THE FABULOUS PHANTOM II F-4 PHANTOM MCDONNELL DOUGLAS AIRCRAFT FILM 23394
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- Made in the late 1970s, THE FABULOUS PHANTOM celebrates the completion of the 5000th F-4 Phantom. The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor aircraft/fighter-bomber originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonnell Aircraft. It first entered service in 1960 with the U.S. Navy. Proving highly adaptable, it was also adopted by the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force, and by the mid-1960s had become a major part of their respective air wings.
The Phantom is a large fighter with a top speed of over Mach 2.2. It can carry more than 18,000 pounds (8,400 kg) of weapons on nine external hardpoints, including air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground missiles, and various bombs. The F-4, like other interceptors of its time, was designed without an internal cannon. Later models incorporated an M61 Vulcan rotary cannon. Beginning in 1959, it set 15 world records for in-flight performance, including an absolute speed record, and an absolute altitude record.
During the Vietnam War, the F-4 was used extensively; it served as the principal air superiority fighter for both the Navy and Air Force, and became important in the ground-attack and aerial reconnaissance roles late in the war. The Phantom has the distinction of being the last U.S. fighter flown to attain ace status in the 20th century. The F-4 continued to form a major part of U.S. military air power throughout the 1970s and 1980s, being gradually replaced by more modern aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 in the U.S. Air Force, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat in the U.S. Navy, and the F/A-18 Hornet in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.
The F-4 Phantom II remained in use by the U.S. in the reconnaissance and Wild Weasel (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) roles in the 1991 Gulf War, finally leaving service in 1996.Phantom production ran from 1958 to 1981, with a total of 5,195 built, making it the most numerous American supersonic military aircraft.
The film begins with historic images of flight including bi-planes, World War I and World War II combat, and shows the "Great Aircraft" built and flown in large numbers. The McDonnell Douglas F4 is one of them. What qualities distinguish this type of aircraft from others, how did its design and evolution come about? Harlan Barkey who is the man behind the moving force of the F4 was interviewed at mark 2:37 and he was questioned about all these. He talked about how the discussion of the f4 came about. He also talked on the distinguishing characteristics of the F4 at mark 3:50. At mark 4:03, is a model of the F4, here, he talked on how the configuration of the plane evolved. He talked on the navy’s selection and their competition at mark 5:40. At mark 6:55 is the McDonnel. Co where F4H-1 was rolled out and made ready for flight on May 27, 1958. At mark 7:05 is the pilot who made that flight, Bob Little of the McDonnell Co. Admiral Frederick H. Michaelis, Chief of Naval Material and one of the senior naval aviators describe how the USN use the F4 from mark 11:25.
Although built for the navy, the distinguishing characteristics of the F4 so attracts the US air force and in 1962 a number of trials and competitive exercises proved its importance. General William W. Momayer former commander of the tactical air command tells of the qualities of the F4 performance to the U.S airforce at mark 15:10. In the late 60s, the F4 was chosen to be used as the official flight demonstration aircraft to be used by both the U.S navy and the U.S airforce thunderbirds as seen at mark 19:18. On February 4, 1971, the F4-4000 was rolled out at mark 20:00 and was flown and after this, it was delivered to the USAF. The USAF has delivered to 10 different nations of the international community making it a worldwide standard against which other crafts are measured. May 24, 1978 is the ceremony for F4-5000; a celebration of 20 years of service to the free world by the F4 as seen at mark 21:15.
The film ends with McDonnell President George Graff and James S. McDonnell rolling out the 5000th Phantom.
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFi...
Heatblur brought me here. Two excerpts from their F4 trailer:
10:10
11:10
I helped build this great aircraft on the assembly line ,No one has the right to call it UGLY and I for one resent that . It was a beauty and I enjoyed helping put it together . I couldn't get enough of watching it all through the years .
taty fonseca Its quite unique and beautiful
taty fonseca That is one unique bird. I flew many a mission in F4B’s. I just wish we’d have missiles as good as the aircraft back in 66and 67.
Good for you I was in Dept 92 Field Service Avionics Tech Rep. 1964 to 1967.
Totally agreed. F4 is a legend.
One of the most beautiful airplanes ever built.
Year to date the Phantom is "still" the most beautiful fighter bomber. I ❤️ Phantom F4
The negative dihedral (or anhedral) of the tail plane, the gull like shape of the wings, the way the jet exhaust comes out underneath the tail and the ground shaking sound of those twin J79s all combine to make a beautiful Interceptor (Navy) or Fighter/Bomber or Electronic Warfare (Air Force) or Fighter/Attack (Marine Corps) or Reconnaissance/Fighter (Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps).
Sorry I beg to differ. IMHO F-111F.
Bet my ass - you are damn right. I miss this bird...
While the F-4 was a unique looking aircraft I wouldn't call the "Double Ugly" beautiful.
Happily I’m from a generation that men flew the plane and not computers. For this reason though I value your comment… I will disagree until doomsday with you 😁 Phantom is BEAUTIFUL 🤘🏼 & ROCKS.
10:07
“If you had to do it all over again, is there anything you would do to change the design of the F-4?”
“No, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
This channel is gold. Watching and listening to these folks recounting their experiences in clear, confident fashion is very inspiring. I hope some day our country can once again return to such levels of greatness. We live in desperate times.
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It is great to hear people like Barkey, Little, and McDonnell actually speak after reading so much about them. Thank you for sharing this!
Watching the Kentucky Air National Guard RF-4Cs flying out of Standiford Field when I was a kid made me love aircraft and eventually led to my 24 year career in the Air Force. Ironically, I was on C-130s most of my career, and did time in Special Ops. The Air Guard unit at Louisville has flown C-130s after the Phantom was retired and has an STS unit...
Easily one of the best looking planes ever made. I never get tired of looking at it. When I use it in games like Ace Combat, I sometimes watch the replay over and over, with different camera angles.
I never understood why everyone keeps calling the F4 ugly. It is a very good looking fighter as far as I can see.
Yes, they did not know that there will be F-35 which is ugly as can be. Phantom is manly looking machine.
One most consider the look of the contemporary aircraft of the day. The delta winged F102, F104, and B58 had the sleek straight swept back wings and he F-104 was a tidy and sleek stubby wing manned missile. By those contemporary standards, the F4 had this weird geometry with all of these odd angles and aerodynamically dirty looking design and was so different from anything before (and frankly, since) it just seemed ugly by comparison to these other slick, clean designs. I was a kid when I first saw an F4, and that was a model in the corner drug store, and I remember thinking of bulky and unusual it was. A decade and a half later, I was serving in VMFA 451 and was surrounded by F4s, and by then, I came to be a major fan of the looks but some of that was because to see one fully loaded out for a close air support mission (which is mostly what we did) it was one of the most sinister airplanes to see in the sky.
It's because the F-4 is so masculine. They were afraid of being seen as gay, so they pretended the Phantom wasn't magnificent looking.
One of my favorite jet fighters! Long live F-4 Phantom!
I was in the Navy in 60's and the f4 and f8 were awsome...
When images, musics, voices made you feel good !
The Mcdonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was an iconic bird. For it's day it was lethal, in the right hands it could bring death and destruction.
The most beautiful and the sexiest aircraft ever built! I do miss it greatly! Thanks for the great historic video. Time will pass, aircraft building concepts will change, but F-4 Phantom will always be something different, something really special, something amazingly beautiful. Phantoms Phorever!
F4 is an amazing combat aircraft especialy in low pass monuver at high speed,congratulate to its designers.
We, who crewed these and those that flew them used to call it all sorts of names, Big Ugly, Pig, Flying brick and more. ALL of these were were said (for the most part) with reverence for the Phantom. I first worked on these in 1971 crewing RF4C's out of sunny Zwei AB. We used to listen to the beautiful sound of the IGV's cycling as a flight was returning from a recce mission.
Was on them again at Moody. Last one I heard was a E model in the overhead at DM fixing to go to Mojave to become a drone.
I still have some Phantom bite scars on my back. Nothing like the feel of hydraulic juice or JP4 into a fresh scratch.
My dad got to work on these bad boys.. I remember my U Fly It toy had a F4 as it's aircraft.. 😁
The F4 Phantom II was an aircraft conceived with one job in mind: Kill. They were not beating around the bush when they designed the Phantom. "Make it scary. Make it clear that there is a right end and a wrong end to have pointed at you and that anyone on the wrong end will have no doubt in their mind that they are on the wrong end and that they are having a terminally bad day. If that means bending the nose, wings, and tail, so be it; the more it looks like it shouldn't be in the air at all much less doing supersonic speeds will make it even more intimidating. Give it sharp edges, too."
It has been said that when the F4 took to the skies, it looked around at all the other planes up there and said "Oh, I don't like them. They'll have to go." The it looked down and said about the things on the ground and said "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We can't have all that down there. THEY'LL have to go, too."
WORDS CAN NOT EXPRESS WHAT A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT THE PHANTOM II REALLY IS. I WAS IN THE NAVY SEA BEES IN 67 TO 69 AT DANANG AFB, GOT TO SEE MANY PLANES, AND JETS GO IN AND OUT, TO ME THE ONLY PLANE WAS THE PHANTOM. I LOVED HOW THE WINGS WERE TIPPED UP IN THE FRONT, AND DOWN IN THE BACK, REALLY LOOKED MEAN. IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE ON THIS PLANE, SEARCH-- ROBIN OLDS-- GREAT ARTICLE ON HIM AND HIS PHANTOM.
MACH 2.2 is an aerodynamic joke? Gee...I'm not feeling it!
Far from ugly, beautiful airplane.
20:29 Our lad of 338 ''Ares'' squadron !
My Dad worked on the first production model that made the highest altitude test flight of any production model for the USA Military
PHabulous PHantom PHorever!
Appearance is a matter of OPINION. There's nothing idiotic about that, it's just how it is! Look, I think the F-4 was an influential plane, too, but it's not the best-looking one built... Even the guys who liked to fly the plane -- at least half of them -- didn't think it was particularly good-looking, either. It's rather awkward and that's because of all the kinks in the wing and that inverted V horizonal stabilizer. The bulbous nose and downward pitch of the nose didn't help its looks, either. Those are hallmarks of last-minute design changes to cure or alleviate some serious aerodynamic problems that the wind tunnels uncovered with sub-scale models! They wouldn't design a plane like this today but the aircraft designers were still learning a lot of things and the F-4 was near the beginning of the Mach-2 revolution. The British Electric Lightning and MiG-21 are kind of awkward-looking, too. Same issues as the F-4 -- the designers were struggling how to figure out how to make these planes fly at Mach 2 or better and they made some decisions that WOULDN'T be made today! If you want my opinion about which planes of the timeframe are BETTER-looking than the F-4, then I would say the A-4 Skyhawk and F-8 Crusader were both better-looking designs.
@@AvengerII I really like the "kinks" in the wings.
i wish i could just one time fly md f-4 phantom
gosh what a beautiful bird
DCS moment
great lineup at 8:01 F3H Demon, F4H Phantom, and F-101 Voodoo.
6:40 if you had a chance to do it different what would you change?
Add a freaking gun. !!
That's what I was thinking every time they ask that question. The guys who actually used the F4 in air to air combat pretty much all said not having a gun was a serious disadvantage. With missiles being so unreliable back then, it's baffling why they wouldn't give it a gun from the start. Even today when missiles are so much better, things like the F22n still have a gun.
@@mtgAzim absolutely.
This guy must be one of the experts that pilots mentioned who thought the gun was an obsolete weapon in the air...the future was air to air missiles.
mtgAzim yep, and with F 35 we‘ve got the Phamtom 3 of which two versions lack an internal gun- at a time where strafing has been choice number one when urgent ground support was required. Seems as if aircraft planners are getting too young to know the troubles the Phantom drivers suffered in Vietnam. And there really is no russian or chinese fighter lacking a gun…
Also poor visibility
Radar and missiles were poor too. Back then, they thought the age of dogfighting is over but it was proven wrong by the overwhelming performance in combat from the MiGs.
That plane is gorgeous.
👍👍TOP
At 6:47 the designer says that he would do nothing different in design. Eventually he was forced to eat his words after Brig Gen Robin Olds and others saw to it that Douglas incorporate the one thing that the F-4 should have had from the beginning - a GUN !
Twerp.
I love these old videos done by signal corps, and other government movies. Too bad they dont care about shit anymore.
Sailing around the Greek islands, Phantoms flew overhead. Later found it it was there last day with the Greek Air Force.
Japan still flies the Phantom even though they are slated to be retired very soon
It's a badass aircraft
I worked on this BEAST back in the 80's. It was BIG for a Fighter, UGLY and an Aerodynamic Joke...
It didn't fly gracefully, but by BRUTE FORCE from its massive Thrust!
... I say with affection.
This was one of the greatest Fighters of the 20th Century. Seemed accidental.
However, it did so many things so well, that she was universally accepted by ALL the Services, in a wide variety of roles.
It WOULD have even made a decent Dogfighter.... if they just ADDED A DAMN GUN!! 😲
This was an Aircraft Masterpiece - later followed by the DC-10!! 😖
Fun Fact: The F-4 Phantom is also the first joint strike fighter aircraft before the F-35 Lightning II was put into service...
Yep!!! The F-4 was a pioneer among several features... a really good plane...
Canada was stupid to pass on the F4 because of the price point while opting to manufacture freedom fighters instead 😢
What I would change is to mount a cannon on the aircraft to make dogfighting possible. They may have had that in mind, but because of the aircraft's structural design may have made it difficult.
Besides arming it with a cannon, I would arm the Spectre with AIM-7F Sparrows and all-aspect AIM-9L Sidewinders, therefore they can be effective in a dogfight, regardless whether or not they have an internal cannon...
@@theorganizer1273 the F4E had a built in nose cannon and the F4 could carry all versions of the AIM7 and AIM9.
@@terrydouglas5008 The F-4E is exclusive to the US Air Force, plus I’m talking about the F-4 variants flown by the Navy, the ones without the internal gun...
@@theorganizer1273 the AF had non gun variants. C,D and the G are E's that had the gun removed to make room for more ECM equipment.
Spelled fabulous wrong. When discussing the F-4, it's "phabulous."
As a phabulous Phantom Phanboy, I must agree.
Legend 👍
Ol double ugly....one hell of a good plane...big Mac D has made some of the best planes in the US inventory .....the f15 being another top tear fighter they designed.
6:35
Angle of attack was a killer before fly by wire.
10:17
What was that on 17:10, seems like a weird cat shot.
A marine corps pilot I knew who flew these once described them as flying bricks.
They spelt Phabulous wrong back in the day...
Is that test pilot wearing a football helmet?
his script reading is not very good.
It's just so Phucking Beautiphully Ugly!
so dry
It's ugly in comparison with MIG 21.
Uh...yeah...ok. Wink wink.
6:35