Is The F-4 Phantom Still In Service

F-4s at Arizona'south Davis-Monthan Air Forcefulness Base of operations, the warplane retirement domicile. Marking Bennett

The F-4 Phantom 2 lives. But the life it leads today is an odd one.

It still flies in other countries; in northern Iraq, for example, the Turks employ it in combat with the Kurds. Only in the United States, it leads a twilight existence. Information technology'south a warplane, merely it no longer fights. Its mission is weapons testing, but no pilot flies it. More often than not, y'all'll find these F-4s either sitting in the desert or lying at the bottom of the sea.

The F-4 entered service in 1960, flight for the U.S. Navy. Later studying its potential for close air support, interdiction, and counter-air operations, the Air Forcefulness added the F-4 to its armada in 1963. Eventually the Phantom ended up even in the U.S. Marine Corps' inventory. In four decades of agile service to the The states, the shipping prepare xvi world operation records. It downed more adversaries (280 claimed victories) than any other U.South. fighter in the Vietnam State of war. Two decades later, information technology flew combat missions in Desert Storm.

In 1996 the shipping was retired from the U.S. fleet. Only the venerable McDonnell design has one concluding mission to perform for the military: to go down in flames.

Since 1991,  254 Phantoms have served every bit unpiloted flight targets for missile and gun tests conducted nigh Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and Holloman Air Force Base of operations in New United mexican states. The use of F-4 drones (designated QF-4s) is expected to keep until 2014.

When an airframe is needed for target duty, 1 is pulled from storage at Davis-Monthan Air Strength Base in the Arizona desert. The airframe is given refurbished engines and instruments, and so sent to Mojave Airport in California. There, BAE Systems turns the aircraft into remote-controlled drones, installing radio antennas and modifying the flight controls, throttles, landing gear, and flaps.

QF-iv production examination airplane pilot Bob Kay is responsible for testing the converted shipping, so flying them from Mojave to Tyndall and Holloman. Kay has been captivated past the F-iv since the age of seven, when his father took him to an airshow. "I saw a Navy A-three refueling ii Phantoms as they flew over and then depression and with that racket," he says. "That's all I remember of that airshow, but I knew I wanted to fly that fighter."

I inquire if he has whatsoever 2nd thoughts about being part of a system that destroys an plane he loves, an aviation fable.

He thinks for a moment, then says, "What better mode is at that place for a warrior to finish its life than to get down in a blaze of glory?"

The Phantom has been called  "double ugly," "rhino," "old smokey," and monikers even less flattering. The design does take its share of ungainly bends and angles. The horizontal stabilizers droop 23.25 degrees. The outer wing sections tilt upward 12 degrees. When an engineer looks information technology over, the first thing that probably comes to mind is "stability and control bug." A brutal example of that weakness occurred during a May 18, 1961 speed record attempt. While Navy test pilot Commander J.L. Felsman flew below 125 feet over a 3-mile course, his F-4 experienced pitch damper failure. The resulting pilot-induced oscillation generated over 12 Gs. Both engines were ripped from the airframe and Felsman was killed. (A afterward attempt succeeded.)

Command sensitivity varies widely. It takes full aft stick to raise the nose for takeoff, yet at certain fuel loadings and at speeds just above Mach 0.9 at depression altitude, moving the stick merely one inch can produce six Gs on the airframe. At in a higher place Mach two, on the other manus, the shock moving ridge that is created moves the center of elevator so far aft that pulling the stick all the manner back produces only about two Gs.

With all its peculiarities and faults, legions take had beloved/hate relationships with the shipping. "The F-4 is the last of the fighter airplane pilot's fighters," says BAE's Bob Kay. "You accept to wing the F-4." It has none of the bells and whistles of adjacent-generation fighters. Instead of the multi-function flight displays found in modern fighters, the cockpit instruments are "steam gauges"—round dials with needles. It has an inertial navigation arrangement, best described as cranky. There is no flight management system, no GPS, no Electronic Flight Musical instrument Organisation (EFIS), and no "Bitching Betty" voice system to alert the pilot to hazards. You have to navigate, flop, shoot missiles, fire the gun, look for issues, and evaluate every one of those actions instrument by instrument. For the pilot, this means a lot of fourth dimension is spent caput downwardly, analyzing musical instrument data; in modern aircraft, on the other hand, much of the information is presented compactly, in caput-up displays in a higher place the instrument panel.

My affair with the Phantom began upon graduation from pilot training in 1964, when I landed a bout in the Air Force F-4C. Though the Navy and Marine Corps assigned radar operators to the "pit," as we referred to the second seat, the Air Force thought information technology would be more effective to use the configuration for 2 pilots. Wrong. No true fighter pilot chooses to serve as

copilot. The consignment was akin to a shotgun marriage. For 2 years I languished six feet behind my more experienced comrades, calling off altimeter readings as they bombed, strafed, and fired rockets in training exercises on the gunnery range. Backseaters had to beg, cajole, and whine for stick time, and when nosotros got it, we found that every aspect of flying the F-4 from the rear cockpit was a nightmare. The meager instruments were placed haphazardly in a straight line across the panel. The useless clock and G-meter were located in the center. Why? Because they fit there! Instrument approaches gave you a migraine. And to spot the rail, yous had to peer through a knothole on either side of the cockpit, which made landing from the pit an run a risk, especially with a crosswind.

Front-seaters were not always thrilled with the F-4 either. In 1972, during his second tour in Vietnam, U.S. Air Strength Major Dan Cherry, at present a retired brigadier full general, flew 185 combat missions in the Phantom; today he recalls: "The F-4 cockpit was uncomfortable, the instruments were poorly bundled, crew coordination was a hassle, it was ugly, and it used fuel similar nobody's business."

Crews that flew the airplane for the Navy had their ain share of issues. Past 1966 the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign waged past the Navy and Air Force had really heated upwardly. Large formations of fighter-bombers were hit targets in the Hanoi area daily. That year Commander Dick Adams' squadron flew combat in F-4s off the carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. Each Phantom launched from the Rosie'southward short catapult with four 500-pound and four 1,000-pound bombs, plus an empty centerline tank, which was refueled during climbout. Before a carrier landing, Phantoms had to reach a certain landing weight; landing heavy would overstress the arresting cables. For this carrier, the F-four was a heavy aircraft, and as such could try an approach with fuel for only one or ii attempts. On the 1966 cruise, one of the squadron jets on a landing effort was waved off, and when the pilot ran out of fuel before completing a second pattern, the engines flamed out and the aircraft went deep-six. The crew survived.

In March 1966, I was told that if I agreed to take a combat tour, I'd become the front seat. Are you kidding?  I fabricated my showtime forepart-seat flying at MacDill Air Force Base of operations in Florida. I still remember it: a gunnery mission. And oh, the visibility from the front

chair! My landing was the smoothest of "grease jobs." At that moment, the shotgun marriage turned into a love affair.

After passing my checkout flight, I was stationed at Ubon Air Base of operations in Thailand, a member of the 555th—"Triple Nickle"—Squadron in Colonel Robin Olds' famed Eighth Wing.

At Ubon, the F-4 was all things to all people. I squadron flew merely at nighttime, popping flares and dropping bombs. The other two squadrons flew both day and dark, dive-bombing bridges, strafing basis targets, rocketing truck parks, and tangling with the e'er-elusive MiGs over Hanoi.

On October 11, 1966, I discovered how tough the Phantom was. An 85-mm round blew a iv-pes section off my right engine, and the shipping caught fire. Still, it held together through the 400 miles dorsum to Ubon.

Past the end of 1966, the Phantom had revealed a host of shortcomings. Number one was the dismal tape of missile hits confronting the Northward Vietnamese MiG-17s and MiG-21s. The AIM-7 radar-guided missile had a probability of kill below 10 per centum. Richard Keyt, who flew F-4s for the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron during the Vietnam War, recalls: "Our missiles were designed to piece of work in a non-maneuvering environment—a non-turning, 1-Grand shot at the bomber target flying straight and level at loftier distance." The reality: "F-4s fired in high-G turns at small MiGs that were turning difficult and pulling Gs." To remedy the problem, the Air Force expanded its Weapons Arrangement Evaluation Program (WSEP) at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Combat crews were given practise in firing missiles at towed radar-reflective targets.

My backseater, First Lieutenant Jerry K. Sharp, and I took part in that do over the South China Sea in December 1966, scoring a hit. On January 2, 1967, we used the skills we had honed in that do when nosotros merged with a flight of iv MiG-21s that were turning hard to get at us. Sharp got a radar lock-on while under heavy Gs. Then I centered the steering dot, fired two AIM-7s, and watched as the second missile exploded and tore the tail section from the MiG in front of us.

For other F-4 shortcomings, the military contracted out quick fixes. Modifications included the installation of Radar Homing and Warning (RHAW) gear—a cockpit organization that alerted pilots when their aircraft was being tracked by anti-aircraft-artillery radars or surface-to-air-missile sites. As well added were radar jamming pods, plus chaff and flare dispensers used in combination to confuse tracking radars and to dupe radar-guided or heat-seeking missiles.

The C variant had a number of design issues; one of the biggest was lack of a gun. The rules of engagement over Vietnam required that an adversary be identified visually before a missile could exist fired at it. The MiGs were minor, and to make the ID, shooters had to get close, frequently much less than the minimum distance that the AIM-7 radar-guided and AIM-9B oestrus-seeking missiles required to hit a target. At short range, "if you didn't have a gun, yous couldn't shoot down anything," says Rich­ard Keyt. The quick set was the SUU-16/A gun pod with the M61A1 20-mm cannon.

But without a lead-computing sight and with no tracer armament, F-4C pilots were denied the visual cues needed to correct aiming errors. Then, in 1967, the F-4D arrived. The D model introduced a lead-computing optical sight for apply with the gun pod. In addition, the normal ammunition load now included tracers.

On Nov half dozen, 1967, the gunfighter Phantom proved its worth. Captain Darrell "D" Simmonds and Starting time Lieutenant George H. McKinney Jr. were escorting a flight of F-105s that came under attack by two MiG-17s. "We picked up the MiG-17s visually that were shooting at the Thuds [F-105s]," says Simmonds. "I was able to make it in that location and maneuvered for a perfect 'uphill dart' shot. I hit him, came aslope, and looked at him, and he looked at me, so ejected just before the plane striking the copse." McKinney spotted another MiG-17 and Simmonds swung into a difficult turn, accelerating as he lined up for the shot. "We were close, but I didn't desire to miss the opportunity," the pilot remembers. "I fired and he blew up." Later on, Simmonds realized: "We had used simply 497 rounds for the 2 kills—less than five seconds of firing."

The D model, however, was not a catholicon. "The guns on the D hung externally, on the centerline, and that created drag," says Keyt. As for the missiles, the underperforming AIM-9B was abandoned for the Hughes AIM-4D Falcon. Designed to bring downwardly strategic bombers, it required cooling of the seeker caput prior to launch and needed a straight hitting to score a kill. Every bit pilots constitute out during what became known as the "Falcon Fiasco," it came up short in a dogfight. Major James R. Chamberlain, a backseater stationed with the "Gunfighters"—the 366th Tactical Fighter Fly at Da Nang—notes, "The biggest problem with the AIM-4D was the limited amount of cooling time bachelor [two minutes or less], which meant that the missile could not be pre-cooled for a quicker lock-on. And, in one case bachelor liquid nitrogen was consumed, the missile was a blind, expressionless bullet—derisively called the 'Hughes Arrow.' " After firing four of the missiles in combat without success, Robin Olds insisted the missiles toll him his fifth kill. He ordered them removed from his armada.

The Air Force soon trashed the AIM-4D. Newer Sidewinders were substituted. The military also recognized the benefits of an internal gun: The F-4E, introduced in 1967,  had an M-61A cannon mounted beneath a solid-state AN/APQ-120 radar, both inside the aircraft nose. During the time Richard Keyt's 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron was based at Korat air base in Thailand,  five squadron aircrews were credited with MiG kills, and four used the internal gun.

In 1973, during my third tour in Southeast Asia, I was assigned to the early Eastward model. It was a dream to wing, not just because of the improvements made in gun and missile engineering but likewise because the Air Strength had realized the folly of putting two pilots in a fighter. Later 1967, well-nigh all the GIBs—guys in back—were either navigators or radar intercept operators.

The follow-on Es brought enhancements: A horizontal tailplane with a stock-still inverted slat gave improved control at high angles of attack. Leading-edge slats on the wings enabled tighter turns at ho-hum maneuvering speeds. A Northrop system called TISEO (target identification system, electro-optical) identified airborne targets.

By the time my terminal tour was up, in 1974, a fleet of Phantom variants had safely taken me through a gauntlet of fire and flight experiences that would constitute the greatest adventures of my life.

Iii-plus decades later, I was once over again in the company of Phantoms. This time the setting was the tarmac at Tyndall.

The commander of the 82nd Aerial Target and Recovery Squadron, which conducts the drone shootdowns, is Lieutenant Colonel J.D. "Bare" Lee. A onetime F-16 airplane pilot, Lee too has 1,500 hours in the Phantom. He still recalls the get-go time he took to the air in ane. "I was shocked at how much more difficult it was to fly than I thought information technology would be," he told me. "When I got home, I told my wife, 'I think I just traded in a Porsche for a '72 Cadillac.' "

At whatsoever i fourth dimension, a total of up to lxxx F-4s are stationed at Tyndall and at Lee's Holloman detachment in New United mexican states. Twenty-one Phantoms sabbatum on a ramp called the Swamp, awaiting movement to Death Row, the property area for the soon-to-be targets.

At mid-afternoon the drone mission briefing took place. The coming together included the drone "fliers," Lockheed Martin personnel headed past pilot/controller Matt

LaCourse. "Today's mission is in support of WSEP, and so there'll exist a lot of shooters out there," said Lee. "WSEP" is the same Weapons System Evaluation Program I had participated in four decades before in Vietnam, when I'd practiced shooting at towed targets from F-4s. At present the F-4 was the target.

LaCourse explained that 4 F-22 Raptors would each fire the latest AIM-120 air-to-air missile. The shooters and chase plane would have off from the main runway, while the drone used a strip three miles east.

Most Phantoms current of air up in the Gulf of Mexico within one to three missions. But not all: Ane, nicknamed "Christine," after the Stephen King book and film about a crazed automobile with a heed of its own, had survived ten missions. Another, "Son of Christine," has come back from 12 sorties, the electric current record.

Some drone missions are not meant to be shootdowns: The Phantom is loaded with missile jammers, and missiles without warheads are fired against the craft to test how well the jamming works. Other Phantoms are spruced up with Vietnam War-era camouflage and flown to airshows.

One Phantom was saved past its quondam airplane pilot. On Apr sixteen, 1972, Dan Cherry, flight an F-4D, had scored a victory over a North Vietnamese Mig-21. Thirty-two years later, during a trip with friends to the National Museum of the Air Forcefulness in Dayton, Ohio, Ruby encountered the shipping he had flown that mean solar day. Information technology was on display in the fiddling town of Enon, exterior Dayton.

"In spite of her flat tires, weeds growing upward all around, bird debris everywhere, and faded grayness pigment, she was beautiful," he recalls. "Walking around her and answering my friend'due south questions made me realize how much I loved her and how much I owed her for taking such skillful intendance of me. All of a sudden all those things that seemed similar negatives before paled in comparison to the stiff bond I felt at that moment." Crimson took on the task of relocating the aircraft to the Aviation Heritage Park in Bowling Greenish, Kentucky, where it was restored and is now displayed. So he decided to acquire about the pilot of the MiG he had shot down. (Cherry'due south story virtually coming together his old enemy in Vietnam volition appear in a future issue of Air & Space/Smithsonian.)

At Tyndall, the heat and humidity hit my face similar a wet washcloth. The van commuter took us from Death Row to the end of the rails, where F-4E tail number 73-1165 was positioned most twenty feet to the right of the rail centerline.

I asked if I could approach the shipping. My unit escort, Major Kevin Brackin, obtained permission. I got out of the van and walked beyond the concrete. When I reached the aircraft, I placed my hand on the radome. Because of the deject embrace, the nose was warm to the touch, not the usual egg-frying hot. The Phantom felt alive.

I felt a moving ridge of dread. Inside minutes this magnificent motorcar might be in pieces at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

A photograph was taken, and I headed back to the van to heed to the radio churr.

Lee says information technology cost the Air Strength $2.6 meg to get the aircraft from the boneyard in Tucson to the runway at Tyndall. Is it worth it? "The F-4E has the built-in power to launch flares and chaff and can bear an assortment of jamming pods, all of which put our latest weapon systems through their near rigorous tests," says Lee. Had nosotros taken the time to exam our missiles properly in the early 1960s, the Vietnam air state of war might accept turned out like the one over Baghdad: a clean sweep.

We positioned ourselves behind the drone to await the launch order. Both engines were started. The awning was airtight, and the cocky-destruct bomb was armed for use in example the drone went out of command. Finally, the intake screens in front of the engine inlets were removed.

And then came an ominous ground transmission: The "shooter aircraft have problems," and a storm cell had slung cloud

layers over a wide swath of heaven. We sabbatum and waited.

Finally, after a 15-minute delay, the mission was ordered back on.

The drone launch order was shortly passed, and the operators got the Phantom rolling. LaCourse fabricated a correction to get the aircraft precisely on centerline equally both afterburners lit. Fifteen seconds later, I watched the pilotless aircraft take off.

The F-4 proceeded out over the gulf. The offset shipping fired its missile. The ground controller monitoring the telemetry radioed the air crews: "No hit."

The Phantom flew on.

My emotions tangled: I wanted the aircraft to survive, but I also wanted information technology to fulfill its intended mission.

The 4 F-22 Raptors spread out. Each launched a missile. Over the radio we heard "Fox-four"—all shooters had fired.

Then: "Splash." A directly hit.

Brackin and I walked dorsum to the van and got in. Brackin was staring straight ahead. And then he turned to me. "So at present yous know," he said, grinning. "Information technology takes four Raptors to kill an F-four."

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Is The F-4 Phantom Still In Service,

Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/where-have-all-the-phantoms-gone-96320627/

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