F4 Phantom

[Kato747]

Can't believe I haven't caught this thread before..... going since March?

Enjoyed immensely being the only Yank at the 'Phantom Phinal Phling' Mess Do at Wattisham. Thanks to Gary Hewitt for dragging me over from TLP at Florennes.

Also, my everlasting thanks to Barry (OC56) and Tony B. at 56 for arranging me to reach 2K Phantom time just before you closed up shop in '92. Enjoyed the flights with Tony, Jack C. & DD - a real treat. USAF couldn't understand why I was upset hanging up my Phantom spurs just 3.5 hours short of deux mille .

Anyone have a line on Mac McCarten (sp?) long of "Ark" fame and DAW/AWC at Cranwell?

Have been looking for a decent copy of the 1st TAC video of "tactical" down Loch Ness edited by HONUS and Che, I believe. Some awesome inflight footage set to Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms".

Musical note from the last days of ZBU, sung to "Let it Snow"

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
and we might have to deal with Eifel,
and the runway's kinda short,
ground abort, ground abort, ground abort.

Got really, really tired of closing up USAF Recce Sqns in Europe: had three - 17th TRS, 1stTRS, and 38th TRS

OH, BTW, personal best? 61,300+ ballistic after an FCF / Air Check mach run in W-177 off Charleston, SC in 1982.

[stuk]

I'm not, and never was anything to do with Phantoms but please excuse this interruption.
Were any of you lot amonsgt the Phantom chaps who used to fly over my house in Watton, near Eastern Radar, in the early 70s? The memsahib used to be attempting to put the first born to bed after his 9pm feed when one of your aircraft would wander in from the north east-ish, go over the Thetford battle area and drop some flashes which would go off with quite a bang. I believe there were supposed to be 6 but the odd occasion only 5 would go bang and leave the poor missus holding her breath waiting for the last one.
I of course would have been in the pub at Griston on the far side of the disused airfield watching you.

[johnfairr]

Stuk

You and the missus were right, it probably was 6! The Squadron, that is, pioneering night GA in the F-4 early 70s. Blaireau gives a terrific description of it back on page 13 of the thread.

Good to see you took the right course of action when it came to sorting the juniour Stuks out!

[soddim]

Not 6 - never used that area for night work. Had enough difficulty getting clearance to use lepus flares on Wainfleet and Otterburn. Curious that in both of those places where complaints could have been expected, there were none. Have to conclude that if you use 'pretty' parachute flares the public quite like it.

Maybe the flashes that went bang at Thetford were recce photoflashes?

Must say that in those days I would have preferred to also be in the pub at Griston - or another in lieu.

[Sadbloke]

Kato

I remember talking to a 'Colonial Cousin' at the final Brit F4 bash - did you have a bizillion hours F4 and were now consigned to flying tankers due a balls up in the USAF (or Reserve) ditching all your Mighty Steeds and deciding to make you airborne Gas stations (no offence Beags). I suspect from your username that any tanker hours were useful gaining access to Hostie-Land! As for ‘only Colonial’ – were there not lots in attendance? May be wrong as the end of Wattisham is mostly a vague haze!

[Prof Aviator]

A bit hazy myself but seem to remember several 'Phinal' bashes. The fine colonial fellows from the KC135 ANG came to the last mini tiger meet and, as you rightly say, had about 200 years experience of the F4 between them - I still have the tee shirt. I wasn't there for the last hangar bash (FI duty)- unless it was the one where the holding officer's car spontaneously combusted (again)- but I rememebr being told the Americans liked the floor show by the ladies folk group. The Brits chose that point to leave, obviously. Happy days.......once a Tiger etc

[Sadbloke]

Prof

Yer right – twas the Phinal ‘Tiger’ bash where the ANG shamed us with more ‘Thousand Hour’ F4 patches amongst the crew than we could raise on the sqn! Suspect Kato is talking of the ‘Dining In Night’ to say bye to the mighty Steed at which we flew over the pre drinks in Diamond Nine – seem to remember landing to dining in attired in No 5’s wuz under 30 mins! Not so long before we do the same for F4-1!!

[maxburner]

Can't help thinking that the F3 will fail to engender the sort of feelings associated with the F4, in spite of all the obvious advantages of the newer jet.

[dmanton300]

Please keep it going. As a lowly ex-precision machinist in the aerospace industry turned copper (don't spread it about on Jet Blast!) with an undying love for the F-4 this thread is like the best drug ever. I envy you one and all. . your crappest memories are the stuff of legend.. your best memories are sublime.

[soddim]

dmanton300,

By "lowly ex-precision machinist" I feel you do yourself a disservice - the F4 was one of the last of the precision machined fighters in the pure sense - none of the plastic and composites so evident in today's structures. It was probably the fact that the engineering was possible to understand and so basic and rugged that made it in every way a rewarding machine to fly. OK, there were 'black boxes' and a few plastic knobs and dials but when you climbed into it the cockpit felt like a real heavy engineering job built for large texans. I still have an outer wing locking pin that served for many years as a paperweight and it is a fine example of the machinists' skill.

Having flown the best fighters made in Britain from 1938 to the F3, I have to say the F4 ranks among the best and the people who shared that experience will probably agree.

[Dark Helmet]

dmanton300 and soddim

I have spoken in an earlier reply about my feelings for the F4. It was a horrible aircraft to work on but it was very strong!

There was nothing that couldn't be fixed with a pocket full of Jo-Bolts, a patch of L72 or titanium and a pack of Araldite!
I carried out my first pressurised area patch repair on an F4 (after an armourer had dropped a seat pan through the cockpit area outer skin!) using basic Riggering tools. It was great fun to do and I was really impressed when it passed a pressurisation test afterwards! (Good old PRC!)

I know from my experience on the Tornado that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to carry out any basic patching and fixing without specialist equipment and materials.

[Akrotiri bad boy]

The Toom certainly was a brute. I recall the delicate riggering equipment needed to change the cold air unit (R/H side, beneath fwd cockpit) included the following: jacking handle, sledgehammer, lashing tape, and a Land Rover.

[soddim]

Reminds me of the early mud moving days when the MJ4 loader was new tech to the armourers. The team had tried for ages to position the gun pod under the centreline without success when a very large armourer stepped forward and heaved it into place using his brute strength - so much for new technology!

[peterbuckstolemymeds]

My old man was Chief Tech at Leuchars in the sixties and was very fond of the Phantoms. Except "Juliet" which he used to claim was a complete lemon and was never out the hangar.

I believe someone told him late in his life that Juliet ended up in a museum near Edinburgh, don't know if that's true. Certainly seems like it was the right aircraft to retire early, if it's true.

[blaireau]

Dressed to kill

During a '75 cruise to Rio, where it was rumoured that the Sea Lords were trying to pursuade the Brazilians to buy our decrepit boat as a relacement for their even more decrepit vessel, we exercised with the Brazilian Navy. Other than the '77 Spithead Review, this was the greatest number of warships I ever saw in close proximity.
During one ADEX, a foul deck neccessitated one of our F4's diverting ashore to Bahia where it was to overnight with a minor snag. Funny thing that!
The boss asked me to pack a grip for Hungry Joe the Observer, a USN Exchange Officer, and also one of my cabin mates. (At that time all squadron members had nicknames from Catch 22). Hungry Joe by his own assessment was a snappy dresser in the Great Gatsby style, but by the assessment of others resembled an explosion in a theatrical costumiers.
Accordingly, I packed what I considered to be an ensemble in the worst possible taste. This included his white golf shoes, yellow full length socks, green tartan plus fours, blue and white striped shirt, purple bow tie and a royal blue suit jacket. This all went ashore with the ground party in an SAR chopper.
The following morning, HJ's F4 hooked on with the first recovery and out stepped a beaming HJ wearing this lot. According to the pilot, he had been delighted on receiving this combination and had worn it with considerable pride in the hotel.
We all had a good time in Rio, other than our Admiral (FOCAS) who never had a good time, but the ship remained unsold and was eventually scrapped in late '78.

[la calda]

Can someone tell me the exact time and date the first F4 for RAF service arrived here? I have memories as a kid of being taken to the runway at Leuchars to see it land. My recollection is sometime in 1967. Can't be any more specific than that, though I do remember it was on a Sunday afternoon as we'd just had our lunch. Up to then all we'd had were Lightnings to ogle, and the odd Whirlwind flying out over St Andrews to rescue stranded yachtsmen.

Whilst on the subject of memories, can anyone shed light on the record breaking flight Coningsby to Singapore by two F4s from, I think, 41 sqn. They took bags of post office first day covers as it was the first time that flight had been done non-stop. The logistics must have been incredible, seven refuellings is my memory (or did I just dream it all?!).

[johnfairr]

la calda

According to one of my books of words on the F4, the Phantom FGR2, first entered RAF squadron service with 6 Sqn, re-formed at Coningsby on 7 May 1969. Obviously there was an OCU formed prior to that (228).

The FG1 first entered RAF service when 43 Sqn re-formed at Leuchars on 1 Sep 69.

These are dates for entry into service, ie declared on the Battle Order, so there would have been much work-up performed before that which is probably when you saw them.

The FG1 OCU function was performed by 767 Naval Air Squadron at Yeovilton, who trained both RN and RAF crew for the FG1. This unit was formed on 14 Jan 1969 and disbanded in 1972. Any crew going to 43 after then had, in effect, two OCUs, one at Coningsby on the FGR2 and a conversion to the FG1 on the squadron at Leuchars.

Hope this helps

jf

[soddim]

The first FGR2 squadron was Shiny 6 and they took that identity early in 1969 from 6 Sqn Canberras during their OCU course to maintain the unbroken service record of 6 Squadron - looks like history is to repeat itself when 6 Jaguar Squadron moves to Coningsby, presumably to seamlessly become 6 Squadron with Typhoons.

I remember, I think, that 43 Squadron formed with FG1s just a little later at Leuchars, but it might have been earlier.

The non-stop Singapore trip was flown by 54 Squadron who then held the London-Singapore record for a few hours until British Airways (or was it BOAC then?) beat it the following day. They didn't need to go so far to stay within the dip clearance rules. Not sure how many refuellings they did but it was about 15 hours. I did the trip a much better way earlier than them, staging overnight in Kokinelli land, Dubai and Gan. Short range bladders most fighter pilots.

[blaireau]

Seem to recall it was about 15h 6m. The a/c flew in pairs and if memory serves, the two pilots were Harry Davidson and John Walmesley.

The non-stop was only done the once, and thereafter the journey was broken at either Dubai or Masirah. The legs were about 7.5-8 hrs.

First refuelling was overhead Coningsby to prove the system. Subsequent plugs were just north of Nice, overhead Malta, 200 west of Cyprus, Lake Van and then land. Continuing east, plugs were around Masirah, 500 east of Masirah, 500 west of Gan, 500 east of Gan and finally about 1.5 hrs before Tengah and the cold Tigers.

Needless to say, this was an epic planning exercise, particularly for the tankers of 55 and 57 Sqns who were prepositioning and highly critical in terms of performance out of the hot airfields. Mk I Victors were entertaining to watch as they took off out of Masirah. It took tankers to refuel tankers to get in position with enough fuel for us. Still, it was all good practice for the Falklands. It was only in later years I learned about Perf A.

I recall being led on the Dubai-Tengah leg by the CO who's Nav, aptly nick-named Pathfinder, was determined to veer well off to the north of track convinced of his navigational skills. Calls of "Close it up" from the leader were ignored. (My back seater was quite sharp). Eventually, they disappeared from sight. Some time later, we picked up the tanker on the Tacan air-to-air and duly RV'd for a prod. The Boss turned up a little later and took on more than 22000 lbs. Since the total capacity was little more than that, it can be assumed that his guages before plugging in did not make a pretty sight. It was only in later years that I learned about ETOPS.

[air-hag]

north of Nice, overhead Malta, 200 west of Cyprus, Lake Van and then land. Continuing east, plugs were around Masirah, 500 east of Masirah, 500 west of Gan, 500 east of Gan and finally about 1.5 hrs before Tengah

and you still remember all that?