Hi there
As regards the brute strength of the F-4, I was told a story by an ex-USMC Sergeant, who had served on them, at land bases and afloat: the F-4 was doing night circuits at Navy Dallas when there was a loud bang and the bells and whistles came on. The pilot shut down the right-hand engine and ran through his emergency drills and made an uneventful landing. When the ground crew got to the aircraft, they were amazed to find the entire aft half of the right-hand engine gone, with a jagged hole where the afterburner used to be. Basically, everything aft of the combustion chamber was gone. Soon after, a local farmer called the base to ask if a large, battered,smoking "turbin" belonged to them. The aircraft was back on the line within a month.
As for people inadvertantly shedding the underwing loads, he also told of a Singaporean A-4 pilot, a senior man, who, whilst on detachment to the USMC, cleaned off all his racks by accident and tried to get his ground crew to fix it without the Marines copping on.
Pianos: he said that they flew well when launched off the waist catapult on the return sailing from Pacific duty.
regards
TDD