Geehova,
I have put a request for a copy of your forthcoming book on my Xmas wishlist.
I realise this is a pilots forum and I don't have any first hand flying stories to tell about the Phantom but I do have a few memories of my time supporting the aircraft at HSA Brough and HOSM. My first involvement was in 1970, investigating the failure of hydraulic pipes, which were a pretty frequent event in the early days. The areas most commonly affected were PC1 and PC2 pipes in the centre fuselage above the wing. On one of the squadrons OC Eng had become convinced that his airframe technicians were not making or fitting the pipes properly so he decided to give them all a lesson and made and fitted the next pipe himself. Much to his dismay, and probably the amusement of the others, it failed on the first sortie. Just as an aside, would the RAF have the capability to make a hydraulic pipe nowadays?
To investigate the problem we needed to get in and look what was happening but we could not engine run with the panels removed. We had a set of panels made with large holes cut in them and additional stiffening ribs on the outside. Initially we had no instrumentation so the investigation was going to be tactile to start with. Along with a gentle giant called Jack Stothard we established a procedure of touching the assorted pipes while running at various stabilised rpms and grading the level of vibration on a scale of 1 to 5. Then we cross calibrated ourselves by swapping sides. When were were satisfied we got reasonably consistent results we decided to do some additional runs in reheat, as we were uncertain whether the vibration was airframe induced or hydraulic pressure ripple induced.
The running bay at HOSM consisted of two ramps which the main wheels were towed up so that the jet pipes were more or less horizontal. The aircraft was chocked but the main holdback was the arrester hook which was supposed to be tensioned against a strop anchored to the ground. There was no detuner or silencer, just a large venetian blind like jet blast deflector at either end of the pan. The next run initially went well, all exciting stuff for a young engineer fresh from university, stood on the wing of the F4 with both engines in min reheat. As the runner went to max reheat the aircraft moved on the chocks as the holdback had not been properly tensioned. Just for a second I was convinced the aircraft was off through the venetian blind and we were going to be chopped up like salami. Jack and I nervously looked at each other across the top of the fuselage before turning to see the ground crew grinning broadly in the adjacent portakabin.
Our next step was to fit instrumentation in the from of pressure transducers and accellerometers to do a more scientific study. The root cause of the problem was that when the Spey engines had been introduced, the length of the pump flexible hoses had been changed and this created a hydraulic pressure ripple resonance at certain rpms. We introduced a small spherical presure damper at the end of the hoses and while it did not completely cure the problem it did reduce the nuber of pipe failures.
Some years later I was involved in the investigation of the failure the hydraulic motors which drove the standby fuel transfer pumps. These only ran in the event of electrical failure or when in reheat, to supplement the flow from the main electrically driven transfer pumps. We instrumented the pumps and decided we would do a sustained max reheat run on both engines. We particularly wanted to cover the transition as the No 4 and 6 tanks emptied to see what happened as the pumps became uncovered. Standing watching and listening to the aircraft thundering away was fantastic and after about 5 minutes of this punishment, the concrete behind the aircraft began to suffer. The top layer began to spall off and pieces of concrete the size of dinner plates were picked up by the jet blast and hurled at the venetian blind jet blast deflectors. They were shattered into smaller chunks and flew high in the air raining down on the surrounding countryside and the road which ran past the running bay. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic passing at the time. Just after the end of the run the local farmer rang up to complain that the noise was driving his bullocks mad.
Happy days, pushing forward the frontiers of aviation.