And who said the F-4 Phantom is obsolete?

[RED]

Russia would not like to mess with todays Turkish Phantoms!

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/r...ht-211834.html

[Allen]

I think we gave our last 26 F-4's to Turkey for letting us use their airstrips, fuel and etc during the Desert Storm war. When the conflict was over, rather than fly them back to the U.S. we gifted them to Turkey and got out of the F-4 business. This out of memory from watching the nightly news at the time.

The only downside I've ever heard about on these planes was the fuel mileage being poor.

[barretcreek]

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...antom-history/

More fan mail.

[bruce]

F-4 was doubtless useful in its day. Much better planes in the current inventory. Sincerely. bruce.

[PWC]

But an F4 loaded with bombs or napalm sure looked good from below when your buttons were keeping you too high off the ground.

[dryheat]

I thought it was one of the coolest planes ever. That and the F-111. And the F-104 and the 105 and the 102... Worst(for looks) that I worked on? F-9 Cougar. Even though it had the F-4 look sort of, it wasn't streamlined and had that Guppy look.

Forgot to mention; Israel. Real doubtful that the Turks could figure that stuff out themselves. They can copy some things but not do stuff like that. How did they pay for all that tech? Well, they are part of NATO... the lower part.

[Allen]

Agree with you on the F-111.

[RED]

Agree with you on the F-111.

I had the pleasure of crawling around in and on a F-111B (Navy model) in 1968 (there were only 2 made at that time, 7 total). I was a new Ltjg and my only experience on a carrier was on The Enterprise, but even then I could see why it would not be suitable for carrier operations. It was just too big. The main landing gear were attached to a block of medal that looked like it would weigh 3X more than the struts on the F-4. I was appointed by our CO to fly with a Rear Admiral. NOT a good thing, his guy probably had not flown a F-4 in months and we were going to fly to the Raytheon Plant in Massachusetts and then on into Andrews AFB. When we got to DC it was getting dark and there was sleet and fog barely within the vision and ceiling limits and he said "I'm not going to use the drag chute, because you would have repack it in all this wet weather." I replied, "I can manage it sir!"

Bottom line he did not use it, we landed fast and long, blew out a tire, and had to take the overrun gear. It took nearly a week until a crew could flew up from NAS Oceana to fix the tire and I was stuck with very little money and one change of underwear. If only he hadn't been trying to be such a nice guy...

[barretcreek]

It was just too big.

What about a Vigilante?

Dryheat. Ever notice the gutted F-104 sitting in the gas station in Naha?

[dryheat]

I remember the Vigilante. Long and sleek. I never saw one up close.
I've tried but can't figure out Naha. Northern Arizona... Maybe I've been there but memory is failing some. Seems I remember pictures of gas stations that had jets on them.