Flight characteristics of the F-4 Phantom

[DaveBB]

Interesting fact: At moderate to high angles of attack, aileron reversal occurs unless the turn is coordinated with rudder.  At low angles of attack, this does not happen.

Also, the aircraft became *more* sensitive to pitch the faster it went.  1 inch of stick movement equaled about 6 G's at 'high Q'.

[morfiend]

Paging Puma....Puma....




   

[Oldman731]

Paging Puma....Puma....

I sent out the bat signal.

- oldman

[EskimoJoe]

I'd like to hear from Rhino I believe his name was! I still have a saved story somewhere, he told about his buddy G+13 dropping fuel tanks on Vietnamese boaters during the war 

[Shuffler]

I'd like to hear from Rhino I believe his name was! I still have a saved story somewhere, he told about his buddy G+13 dropping fuel tanks on Vietnamese boaters during the war 

Rino is in our squad. He has been out awhile but doing well. We may see him back soon.

[Rash]

Flight characteristics?  They were fast.  I worked the summer of 1980 at an old bomber plant.  They were overhauling F-4's to send to overseas.  They would be out of sight in about 30 seconds on their test flights.

[Vraciu]

Interesting fact: At moderate to high angles of attack, aileron reversal occurs unless the turn is coordinated with rudder.  At low angles of attack, this does not happen.

Also, the aircraft became *more* sensitive to pitch the faster it went.  1 inch of stick movement equaled about 6 G's at 'high Q'.

Rolling an F-4 with high AOA was purely rudder-based.   Using aileron would result in a departure--big time.    I have been lucky enough to fly with some Rhino drivers over the years.    Boy do they have great stories.

I met a guy once who flew them off the boat.   One day he launched and had the stick just slightly aft of where it should be.  (Guys would lock it in with an elbow against the thigh for the cat shot.)  When fully loaded with three bags the CG was pretty far aft.   Well, he wound up doing a rudder dance in the stall when he went off the end.   After about a mile the airplane accelerated enough for him to climb out. 

The Admiral on the bridge cracked, "I can see the tops of  that guy's boots!"

Call sign from that day on?   Yep. "Boots."

[EskimoJoe]

Rino is in our squad. He has been out awhile but doing well. We may see him back soon.

Glad to hear he's doing well. I never got to know him, but always liked to read what he had to say when he chimed in on the forums.

[Randall172]

Mig21 is the better plane

[Vraciu]

Mig21 is the better plane

Not on your life.

[Puma44]

Rolling an F-4 with high AOA was purely rudder-based.   Using aileron would result in a departure--big time.

Which model of the F-4 did you fly?

I flew the "E" for two tours, one of which was an air to air squadron in the ROK.  I'll agree with you about rolling with ailerons in a hard wing F-4.  Use any aileron in high AOPA maneuvering and it was off on Mr. Toad's wild ride.  I flew hard wings in the school house.  They harped on not using ailerons during hard maneuvering.  It was a tough habit to break.  During early sorties in BFM, etc, the autopilot wouldn't allow the stick to move laterally. 

After transitioning to the E model it was different.  The leading edge slats would allow for some judicious use of aileron to wrap it around in a fight. 

After the air to air squadron tour, it was off to a multi role mud beater unit.  On one of my instrument checks whilst doing the obligatory confidence maneuvers, the SEFE requested a high AOA rudder roll.  Coming from the air to air unit, I was well aware that such a maneuver was a HUGE energy burner and waste of potential energy.  So, I did a bit of a lazy one in order to preserve energy.  The SEFE didn't like mine, said here let me show you how it's done.  We transferred control of the jet.  He obtained a bunch of airspeed, pitched up aggressively, and stomped a boot of rudder to it.  We promptly went completely out of control, rolling and tumbling as he expertly applied the out of control bold face procedure to recover the jet back to controlled flight.  He passed control of the jet back to me and we proceeded to successfully complete my instrument check.

In fourteen months of very aggressive air to air sorties in the previous flying assignment, I never put the jet completely out of control or heard of anyone else doing it.  We routinely maneuvered the jet in the phone booth to air speeds that didn't register on the airspeed indicator.  Energy management is all important in air to air maneuvering.  Going on Mr Toads Wild Ride, not so much.

It just goes to demonstrate a common saying in the real world of fighters, hamburger is still hamburger, no matter what you wrap it in. 

[Puma44]

Mig21 is the better plane

Not better, different. 

[Puma44]

There's nothing showing up on my IPAD.  What's in the picture?

[Vraciu]

Did not know that about the E.  I knew the slats, which I believe were a later-run mod, made the airplane turn better but that's good info right there.  I didn't fly it just picked the brains of a lot of guys who did.  Any errors in translation are mine, not theirs.

Most of the guys I knew flew Bs and Js with a few C and D drivers thrown in.  I think one of the Marines I knew flew the S but it was on its way out.  Knew a few of the Weasel guys (including one F driver from the GAF) but the mission was different so I never got much of the scoop on the G (converted E). 

Did you ever run into Ed Rasimus?   Cool dude.  Good writer. 

Any way, thanks for shedding some light on that machine.   Great stuff.

[Vraciu]

There's nothing showing up on my IPAD.  What's in the picture?

Click quote and you'll be able to copy and paste. 

I've repeatedly asked ppl to post the link separately for iPad guys to no avail. 

Edit in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6RcTtGfG3E&t=747s

What he says at 10:30 or so is pretty much what every F-4 driver I met said about it.    The adverse yaw discussion is prior to that.