Phantom Admiration Society

[Shifty]

The first real Phantoms I ever got to see were these guys.

[Oldman731]

Well, in my book, this was a better looking plane:



- oldman

[Nefarious]

Well, in my book, this was a better looking plane:

 

The title of this thread says Phantom Admiration society...

Also this thread has to many Gun Nosed Phantoms... time for some real Phantom beauties.

[Rich46yo]

We used to get squadrons rotating in from Ramstein or Torrejón Spain. Usually on the last flight of their rotation they would pull some kind of stunt for the amusement of the troops on the ground. Once I saw an F4 come in very low over the runway, hit both burners, and went up as close to vertical as Ive ever seen an airplane go. Those engines just shook the entire airbase and I'd swear that plane went straight up. I later learned the F15 was the first to ever climb straight up but I'll never forget that F4.



I was in during a transition time when 15s and later 16s were coming on line replacing a lot of the F4s but I never even saw one of them. After my time in NATO I went to MAC bases and did a long TDY convoying in the south west. So other then Turkish 104s and 100's the F4s were the only fighters I ever saw in 4 years of service.

And those J79s were great engines but man would they smoke. You saw the Phantom long before you heard her.

[SlipKnt]

Never knew this thread was out there.

I grew up a Marine Corps brat in the 1970s and 1980s.  My first sight of these birds was also the Blue Angels.  I grew up around Marine Corps Air Stations and ALWAYS built model airplanes.  Always wanted to be a F4 Phantom pilot growing up.  Though I became a Grunt in the Marines.  My love for the F4 Phantom never subsided. 

Thanks for posting these pics!  Very cool!!!!!

G3-MFs CO (Rodent57) flew these planes and did the transition to the F15 when they phased the F4 out.  I have learned a lot from him in this game of all things...

 

[Nefarious]

Never knew this thread was out there.

I grew up a Marine Corps brat in the 1970s and 1980s.  My first sight of these birds was also the Blue Angels.  I grew up around Marine Corps Air Stations and ALWAYS built model airplanes.  Always wanted to be a F4 Phantom pilot growing up.  Though I became a Grunt in the Marines.  My love for the F4 Phantom never subsided. 

Thanks for posting these pics!  Very cool!!!!!

G3-MFs CO (Rodent57) flew these planes and did the transition to the F15 when they phased the F4 out.  I have learned a lot from him in this game of all things...

 

Just for you. My favorite Marine Phantom colors.

[Puma44]

Well, in my book, this was a better looking plane:



- oldman

Now yer talkin' Oldman!

O.K., back to our regularly scheduled thread.   

[mthrockmor]

As a young teenager we had a family friend who had flown F-4s for the USMC. He let me borrow his NATOPS manual for almost a year. I read all through that manual, which was top secret. He informed me that the Soviets would pay many hundreds, maybe a few thousdand dollars for that manual, which was classified. It was awesome! Based on that manual he insisted I could walk up to an F-4, kick the tires and light the fires....until security shot me!

The Phantom is pure classic!

[Puma44]

(Image removed from quote.)

And those J79s were great engines but man would they smoke. You saw the Phantom long before you heard her.

The smoke and cinders was a common defensive move when someone saddled up on our six.  Go to  MIL power and blind them with smoke and the "cinders"  .  When the smokeless engines started showing up, we would sometimes have a clean and a smoker in the jet.  It would look like a guy had an engine out coming up initial, completely clean on one side and smoke & cinders coming out the other side, making the jet visible from 30 miles out.

[colmbo]

in 1975 I was stationed at Sparrevohn Alaska,

Imagine that.  I was a paratrooper at Ft. Richardson in '75.  We were working with a pair of F4s and an O2 practicing close air support.  When the jets announced they were low fuel and could only make one pass we asked for a pass on the friendlies.  It is awe inspiring to watch an F4 bottom out of his dive below the hilltop (very low hill at that) you are on then come right at you no more than 20' off the deck.  He pulled up as he passed over and did 2 rolls as he climbed away nearly vertical --- his wake destroyed our GP Medium tent, blew poncho hootch's apart and generally wreaked havoc.  :0  Dash 2 was quite a bit higher when he passed over…probably 50' or so.

[colmbo]

We were gearing up for a jump one very dark, grey rainy day at Elmendorf when two Phantoms came out of the alert shed and took off (Zoney probably dealt with them a few minutes later).  I wish I would have had a camera...the sight of the Phantoms roaring down the runway, a sound you have to experience to believe,  flames from the tail, huge rooster tail of water from the rain then the planform view as they pulled and went up into the overcast at the end of the runway.

[Puma44]

The title of this thread says Phantom Admiration society...

Also this thread has to many Gun Nosed Phantoms... time for some real Phantom beauties.

Great paint jobs!  As you probably know, the missile only Phantom drivers in Vietnam promptly determined the missiles wouldn't do the job when stepping in the phone booth with a feisty little Mig.  Thus the F-4E with the 20mm gun in the nose for those phone booth fights.  It was an indescribable feeling and sound when pulling the trigger the first time, and every time after that. We planned on three, two second bursts (at 6,000 rounds per minute) for each fully loaded gun.

[bozon]

One of the icons of the Israeli air force. As a child I lived right in between of a Kfir (Israeli upgrade to Mirage III) and Phantom air force bases. Their noise and silhouettes in the skies are something I grew up with.



Arrived in Israel in September 1969, entered combat within a month and got its first kill (mig 21) within two months. Its last kill was during the 1982 Lebanon war by an F4 that was joined by F15s as escorts. On the way back, the Phantom pilot spotted Mig 21s, so without saying a word he broke formation and went after the migs, trying to get a head start on the F15s... It worked, he got the only F4 kill of that war. F16s and F15 stole all the others.

The IAF eventually had a custom and significantly upgraded version, the Kurnas (sledgehammer) 2000, made by the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). Complete new avionics, upgraded engines and an excellent ground scanning radar. I was sorry to see them taken out of service. In my mind it resembled the P-47 - a brute so ugly that it is beautiful. Only the old school american industry could build a plane with no regards to aesthetics and somehow it would still have its own charm.

[Puma44]

- a brute so ugly that it is beautiful. Only the old school american industry could build a plane with no regards to aesthetics and somehow it would still have its own charm.

That's why Phantom crews referred to it as "Double Ugly" or more affectionately the "Rhino" because it was a big, powerful brute, and ugly......not to mention the side profile resemblance.

[Cthulhu]

It's funny how the years slip away. These old Phantoms and 106's are as obsolete now as Pony's and Jugs were when I was a kid. I can still remember the first time an AF F-4E roared over my house. I had this huge grin on my face.