Originally Posted by
Firestreak
Re NVGs in the F4, the 3 aircraft we took to Ascension in May 1982 had hastily modified blue glass cockpits. A bod appeared with some goggles for us, I took him airborne on 28 May 82 which could well have been the first RAF Phantom NVG sortie. The bod, as I recall, was certainly not fast jet aircrew, not even sure if he was aircrew at all as he seemed to be very windy about getting airborne, at night, from Ascension. On subsequent nights, we all flew with the goggles flying against blacked out aircraft and ships.
And having string tied to them so that should they fall off the helmet mount they wouldn't hit the ground and break (as one did). IIRC there were concerns that ejection with NVGs tied around the neck could have been problematic as they would probably fall off the helmet mount and end up
on in your chest.
Mind you night close formation was fun, not having NVGs the nav couldn't see the other aircraft and could get quite worried!