Currently reading ‘war for the hell of it’ by Ed Cobleigh, it’s an interesting story about his service in Vietnam flying the F4 in the USAF
He describes the take off procedure, after releasing the brakes and applying maximum power he would immediately apply full back stick, maintaining this input during acceleration down the runway until the nose started to lift off, he would then ease off the stick input gradually until the aircraft lifted off
I’ve read a few books on the F4 and this seems to be normal procedure when operating from a land base, I find it a bit puzzling, it reminds me of a soft field take off in a light aircraft, the Phantom is about as far as you can get from that
I’ve not seen this done on other fighters. Anyone have further insight ? was this technique used in the RAF ?