Well, I finally remembered to prepare my post in anticipation of Phantom Friday.
An F4H-1F 145310, the eleventh pre-production F4, at the Wings and Rotors Museum at the French Valley Airport, in Murrietta, California, being (slowly) restored to airworthy status:
In March, I went to French Valley Airport on business, but while I was there, I phoned the museum number and was let in to have a look around. I'm glad I did, because after viewing the static exhibits (a Huey and a Choctaw), I was invited to have a look around the maintenance hangar and there, tucked in behind a Huey and two Kiowas, was the F-4.
This was the first time I had seen an F-4 up close. I was particularly interested to see the BLC ductwork and the air distribution slots in the wing. The noise of F-4s in the circuit has always impressed me, particularly that distinctive noise when the BLC was turned on. The first time I saw F-4s was during a UAS summer camp in 1967 at Binbrook, when four USAF F-4s from Bitburg visited 5 (AC) and their F6s. For their arrival, they did a gear-down, flaps-down formation flypast. Very smoky, very noisy, very impressive!
The last time I saw one was when I was living in Houston in 2001 and an ANG F-4 did a low-and-slow display over a Fourth of July parade.
More information about this restoration and the museum here:
The fight to bring to Phantom back to flight | The Tactical Air Network
http://wingsandrotors.org/phantom-f4/
It's taking a long time, but perhaps one day, we'll see an F-4 in the air with EXPERIMENTAL on the side.
