Last of flying F-4 Phantoms
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LVSteve
Member
I'm guessing Greece.
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Thanks for sharing this. My dad worked at the St. Louis McDonald-Douglas plant in the early-to-mid 1960's.
His job title was "precision sheet metal worker" and he got to do some of the hands-on-work assembling the F4's and the Mercury space capsules for NASA.
Those were some VERY exciting times to be in the aerospace industry.
His job title was "precision sheet metal worker" and he got to do some of the hands-on-work assembling the F4's and the Mercury space capsules for NASA.
Those were some VERY exciting times to be in the aerospace industry.
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Thanks for sharing……and the memories….
F4phantom
US Veteran
From sometime in 1967 at Chu Lai. For me it was one heck of a bird. Standing directly behind the plane, there was silence. The engines were counter-rotating and cancelled each other. I was told that coming in low and fast the VC never knew what hit them until the plane roared past. I worked on everything in the nose of the plane. The Navy classified it as an Aviation Fire Control Technician.
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JcMack
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A good friend of mine thru my teen years achieved a goal I could only dream about. He wound up a Marine Captain and flew F4's in the Viet Nam era. He told me the first time they launched him off a carrier deck he almost crapped his suit. I assume it was in an F4.
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Quite a crowd to watch! I think there are some others still flying them. Iran comes to mind.
I noticed these F4's didn't leave a black trail of smoke coming
out of the engines. Did they modify the engines?
out of the engines. Did they modify the engines?
Sadly I have no pictures of myself with the F-4's I worked on as a weapons mechanic in the 349th MMS...
...Ben
...Ben
I got to FIGHTER SQUADRON 202 at NAS DALLAS 5 months after they got rid of the last F-4s in the NAVY and got F-14s. that was March 1988
There were many great aircraft flying in the Vietnam War but the two real work horses, in my mind, at least, were the UH-1 and the F-4.
I got to NAS Dallas in 1992 (on the "other side"). It was all Tom Cats for you guys then.
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I thought maybe South Korea had some too but it seems they just retired them weeks ago. Maybe Turkey has some?
‘There won’t be another like it’: South Korean F-4 Phantom IIs drop final bombs before retirement | Stars and Stripes
‘There won’t be another like it’: South Korean F-4 Phantom IIs drop final bombs before retirement | Stars and Stripes
Tom Kent
US Veteran
As a grunt, I had two memorable experiences with Phantoms. In the Dominican Republic in 1965 the Dominican Air Force sent two Vampire jets over our territory. The Vampires were immediately joined by four Phantoms,one at the rear of each Vampire and one at the wingtip. The six aircraft apparently reached a meeting of the minds and headed out of our AOR. The other story I will save for later.
I was stationed out of Danang, RVN and never knew a moment when either an F4 or Huey were in the air. It didn't dawn on me until I got home and after a few days of feeling like something was missing in my life heard an incoming Huey working for LifeFlight go nearby to the local hospital...It was much more Huey's than F4's but still a constant racket which probably allowed us to sleep at night. We had a Marine Corp's helicopter base directly across the road from our main base of operations which used to be a large Naval hospital. Our main gripe with their operations was that whenever Charlie decided to mortar or rocket the Marines we caught their short rounds. At the time I was there the USS Sanctuary was anchored out in the harbor, it took the place of the out of date Naval Hospital we now occupied. It was kept busy with life flights, Navy security was in the same building when I worked at Harbormaster, most of the time they were quiet, one day there was a bustle of activity and guys were running out the doors to our observation deck. I went out to see what the fuss was and there was a flight of medivac choppers dropping off wounded and one bird was coming in smoking, the pilot got right up to the Sanctuary, clearly in distress from all the smoke. We could see wounded guys being dropped followed by guys in helmets, then the pilot swung the bird out and away from the ship so he could ditch in the water when Boom, she went up in the fireball. Most heroic thing I ever saw.
Almost Got Run Over By An F-4
I was climbing out of An Loc with a brand new Peter Pilot. When ever we went anywhere we had to call the appropriate Arty center to avoid flying through a GT line or an air strike. The FNG had been doing pretty well so i quit monitoring him when he made his call coming out of An Loc. At about 500' here comes an F-4 right at us, pulling out of a napalm run. It was close. Then I saw his wingman diving towards the flames that just erupted on the ground in front of us. I rolled that D model Huey hard right and headed for the trees. Once we were safely away from the strike I asked the guy what Arty said. He says there was an airstrike at coordinates blah blah blah. I said yea, that was it. That was the closest I ever want to see the belly of an F-4. I could have counted the rivets on that thing. I have no idea if he saw us. I'm sure it was pretty busy in their cockpit.
I still loved those Phantoms.
I was climbing out of An Loc with a brand new Peter Pilot. When ever we went anywhere we had to call the appropriate Arty center to avoid flying through a GT line or an air strike. The FNG had been doing pretty well so i quit monitoring him when he made his call coming out of An Loc. At about 500' here comes an F-4 right at us, pulling out of a napalm run. It was close. Then I saw his wingman diving towards the flames that just erupted on the ground in front of us. I rolled that D model Huey hard right and headed for the trees. Once we were safely away from the strike I asked the guy what Arty said. He says there was an airstrike at coordinates blah blah blah. I said yea, that was it. That was the closest I ever want to see the belly of an F-4. I could have counted the rivets on that thing. I have no idea if he saw us. I'm sure it was pretty busy in their cockpit.
I still loved those Phantoms.
