PPRuNe Forums - The F4 vs Modern Fighters

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RAFENG, perhaps THE most memorial last flight I witnessed was carried out by a pilot who overflew the groundcrew soft/HPS at the northern has site leu 86-88ish.
Nothing remarkable you might think, but the rest of the days sorties had been cancelled due to the low cloudbase/clag setteling in, nothing new there you also might think, but the aircraft landed with a number of us pneumatic flight instruments and we all felt rather than heard the shock wave as it just cleared the top of the hps in the clag, going like the hounds of hell were at it's jet pipes!

The pilot was always a true gent to us groundcrew, he was of asian origin.

I'm late to this one but I'll add my "two pennorth"

The F4 isn't and never was a "dogfighter" - BCM, ACM, WIVR; call it what you will. It can cope in those environments but it depended on good front seaters and, equally good back seaters to play with the kit.

What it comes down to is how good was the weapons system at each stage of its development. My time was great. I flew the aircraft at its peak. It had been introduced to service, the engines were by then working and a few people actually knew how to fight the jet properly. The MCS serviceability was terrible until the reliability package arrived in the early 80s but that was another issue.

The key to all tactics is having a bigger "stick". If your Sparrow is longer range than your opponents Atoll and it works, you win. End of story. No fighter pilot enters a close engagement through choice - F22, F15, Su27 F3, F4.....

So lets look at maturity

Mid to late 70s. A multi role aircraft with a PD radar that gave true look down-shoot down against opponents such as the Mig 21, Mig 23 and soviet bombers. It was training against USAF F4Es, F104s and F5s. Even the USAF didn't have a PD equipped fighter and anyone who's used a pulse set at low level knows how much of a challenged that is; MTI or no. At the time the Fox 1 was discounted so the F4, despite the fact it may have already achieved a "kill", was sucked into an environment it didn't enjoy. The bad news was that despite the head-on option, quite often, ROE meant that the head on shot could not be employed so a visual ident sucked you into a turning fight. Bad news.

Early 80s. The advent of Mig 29 and Su27 (and F15/F16 as blue opponents) in RAFG meant the jet was out-performed but not necessarily out-ranged. Given decent ROE, the jet would have coped. Trouble was the lack of positive identification from the ground meant that the VID was king. VID equalled "eyeballs on" so turning fights were the order of the day. That made the Wildenrath Wing operate at 250ft every day of the week. No one was better down low - so tactics made up for ROE. If the bad guys came in higher we had the look up shot. Come up in height and the scales balanced. Come up to medium level and the fight was lost as airframe deficiencies outweighed pilot/navigator skills. Ok so I discounted the "M1.3 guns a blazin" through the fight option.

Late 80s. The jet wasn't upgraded. Sparrow was too short in range, Skyflash was better but out ranged by later "soviet" missiles. Endex. The myth that the F4 was better than the F3 was just that until the advent of medium level ops. SA was just a quantum leap forward in the F3. An art became a science.

The German F4F with APG65 and AMRAAM was an improvement but never quite matched AI24 and AMRAAM/JTIDS although J79 at height was way better than RB199.

The F3 was great once it was developed to the point when the radar did what it was supposed to do and the weapons (AMRAAM and ASRAAM) allowed JTIDS to get the aircraft into a firing position. Up to that point it was only gaining a reputation that it never really deserved given its role. It never had the charisma of the F4 though.

In short, the airframe is never the driver although F22 and Typhoon go a long way to fixing most of the problems I lived with.

And forget the detail it was just a great jet:

UK Tornado F3 Videos :: 56Handover.mp4 video by DeeGee - Photobucket

Forgive the tangent, came across this fascinating shot on airliners.net. Its almost like a parrallel universe.

Iranian 747 tanker

Right, back to lurking.

Geehovah : I concur, this is a pretty comprehensive and accurate summation. I would add, in regard to 2 guys in an airframe such as F4 v single seat, information overload pre-merge could really screw up the single seat guys. Such a study was done at Deci mid-80s vs F15s with behavioral psychologists or similar , and F4s (F4Js)came out of different scenarios quite well, and certainly way better than the 'book' capabilities then predicted.

Great thread. Found this late but...for my two pennies worth..

reg. Boyd: he hated the Phantom (" with enough power a plane may even fly sideways" etc).

Somehow he wasn't in harmony with some of the top folks at USN. He himself WAS an FWS instructor at Nellis who wrote the book (on air combat) and apparently he was considered unbeatable. A USMC Capt (Hal Vincent) is said to have fought him to a draw but not many others.

Still he got into a shouting match with Phantom God, Lt Mel Holmes (the 1st Topgun instructor who also wrote the first book on Phantom fighting in '69), as the latter thought that EM was great but it all basically boiled down to the pilot. And Holmes.. was one of those who could bend that phantom against a glider it seems...using spins to turn quicker in a slow fight etc...

Still a number of people have said that the Mig-21 was preferable and indeed a yardstick for that is in Steve Davies' book where the exceptional 4477th Red Eagle pilots would typically beat all comers on Day 1, be they F-14s, F-15s etc..All the hotshotS that have flown the Phantom said that it was at least the equal of the Mig-21 (even if some of them would have preferred the Mig-21!). Depends on version as well, as when the americans got hold of the F-4S version with the slats, that took some of the magic out of fighting the Phantom and turned it a bit more into a dogfighter...

Why would a Phantom get into a dogfight against an agile thing? I doubt if an F16 or an F3 could catch the thing in a straight line .... could they? Provided that declining combat is regarded as a draw then the result is by no means certain, IMHO.

An F16 no, but an F3 I think could - although only one of those is an agile aeroplane...

50k overtake is perfectly adequate provided the F4 didn't go in to the vertical.

The F4 was a bit of a rhino at 750 kts at low level. With a low wing loading, the F16 would be even worse. One thing the F3 did well was go very quickly in a straight line. With the wings back 850 kts at low level was no problem. On delivery flights from the factory (under AWFL) most of us checked out the "clean wing performance". And very impressive it was too. In contrast, the F4 broke your false teeth and made you deaf at that speed!

I suspect the F3 is quicker Block 1 & 2, but probably not 3 (unsure about that one). I once had a race with a German F4 low level over the sea whilst on TLP. He had me initially, but I overtook as we got....err....quite quick. As the F3 is faster than the GR1 (as it was then), I guess it's faster than the F4. Not that it matters.

Clean F-16C: 840+ kts
Clean F-14A+/B/D: possible more
F-111 great but not sure how great, and..
they say the MIG-23 (ot sure of versions) could probably do 900kts :ok: (there wasn't much else it could do well apparently).

900 kts in a MiG-23?

Dammit, have that tickle in nose.... ah ah ah CHOO PITCH ROLL TUMBLE FIRE FIRE FIRE....

Teej's fourth picture...

What's that round thing sticking out the front of the leading edge?

TISEO - Target Identification System, Electro-Optical? Was fitted on USAF and a number of export customer jets but probably something else on this operators a/c.

I recall a conversation with one of the Phantom crew down south, front or back seat, I can't remember, but we discussed the requirement for visual ID negating the F4's combat advantage, and it seems there was a cunning plan.

Ignore it.

There was a cunning plan - a telescope was mounted on the side of the fuselage but it didn't work well at all in the dark or in cloud!

That was TESS - brain child of 56(F)'s very talented QWI(N). An ex-Chieftain tank (I understand) telescopic sight system fitted to the left front of the navigator's canopy structure (not the foldy-uppy bit):

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a341/nw969/TESS.jpg

I gather it worked well within its daylight / clear of cloud limitations and was vastly cheaper than TISEO.