'Peacetime' ..another day on the line at George AFB, most of the crews were transitioning into the way cool F-4G Wild Weasel, they were bein delivered at the time and there were some 'E' models for basic fam flights goin on ..it's a different gig than the 105G after all
I was out back rackin ECM pods on my J-4 jammer with a couple others ..ECM shop was near takeoff end of the runway that day.
F-4 blasted off ..goin away from us. We stopped to watch.
On rotation the right wing folded up ..straight up.
She started a slow roll right still going nose up, you could see full left everything as the pilot tried to get her straight ..
..just not happenin.
Plane describes a lazy arcing right turn, now he's 180 from takeoff heading, comin up on 90 deg bank.
Saw the smoke, fire and sparkle of canopies blowin off before we heard the POP-whoosh of the rockets firing..
..we were still pretty far away.
Well.
Pilot lands in Ops parkin lot, back seater lands in avionics barracks lot just across the street from us.
Back seater was no wasted motion, pure perfect timing, he had no time.
Seat went out, chute popped, he hit the ground.. no swing no nothin.
Aircraft was still at full throttle, she went inverted right over us and nosed in about a football field length away.
Another hundred yards or so would have been into the fuel storage area
.. shorter and it woulda been a very interesting day in our shop.
All the flashing lights in the world came from everywhere, that F-4 went in, huge THUMP and dust cloud, some fire an smoke.
When it cleared there was nothing sticking up higher than the tumbleweeds out there.
It was spooky.
She's a big airplane.
Was.
Just another day on the line.
-GE aka Frank
