show most every working day. It was an honor to serve. Please keep this content coming, Mr. Nash! Well done!
@Bruce Goodwin Got to repair RF-4s in the IAF. They were immaculate with perfectly fitted panels, not loaded to the gills like the bomb-trucks, only the centerline tank. Tail Nr. 495 is now in the Israeli Airforce Museum.
@@trespire Salute, trespire. I remember maintaining 555…can't remember the other tails. The underrated RFs (my opinion) are a good example of the Phantom design: reconfigurable, reliable, and pretty darn fast!
@@brucegoodwin634 Talking about fast, roumour had it, some of the RFs, not all, could reach Mach 2.5 and a bit. With the right tactics, at high altitude zoom, they were practically untouchable. The above mentioned 495 was in all gray, no gun, no pilons, super slick. IMHO, looked better than any Eagle.
Thinking back, that was probably the fastest jet the IAF ever flew.
@@trespire kerosene & compression baby!!!
And you know the Eagle rocks…
Thank you, Ed. I served as a grunt in the mid 70's to early 80's and always loved the Phantom. You sure as heck couldn't mistake it for anything else in the sky.
Proof positive that with enough thrust you can make a brick fly!
Never knew a super phantom was proposed. F4 and F14 have always been my favorites.
Had the absolute delight of flying F-4D, E and magical F-G Wild Weasel...P.S. It was a McDonnell-Douglas design. Love the Rhino!!!
This three versions, including the RF-4C, we had long ago in Germany in the USAFE. But these days are long gone... ☹️
did u happen to know bill/william holcombe..aslo a weasel driver? man he had stories. and his helmet was all painted dark and green and with crack marks on top where it had hit the canopy from i guess explosions going off around or under him
Bob, at time stamp 2:36 in this video. Is this the Wild Weasel variant??
I was an SP at George AFB in 88. Were you still there?
I was a F-4G crew chief at Spangdahlem Germany from Fall of 85 to fall of 87 (480th AGS) that extra bump under radar dome at 2:36 does not look like the G bump in this pic, it’s too small and not as round and the tail markings are not from the 3 bases that I remember having F-4Gs. Tail markings would be SP, WW, and I am brain farting on the base in Philippines that had Gs. If I recall most of the Gs that were converted were all from the year 69- xxxx edit after google search the Philippines base was Clark AB with tail letters of PN
I loved the Phantom. We had 2 squadrons on most, if not all, US aircraft carriers for many years. I made 2 cruises to Vietnam with the Phantoms onboard. I've watched them land and takeoff hundreds of times. Not only did they have the missiles, they all had various different bombs underneath their wings. I walked around them on the hangar and flight decks almost every day. Bumped my head more than once on the wings when I wasn't paying attention. A super Phantom would've been so cool.
Flew F4E for 5 years in the 70's before transitioning to F-15A. I will always love the Phantom and they could have been hugely valuable as attack aircraft in Gulf War II but now we have shot them all down and are using F-16's for target drones. Time marches on I agree with the Air Force decision, no sense in spending the money on a might have worked modification with 15/16's coming down the line.
I was young during the Gulf War, 7th grade at the time. I might be mistaken, but didn't the Air Force at the time still have some F4's operating as Wild Weasels?
@@trostorff1 yes they were in the first Gulf war, I think he was talking about the second one or Iraq however you want to call it
@@dougc190 Yeah, as I just now reread what he had posted, I see that. Eh, yesterday was a long day. At any rate, thanks for confirming something that I was obviously far too lazy to look up for myself, ha.
@@trostorff1 Yes, but only a handful.
visibility must have been refreshing while switching to the Eagle !
I just want to say that your channel is awesome! You have found and shed light on the many oddities and variations of many main fighters! I've learned a ton and everyone of your videos keeps me watching the whole time! Thank you so much and I'm now a subscriber!
The Phantom II even had it's own mascot " The Spook " that had a heap merchandise back in the days
I think that's also the mascot of Boeing's Phantom Works.
Long live Spook.
It is somewhat ironic that Boeing's F15X is playing a similar role in the procurement drama as the Super Phantom did. The difference is that only one company, Lockheed Martin, is playing the antagonist.
Except instead of three new airframes, we have one (the F-35) proving problematic in certain versions. We need aircraft added to the fleet to maintain numbers. If my understanding is correct, the F-15x is oriented towards new air frames.
@@Caseytify In fact, the F-35 is one aircraft with three different air-frames. The USN isn't in love with their "C" air-frame. The USMC is reducing their "B" air-frame acquisitions. Only the USAF "A" will likely see full production, unless the USAF NGAD produces its first series sooner than expected.
@Fraser Fir LMAO...all Lockheed talking points. For all the money LM is dropping in to the campaign coffers of Congressional representatives and Senators, the F-15EX still survives. Looking at the USAF operational and readiness requirements, it is conceivable the F-15EX will not only continue replacing old F-15C/D air-frames, but also aging F-15E air-frames. The F-35A (the most reliable and capable Lightning II model) continues to post disappointing readiness statistics and requires specialized maintenance. Ultimately, the USAF will be willing to reduce all existing platforms for NGAD. The USN has also made no secret that they are prioritizing NGAD (F/A-XX) .
@@deadmeat8754 lol the EX is already dead
@@gotanon9659 As usual, you're wrong.
I grew up 5 miles from McChord AFB from 1976-1991 in a Boeing Company town (Tacoma). My childhood is going to airshows at McChord and seeing F-4s all the time. I fell in love with the F-4, it was just so powerful. Really wish Boeing had been engaged and the Super Phantom been adopted. I wonder if the two crewmen required on the phantom was a strike against it 🤔
Once again a very well researched and presented video, thanks. Add this to the recent HP Hampden , just one example) and with your channel we "airyplane freaks" really DO have one of the best, if not THE best channels available. Thanks Ed.
The F-4 Phantom was a great piece of work! It really proved its worth.
my Dad was an F-4 crew chief, first in Viet Nam 67-68 then with the Kansas Air Guard late 70's early 80's. I remember how excited he was when news of the Super Phantom project was released, and how disappointed he was when it didn't happen. He loved that airplane, wanted it to live forever. I miss them both.
A flying tank. If my memory serves, the F4 climbed to 98K feet in 4 minutes 9 seconds back in the day. It was and is a beast. My all time favorite.
My father was in the U.S. Foreign Service, and for our final return Stateside from South America we took a ship (R.I.P., Grace Lines) instead of flying. During a full-day stopover in Norfolk, my folks, my sister, and I -- along with our German Shepherd! -- took the long, long walk from the docks to a nearby shopping area. On our way back, moving even more slowly due to shopping bags, we noticed the Blue Angels on a practice flight... which shortly thereafter became what seemed like a series of mock strafing runs on us, the only people on foot for probably a mile in any direction. Those F-4s passed over us at least 6 or 7 times each at an altitude that left us *feeling* their passage overhead. They were so low that a couple of boards shook off an abandoned old house nearby. I don't think I've been that close to an F-4 since, even in museums... and as much as we all disliked having to duck and cover our ears (or the poor dog's!), they were definitely impressive aircraft under the circumstances.
There's a... problem... with relying on industry data and calculations generally. That problem is, generally, called "having no way to understand if they're lying to you for profit - and if they're also actively corrupting the higher echelons of the Air Force pursuing the same goal".
The modern DOD and USAF have a well known problem.
That and their social-experiment and political corruption. But maybe I oughtn't mention that here.
Gambling? In this establishment?
And yet the USAF has incredibly competent pilots equipped with superb aircraft and weapons.
That's procurement for you. The government rules makes it so easy for contractors to rip off the taxpayers because they are in collusion with our representatives in Congress.
The chair force is a profit-driven corporation first, and a military service a distant second.
It's about time the Super Phantom got a video, and a good one at that. The concept has been a long favorite of mine, great work.
I retired from an F14 squadron in 1995. I don't recall anyone being happy with the idea of another go with the Phantom. My first ship, Nimitz, still had occasional visits from F4s. Big and clunky, needing bridles to launch, they were a pain over the newer catapult attachments on the rest of the planes embarked. Notice that all US bird farms no longer have the bow tooth required for bridles. I'm saddened that the Tomcat is gone, a superior plane to it's so called replacements.
...and then in a repeat of history there were the proposed 'Super Tomcat' versions. That would have been some aircraft. And finally it looks like a 'Super' version has made it through with the F15EX
@@FinsburyPhil - There was even a Semi-Stealth Variant proposed of the F-15 Eagle. I believe it was designated F-15SE Silent Eagle. Was more a Partial Stealth Variant than a full on Semi-Stealth Variant. Only about 15% of the plane was stealthy, the result of Congress and as a result, Boeing couldn't get it sold despite interest.
I flew F-4Ds and Es. We performed Red Air DACT against Tomcats.
The best kept secret of military aviation was that the F-14 never lived up to the hype. It came and went without actually having to prove itself.
It was not a “superior” aircraft. That was just the cover story.
Well the inferior Phantom is still flying
During a "mission" in support of Critical National Security my late wife rode in the backseat of an F-4 from the States to SE Asia, non-stop in the middle of the night. Tanker, to tanker, to tanker. She rode back the next day ASAP because there was nobody in SE Asia cleared to "debrief" her. This was back in the early 1970's.
That's a really extreme sequel to Driving Miss Daisy
@@CaptainSlug
Flying Miss CIAsy?
That is a brutal commute. The intel she had must have been very, very important. But do you mean she wasn't able to deliver the info? No one to deliver it to, properly?
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 Well, yes. She was in the AF but, she was a fully qualified Field Operative.
@@donjones4719 She accompanied an AF Major, he was in another F-4. Both of them had brief cases handcuffed to their wrists. When they got there a Special Forces Team took them into the jungle in Laos. There was something there they had to do/see/touch. They had to "come home" to report. There was nobody cleared high enough in SE Asia. She never told me any of this until after we were married! This "flight", all-in-all, is a long story but, when she first started to tell me I was "WHAT! You were a clerk typist!?!" "Well, yes and no. When the call came in, I was the only available person who was Cleared for the mission". She was a Field Operative! The first time she went to Langley, she/they knew that something Big had happened, or was going to happen. She said it was Very Upsetting so, she asked "the General" what the President was going to do about it. He told her to sit down, and that he was only going to tell her once and he Never wanted to hear another word about it. "The President is a civilian. He has not been cleared".
I spent time at MAC and worked on the F4, F15, and F18. It was like the set of Star Wars in the final assembly area, all these incredible planes. Later I worked with and became friends with a guy who had been an RF-4 pilot in Vietnam. Unarmed and unafraid, he said. He survived it, but then he survived four wives, too, so I'm not sure if it was skill, balls of steel, or just simply being nuts.
Worked at McDonnell Aircraft in the sixties in a paint shop, Building 27 applying zinc chromate primer to thousands of F-4 parts. If you ever saw the miles of wiring and hydraulic plumbing inside the F-4, you’d wonder how they got off the ground! These fighters were an engineering masterpiece. ONE BADASS AIRPLANE!!
@@nashvillecop1 And the tunnel under Brown Road to Bldg 27. I wonder what they did with that tunnel after selling those buildings?
I’m leaning towards nuts, married 4 times.
One of my all time favorites. I was an aircraft mechanic in the Army. I saw one fly around Simmons Army Airfield in 88. That sound!
I still think it's the coolest design of any jet ever. Still my favorite jet of all time, I loved watching them buzz my parents village in Greece when I was a kid.
There was also the F-4X, a Mach 3 aircraft, with water injection, new nose, steel inserts, and recontoured rear with water tanks. Israel was briefly interested in an extreme interceptor, but costs and needs didn't match up.
A variant was in service as a RF veriant.
Yep - my old sergeant worked on that project. They had to swap the nose because the original fiberglass couldn't handle the pressures and temperatures.
NOTHING sounds quite like an F4.Thanks Ed!
I’ve used quite a few hulks of retired F-4’s as targets for many tests. The F-4 is legendary to me and I always pay my respects before absolutely destroying and turning the hulks into popcorn sized pieces. Such a beautiful airframe and had a unique beauty to it even with its big powerful engines that had that ever present smoke trail a lot of the times.
The Phantom was the plane that first made me obsessed with jet fighters. Had a lovely airfix model and everything. Big one it was as well. Cheers Wicked vid this one.
Another great watch, with great production quality. This guy gets me. Personally not a huge phantom fan, though for the time period, has to be in the top three of good looking aircraft...
I think another spanner in the works was the RAF F-4 with the Spey. The twin Spey arrangement gave a total of over 5000 pounds of extra thrust, but managed to be slower due to thoroughly nerfed aerodynamics. It could climb a fair bit faster but that was the only advantage.
True, although the RAF used the F-4 as an interceptor, so faster climbing rate was useful for them.
Climb rate is almost always more important than top speed.
@@thethirdman225 not if I'm holding a competition for top speed retard
In Greece are still in Use actually a week ago a pair flew over my house ,best sound ever !
Perhaps my favorite airshow jet of all time. When the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds were using them, the sound was epic.
On July 20th 1967 in South Vietnam. My CH47 Chinook was disabled by the Vietcong while delivering a double sling load. A 105 Howitzer and net full of ammo. Long story short most of us got out of the disabled ac and took fire under cover. A phantom support was brought in and dropped a Hugh napalm into the jungle and instantly silenced the issue…. So very thankful they were there. 213 th PhuLoi Black Cats.
in 1984 I was with the 9th Division during a large training exercise at the Yakima Training Center in the state of Washington. A few buddies and I had met up to coordinate things and grab some lunch. I was looking around and noticed a dot in the sky which was getting bigger. Real fast. In a few moments an F-4 flew overhead, just over the top of the trees and rocketed off. The noise was literally flattening, and everyone was trying to make themselves one with the ground. We had just become victims of a Red Force strafing attack. It was very fast, very loud, and very "exciting". I'm sure the aircrew had a good laugh over that. It was quite the experience.
Imagine what some poor Vietnamese bugger felt when it wasnt a training run.....man....
My wife and I grew up near Westover AFB, near Springfield, MA. It was a SAC base, but would have the Thunderbirds in for the annual open house/air show. When they flew the Phantoms, the ground would shake and my belly would flutter as they flew in formation at FAA minimum along the glide path to the base.
I grew up near Hanscom AFB, had the same wonderful experience. At least once a B52 paid a visit. Talk about smoke and noise, really impressive!
The F4 was and still is, both ominous and beautiful.
Phelps-Collins ANG/AFB in Michigan, early to mid 80's. These things were glorious to experience. Great video, cheers.
There was also talk of modernising the F-4's cockpit to give it a smooth, near frameless canopy similar to that of the F-5. I think a handful of USAF F-4's underwent such a modification in the late 80s, early 90s.
I was around the "Rhinos". That aircraft had issue, lots of issue. First, it was heavy. Second, it's wing loading was terrible and nearly as much as the gawd-awful F-104. In a "rate" fight the Rhino was as nimble as the beast it's nicknamed after. Even with the better canopy the F-4 pilot & WSO sat low in the fuselage, their visibility was compromised. The USAF was right, the upgrade of the F-4 would have been tossing good money after bad. The F-16C block 50+ is one of the deadliest jets in the sky. The F-4E+ would have been like taking a re-engined pickup truck into the Indy 500.
@@Easy-Eight so was the MiG-21 the better plane?
@@doch.8039 ... The F-4 was a better all around aircraft than the MiG-21. The F-4 was a fighter, all weather interceptor, and bomber. The MiG-21 was a point defense interceptor and fighter (both the MiG-21 and F-104 have the dubious honor of killing its pilots more in training than the opposition in combat). If a nation had a limited budget then the French Mirage III was best. The F-15/F-16/F-14/F-18 are 4th generation fighters. The USAF & USN were wise in FY '93 and '94. BTW, a company out of South Africa will remanufacture the Mirage III as the Cheetah, a poor nations cheap F-16. Time has passed the F-4, MiG-21, and most of the mid-cold war aircraft.
I was an engine troop on the RF-4C in the ANG, we had two of our Phantoms go through the big upgrade with the new single piece windscreens etc. right before the announcement the aircraft were headed to the boneyard. I really liked the F-4 it was a rock solid machine, but the sad thing is satellites and drones took over the recce role so no need for the RFs anymore. I don't care what anyone says about the J-79 it was a great engine for when it was designed and built. BUT it would have been neat to see those PW's in from the performance standpoint.
Rearward visibility was still terrible, frameless canopy or not.
My grandfather was in charge of one of the rework programs on the F4, before he retired. He truly loved that aircraft. Built models as a kid, deeply regret not building building a nice Phantom for his desk. I miss the old days, seeing A4, F4, A7, A1, S-2, F8, E2, CODs. Now it's F18, F18, F18, V-22, F18.........and the cool seaplane at NASNI.
Thanks Ed for this episode…I was in a committed long term relationship with a F-4j well 12 really … methinks another issue was the old fashioned hand built tube fuselage… and difficulty of maintenance…compared to the lifting body of an F-15 and it’s ease of maintenance.. F18’s engine removal took less than an hour… when the generals compared them on the flight line… looks may have won out…. Those access panels behind the canopies “ turtle backs” no two are alike … well we lost one at sea and they had to go to the boneyard and get the closest production # …. So They flew that one out to the Mediterranean… and You know that cost some $ … and the guy who didn’t secure that panel before the Helicopters rotor wash took it …. Well …panel 100 became his nickname or turtle back …
Have you ever considered the advantages of complete sentences and rational thought patterns?
@@iatsd Just keep it to yourself next time
@Aqua Fyre I am. I don't put up with simpletons IRL. Why should I put up with the cretins here? I'm playing nicely with the other children and not being rude.
@Aqua Fyre to be honest , i agree with @iatsd , i had a super hard time understanding what the og commenter was saying, but to be fair , iam not a native speaker
@@retr0_fps I do have to say I agree. I found that whole post v difficult to understand. Perhaps the OP in this thread isn't a native English speaker/writer? NO disrespect intended.
Thanks for another great video Ed. It was very entertaining and thought provoking. Exactly why I love your channel!
There was also a swing-wing version of the Phantom suggested at an earlier date.
Ah, the good ol' "Lead Sled." I haven't seen anything on these in decades. Great presentation, dude.
Fun fact: Two MiG 21’s were produced by the USSR for every one F-4 Phantom. Like the F-4, the MiG 21 is still in service today
Additional note: The MiG-21 is older than the F-4, it's as old as the F-105.
Fun fact: Mig 21 is a piece of shit aircraft and you need to stop sucking commy dick
@@joobinmcgroobin5181 : For small, poor African countries like Mali and Guinea, the choice is between the cheap MiG-21, or no jet interceptor at all. Obviously, it’s no use in a dogfight with modern fighters, but the 9/11 attack on New York in 2001 showed that even hijacked civilian aircraft can pose a serious threat, and any jet interceptor is better than none.
Thanks for the story had not known of it before. If you ever get to the Smithsonian Hazy museum you can see one of the F4 I helped maintain.
I’m pretty sure 432 years after Yellowstone eventually erupts F-4 Phantoms will still be flying
Worked with Phantoms at Osan AB, RoK and Carswell AFB, TX. They were maintenance/hangar queens compared to the new model aircraft as well. Still not upgrading the engines and not adopting the F-20 were the USAF biggest blunders of the Reagan Era. That and bringing on the B-1B which every maintenance guy back in the '80's knew was going to an even bigger headache than maintaining the B-52. The B-1B is a capable platform but that capability came at a cost, in service reliability rate never matched the B-52 or FB-111 is replaced.
I understand the F-4's radar profile played a large roll in it's fate as well and once DoD figured out that they could be used as life fire training drones, that rather sealed their final missions here in the states.
I gotta say, there is something about the F-4 that is just appealing and plain badass.
When I was working for the Turkish Air Force (TurAF) in the early 2000's, they were still flying the F-4 and the TurAF guys really didn't want to give them up since they were so versatile and powerful. Great plane in it's day - and it's day was pretty long actually.
Turkey still uses the Phantom, was the F-4E Terminator 2020.
I believe those use the same radar and electronics systems as the Kurnass 2000, made by Israel
Turkey and also Greece are still both using upgraded versions of F-4 Phantom to this day.
Ed, Another great vid, but may i suggest you do a vid on some of the wild 3rd party f-4 updates such as the f-xx and the british swing wing phantoms, or even just the spey phantom that entered service.
Oh yes! One day.
so the F-4F ICE is a half Super Phantom
Using the F/A-18's radar, MFD's and Heads-Display
My grandfather use to tell me stories about why he was hard of hearing. He said their barracks were right along side the runway at one camp he was at in VN. The pilots would take off full afterburner and as soon as she had lift and was off her wheels they would pull the stick back and drag the tail at times to take off as vertical as they could because Charlie and anti aircraft artillery was that close to their position.
The UK Phantoms were actually slower than those of other nations. This was due to the deal that they would have to be 50% British built. In the end they were 49% British. With the fitting of Rolls Royce Spey engines they had a larger rear profile and larger intakes resulting in higher aerodynamic drag thus a lower speed.
I have lots of "Phantom bites" on my body from working around F-4Es. Still my favorite plane. We didn't get rid of our Phantoms until 1990/1991. Some of the F-15As we got were older than some of our F-4E Phantoms.
As much as I like the idea of the Super Phantom, I have to agree with the Air Force opinion.....an old airplane, regardless of improvements, is still an old airplane. What I am referring to is "metal fatigue". Aircraft are good for only so long before they become subject to sudden catastrophic failures due to metal fatigue. This is a problem that has not only occurred with military aircraft, but also with commercial air carriers. Spending $7-$9 million for an aged but upgraded airframe with a very limited lifespan is not that wise of an investment when a few million $ more gets you a spanking new bird.
And yet the B-52 is still flying and the last one of those was built 60 years ago. Also hundreds of F-4s are still in use world wide.
What I am trying to say is that in today's day and age, with modern maintenance techniques there is no such thing as an "old" air frame. Just one that wont cost you nearly as much as the between 80 and 140 MILLION dollars a unit new aircraft cost.
@@deterrumeversor8680 The B-52 is not expected to dogfight, or make low level attack runs under fire. Even so metal fatigue is an ongoing and serious problem for the B-52s, one managed to drop an entire engine nacelle mid-flight in 2017, luckily it also made an emergency landing. Running costs on the B-52 are higher than the B-1 because of it.
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But even discounting fatigue life, the Super Phantom looks like a bad deal to me. Re-engine it, fit new electronics package etc. If it serves into the 90s and 00s it's likely to face Mig 29s, SU-27s. Under all the upgrades it's still an aircraft built from a 1950s understanding of aerodynamics, no pilot would choose that over the F-16C. To a prospective buyer in the 1980s, the F-16 and F-18 were already out and well proven, why spend 65% of the cost of F-16s to upgrade a fleet of aircraft, only to replace them with F-16s in a few years time.
An old, improved airplane is still indeed an old airplane. I could have seen this as a good option for air forces that didn't quite have the money to spend or mission requirements that the US Airforce has.
One reason the Buffs are still around is because of the amount of time they spend sitting on alert rather than wearing out in flight.
@@deterrumeversor8680 - The F-15A and B models were phased out by the '90s due to age. The -C and -D models are phased out now, with mainly the F-15E model flying. The frames can only stand so much stress and abuse before they just are not safe. The B-52 is not pulling several Gs each time it takes off from a high traffic airfield.
My father was a crew chief on the F-4 and allowed me to sit in one while powered up at night when I was 7 years old.
The lights … I’ll never forget all the lights in that cockpit!
There were earlier attempts at F4 upgrades, the 'Peace Jack' programme that would have pushed the F4 to Mach 3 class speeds.
used to love watching F4 displays at Mildenhall back in the 80's & early 90's & watching F4 flight ops at Raf Wattisham & making numerous F4 models in my younger days which i still have,luckily F4's esp ex RAF examples are still being preserved & the ex 74/56 sqn FGR2 display Phantom is beautifully preseverd in a HAS at RAF Wattisham,which i watched display at Airfete 92 & Raf Lakenheath airshow 92 sadly was one of its last displays flown by Pilot, Squadron Leader Archie Liggat and Navigator Flt. Lieutenant Mark Mainwaring,Fantastic video
Great stuff as usual Ed, thanks! Another Phantom you might like to do a feature on is the F-4X, a US/Israeli project to soup up the F-4 and give it a dash speed of mach 3.2. Sadly also killed by politics.
We lived in South St. Louis and in the late 50s we would hear Sonic Booms every week or so. Then in the early 60s we moved to Hazelwood, a few miles NW of Lambert Field and that was when I started hearing and seeing Phantom lls that were flying all over the place. A really beautiful and powerful airplane.
Just because Boeing bought McDonnell does not make this incredible aircraft a Boeing. Credit where credit is due. The F-4 and then the F-15 are McDonnell’s legacy to the air force and needs to be honoured.
IIRC, Turkey had a similar Super-Phantom program done by their aviation industry, including mating the PW1120 to a Phantom airframe, and a frameless windshield. This was in the late 1990s or early 2000s. I am not sure if they flew the test aircraft or not. Turkey was trying to market it to F-4 users at the time.
Incredibly modern looking design for the 50's !
What amazes me is that it was less than 10 years separated from the F-86 Sabre.
@@FallenPhoenix86 Exactly ! Yet the F4 is similar to any modern design.
It blows my mind it's over 60yrs old !
I always check under the bed for phantoms…
I sure miss them
The F-4 Phantom confused Macnamara in its USAF guise, the F-110.
I would imagine also that the conformal belly pod, would increase the already large Radar cross section of the Phantom as I'm sure "Have Blue" (F-117) was already in the works at the time of considering this upgrade! I was an F-4 crew chief, and I believe the AirForce made the right call on pursuing newer airframes!
As a fighter, I don't know, but in the F/A role it excelled. I liked the bomb load it carried but originally they forgot the gun.
A beautiful aircraft, best of the best. Great video.
A truly, truly great fighter! Blindingly fast, multi purpose, carried a staggering amount of ordnance, and, damn, didn't it look mean, moody, and oozing threat!
And little tiny cheap Mig 🎉fighters shut them down over Vietnam at about a one to one ratio. That is the truth. The phantom is a flying pig. And is it ugly and thin.
Quite interesting is that it's replacement did get the upgrades and is now going to get some more, the F15 Eagle.
We say ın Turkish ''Halamın Taşşakları olsaydı Amcam olurdu'' ..... (If my aunt had balls she would be my uncle)
I guess we are not that apart after all . There is the exact same saying in Greek .
@@dimitrispatsiaouras713 pretty sure they say it in every country lol
@@mustang5132 Shit . Blame it on globalization!!!
@@dimitrispatsiaouras713 We lived together almost 1000 Years. Same soil, same atmoshphere. Political shit took us apart.
My brother and his wife had their first child when I was 10. I thanked them for having a son and making me an uncle instead of having a girl and making me an aunt.
It was funny at the time... some 50+ years ago...
The base I was at had the F-4 until 1983 when it was pulled and the F-16 moved in.The F-4 was a beast for sure!
I flew F-4 C's & D's in the late 70's. It was an awesome fighter. Would have loved to see it upgraded like they are talking about. It would be capable of holding it's own against any Soviet or Chinese block aircraft.
There’s no real way of knowing with these “what if” scenarios.
I saw a cut out of this airplane in the school library in 1993 and I was instantly in love
Althought 600+ were assigned in the late 1970's less than 40 could fly and conduct a mission. Combustion chamber "cans" ruptured easily if the throttle was operated too quickly for acceleration. Onboard fires and overheating were common if operated with an ambient temperature over 100 degrees. Over water, they faired better than inland over land during summertime. Zooming down for a close to the ground for a high-speed pass meant a huge risk of a can rupture and hot air "leaned" the fuel mix. Same engine dogged the 101 & 104. This vulnerability showed itself especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Phantoms were like VW Beetles of the skies - couldn't take the heat.
The F-101 used the P&W J-57 series of engines not the GE J79 found in both the F-4 and F-104.
If you're going to make such an outrageous claim, you better provide a reference. George AFB was in the middle of the Mojave desert with temps regularly over 100F, and I recall no such problems as you describe when I was there.
Total BS. I trained on F-4C’s at Luke AFB, AZ during the summer of ‘74 with temps of over 110 with a few 115. No restriction on throttle movement. No mention of can rupture. Went PCS to Holloman, AFB NM and flew D’s. Total BS about can rupture!
I love the Phantoms. Tough and dependable. One of the all-time greats, no doubt about it.