F-4 Phantom, The Ultimate Cold War Warrior
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- čas přidán 9. 11. 2020
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The Macdonell Douglas F-4 was the more widely produced and internationally used fighter in US military history. Adopted by all three service arms, The US Navy, Airforce and Marines. It was used from the Vietnam war to gulf war in 1990. This is the story of the The Ultimate Cold War Warrior.
Written, Researched and Presented by Paul Shillito
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I'm into the first 100! :D however, I'll let my place to someone else. You're welcome ;)
...by ¿ALL THREE? of the US Armed Services...
Bruh, we got 6.
Get your shit straight.
And there is a F4-M if i am not wrong .
l know this plane well....Look me up on the web....Thanks very much....!
I used to laugh at your Hawaiian shirts, now, after hundreds of videos, I want to buy it.
Just two days ago, I saw a Greek F-4E flying above my house. The Phantom is a Phabulous plane!
They still use them for training the new pilots :P
My all time Favorite Beautiful Plane it's a tank
My phavorite as well... Hey why not?
Strange 3 odd years ago we saw 3 ship formation flying around Greek island, they were retired that day. I was on sailing holiday.
I see RF4E versions were retired.
This fighter jet is a legend👍
Yes. And one of my childhood favorites.
I remember watching Dog Fights episodes about F-4 Phantoms in Vietnam when I was a kid. Good Times.
i actually tried to make a Lego version of it last year for my Lego air force
@@dylanwhite3383 Nice!
@@dylanwhite3383 cool. Did you make it?
@@tommasoviani8949 yep and i mainly went by the design of the Lego city jet transporter jet
5:17 my father always says, you have always 2 failiures on a f4 phantom, your engines are always on fire and you are always running on low fuel
Never had an engine issue Jan.
That Titan/F-4-thing had totally gone under my pulse-doppler-radar.....
Same here, i've been a fan of the Phantom for years but i don't remember any NASA association, i did know about the Blue Angels using Phantoms, but i never heard of the NASA thing, that was pretty cool
Ditto.
That event was news to me as well....
One of my fondest memories was when we were going through trade training at RAF ST Athan late 1988 and we were in the second barrack block near the runway opposite the airmens mess. A Phantom F4 did a take off next to us, its engines on full thrust for take off, all the windows and doors rattling from the noise like we've never heard before, and loads of young Airmen hollering and cheering. Stunningly glorious moment and very impressionable on us young Airmen!
That's cuz it's a phantom
🤣
J79s, I trained on the F4 in the late 70s.
A Phantom in reheat flying between the hangers at St Athan. a reasonably regular occurrence from Sqn Ldr Pearce after they had been inside for 90 days :)
i.pinimg.com/originals/45/68/60/456860d4aca493842d430b11ad6edd0a.jpg
@@SupremeOverlord10 probably Rolls Royce Spey’s on an RAF F-4. The J79 is a fantastic engine though👍🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Was in the USAF barracks near the flight line and the F4 is the loudest two engine fighter jet by far of any aircraft I have witnessed upon full take off power.
In the US Air Force we joked the F4 proved the theory "A brick will fly if you give it enough thrust."
Which is funny because it's aerodynamics were really good and it's maneuverability and performance made it a favorite of pilots.
Ugly and beautiful all at once. Gotta love the Lead Sled.
"Given enough power you can get a barn door to fly."
Spoken during WW1.
We said the same thing about the C-17 at first flight on September 15, 1991, out of Long Beach airport, "even a locomotive will fly given big enough engines." We were all amazed it didn't disintegrate on liftoff because we had a very severe fastener problem. Don't know if that first article is still skyworthy.
More poweeeeerrrrrrrrrrr
As a structural engineer at Naval Air Systems Command, Pax River MD, one of my tasks was to track structural fatigue life on the QF-4's being used at China Lake as target drones for Sidewinder missile testing.
But there was a problem. My group had moved from Warminster PA a few years before, after the Phantoms had retired from tactical service. During the move, we were mandated to dispose of all old records, including the documentation of structural fatigue tracking parameters of the old Phantoms. We were forced to use simple statistical methods to attempt to calculate the number of safe flight hours remaining in each plane. We then cut those numbers in half, to attain a factor of safety of two. We tried to account for differences in the way the planes were flown in their tactical roles to the way they were being flown as drones.
You might ask, "Who cares? There's no aircrew aboard!". Actually, at times during the program, the planes would be live piloted (but not shot at), and keep in mind that the planes still had to take off from an active airfield and fly over populated areas to reach the test range.
During the QF-4 program, I lived in fear that some fatigue related failure could occur, with loss of property or life caused by 30 tons of metal and fuel falling out of the sky. Fortunately, this did not happen, the program was completed, the Navy got a new improved missile, and the only crashes were as intended in the test range.
I spent a good part of my Navy civilian career working on tracking data from the F-4 and other famous planes. Before that, as a young enlisted man on a US Navy destroyer, I watched countless Phantoms launch and recover on nearby carriers in the Tonkin Gulf as they played the most active tactical role in the Vietnam war. I learned to love that big beautiful, noisy, smokey beast. I was heartbroken when my group determined that the F-4 was no longer safe to fly in carrier operations, as the new F-14 Tomcat (now also retired) was being built in sufficient numbers to take over the fighter role.
Seeing the F-4 resurrected as a test platform should have been a thrill (in spite of their sad end as a crumpled and charged pile in the desert), but the uncertainty of their structural integrity made me breathe a huge sigh of relief at their final retirement! I hope other nations will retire that beautiful bird also, and soon!
PHANTOMS PHOREVER!!!
As pretty as the F4 is, the Tomcat still takes the crown as the sexiest fighter the US ever deployed (being a child of the 80s and wearing out my VHS copy of Top Gun may have made me biased though.)
@@literallyshaking8019 sto watching HOLLYWOOD MVS.
Would it be possible to strip down a Phantom and X-ray every joint and seam to look for cracks?
Surely some could be rebuilt after that and used for another 20,000 hours?
I get annoyed when I hear of such beautiful planes being put out of service
and wasted for no good reason.
@@Bobby-fj8mk Possible, yes. Practical, no. Actually, you wouldn't have to tear down the WHOLE plane, because the fatigue sensitive areas are well known. Or were until we threw all the docs away... It might make sense where there are hundreds of valuable planes in the active fleet, but not for a dozen or so soon to be retired old planes. It's very expensive work.
Side note:. The USAF relies on periodic tear downs and crack growth measurements to track fatigue. USN chooses to use crack growth prediction under carefully monitored flight regimes. Each says their method is best!
@@Bobby-fj8mk forgot to mention, just FYI, typical service life for fighters is around 5-7000 hours. Cargo planes can well exceed 20k. And it's not the joints and seams. Those are designed to be on lower stress areas.
Good question though!
"The Phantom is a living proof that even a brick can fly"
This plane is a legend. It has a sleek design and it's my favorite plane. Thank You Paul for that episode
The first time I saw the Blue Angels, they were flying F4s (the J variant, I think). Flying 'Brick'??? Well, those gentlemen showed just how maneuverable that 'brick' was in skilled hands!
Yall take Care and be safe, John
I think it looks pretty dogged, actually. I never liked the mix between anhedral stabilator and dihedral wing tips. Makes it look like an ill tailor or something :P
@@Pow3llMorgan Looks don't matter when you are flying and the Migs are Splashing!
Navy Vet here..... The joke was with those engines even a School bus could fly @ mach 2
@@goobfilmcast4239 well the space shuttle is like a school bus with wings and it has flown at Mach 2
Hello . I follow your plans from Iran. As you know, Iran has a lot of F-4 phantoms. Thank you for mentioning Iran. You also wear beautiful clothes. Good luck and good health.
My father was stationed in Tehran in 78 and 79 training the shaw's air force maintenance. My dad wrote several service and engine repair procedures on the planes.
Too bad about Iran though. It used to be the number 3 most comfortable country to live in back in the 1970's.
@@therocinante3443
My friend Iran has been taken captive by religious reactionaries who falsely claim to represent God on earth.
@@SuperVstech
Greetings to your dear and great father !!
@@mohammadaran9274 Well good luck mate
The good old flying brick, a legendary aircraft
In my hometown in Greece, F4s along with F5s and A7 Corsairs used to pass by my window to taxi for landing.
What a powerful ROAR! Airfield was about 5km away and the windows were shaking during full throttle takeoffs!
I could distinct the plane type by its sound quite easily back then in the late 90s, fond memories...
When I was a student, I had an apartment that was roughly in line with the runway at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. F4s would occasionally fly in to be retired (AMARG is next door and run by the base). Once in a while, I'd open my door in the morning to go to class and be greeted by the noise from the tailpipe of an F-4 coming in to land. Yes, they are LOUD!
@@bwhog I flew one into DMAFB once and later was stationed there. Nice town.
There is no such thing as "too much videos" about Cold War jets :D
But there is such a thing as "too much war jets overhead"
Because that's grammatically incorrect - you mean "too many videos". You're welcome.
@Vim Fuego
"... Me fail English? That's unpossible?!"
N.B. you are indeed most correct about "Video" 😀👍
*many
What a crazy time. We think 2020 is a crazy year, it's nothing compared to living during the cold war era.
We still see echos from that time with the culture and tech that came from that time.
I remembering first seeing a fallout shelter on my campus and thinking how crazy the tensions were that public universities installed these shelters because nuclear war was considered inevitable (for good reason, we've had many close calls).
When I was stationed at Nellis AFB, NV in the mid-80's, I would go visit friends who were based at George AFB outside Victorville, CA, which was home of the 35th TFW (Tactical Fighter Wing), the home of the Wild Weasels. We had F-4's at Nellis as part of the 57th FWW (Fighter Weapons Wing), but when I saw the ramp at George covered with F-4's from end-to-end, it was a sight to behold! Parked besides the newer F-15's and F-16's at Nellis, the F-4 looked like a brute compared to the sleeker Eagles and Fighting Falcons. We also had F-5's as part of Aggressor Squadrons, and that aircraft looked liked a kids airplane compared to the muscular Phantom!
It is pleasing to see that five air forces around the world still fly the remarkable F-4!
The ol Area 51.
@@Skrenja Never was at Area 51. Only Area(s) 1, 2, and 33.
@@josephstevens9888 Oh cool. You ever see any crazy stuff there?
I saw an F-4 Phantom on Curious Droid and my week was made.... It's the F-4 Phantom!!!!! C'mon!!!
I'm typing this 22 seconds in the video
Haha, i already praised Paul with the video paused at 0:00 :P
It's been my favorite plane for years and asked in the comments about a video of the Phantom several times, earlier he also did the Komet that i asked for, it really feels like he reads the comments and takes the suggestions seriously, Cool Dude that Curious Droid!
@@Games_and_Music dude trust me, Paul is really that good. So much that he is my benchmark for WW2/ColdWar/ModernWeaponry Documentaries. I even watch his Sponsor videos while I wait.... Lol I don't skip.
The F-4 Phantom is an emotional A/C like the 747
@@mthandenimathebula2846 Ah yeah, i love his video's, you just know that he's actually interested in the topics as well and not just phoning it in like some other informational channels do.
I don't really have an emotional connection to the 747, but it is a legend either way.
My next "emotional" favorite airplanes would be the F-117 Nighthawk, which strikes fear into the opponents, as did the Komet, despite it being pretty useless eventually.
But then again, they're all made to fulfill a purpose, so there will always be some emotions attached to them, unless they've messed it up..
@@mthandenimathebula2846
His documentary on the subject of the BAC TSR-2 is the finest on CZcams.
It is obvious to even the most casual military aviation enthusiast that Paul's research and provenance regards his subjects is exhaustive.
I'm hoping someday he makes a video Britain's Cold War nuclear defence... Yep, I'm a geek 🤓
One of the loudest aircraft you'll ever hear. The double afterburners at night was awsome to witness. Many planes designed in the 60's are still used to this day for a reason, they work the best. It goes to show that their is a finite amount of technological improvements that can be made in aerodynamics and they solved it in the 60's. Hats off to those brilliant engineers back then. Truly unsung heroes.
The Greek phantoms have the ability to carry AIM-120 AMRAAM after the latest upgrade
@@baronvonslambert actually the only upgrade package that offers AMRAAM is the German ICE the others just certify the AIM-7M (expect the Turkish one that still uses the AIM-7F)
I saw Greek Phantoms flying very low over Athens during their Independence Day celebrations in about 1989, was a fun sight.
@@sunnyjim1355 I am pretty lucky as well . I have seen Greek phantoms doing low passes over Xios some years ago .
Rumours say that his shirt closet can only opened by two people turning keys simultaneously because of the mind-shattering sartorial energy stored within it.
The Double-Ugly! The Rhino! Proof that if you put engines on a brick, it'll fly! Gosh what a great plane.
St Louis Slugger!
For extra credit, why was the F-4 called "Rhino"?
By the way, I know the answer to this one: I knew a pilot whose call sign was "Rhino".
Growing up in Germany in the 70s and 80s, the F4 Phantom was omnipresent...constantly roaring by. As a grade school student, we were taken to visit one on a US base (Hahn). What a cool fighter airplane.
Flew them out of Zweibrucken in the late '70's. Loved Germany, probably my best tour in the Air force.
I worked on them when I was in the Air Force from 1981 to 1985. We had 1965 models, the F4C. We called them the Junk Yard Dog. The plane was not designed for easy maintenance. But it was pretty reliable, but it did need lots of love from us Crew Chiefs. Loved that plane.
I remember seeing them going 90° straight up from the end of the runway into the clouds by night with full afterburner. That was in the late 80s and we had them for reconnaissance on the danisch - german border.
You sure they were phantoms? Because the phantom did not have a better then 1:1 thrust/weight ratio. It could not climb straight up more then a couple hundred feet before slowing down. Now the F-15 can accelerate straight up, and since the F-15 and F-4 both had tandem Jet engines they could be hard to tell apart in the dark.
Just think of how fast things moved. The F4 flew just 13 years after the end of WW2. That is just madness. From an age of predominantly fast pistons like Mustang, Spitfire to this 2 seater beast that can carry more than a B17. Fantastic vid as always Paul. You help us keep our sanity during lockdown and we all learn something as well !
I was assigned to an US Army Nike Hercules missile site outside of Hahn Air Base in the late 1970's. I had the privilege of seeing the F-4 in action. They would practice their attacking ground sites on us which was really cool. When we would go to the base in the evening for movies and would see the F-4 do touch and go. Very cool at night. I was transferred to the 42nd MP Group (Customs) and was able to custom clear an F-4. The F-4 is an awesome fighter.
Thanks for sharing this story, must have been quite the sight.
In the 1970s I was a C.A.P. (Civil Air Patrol) cadet stationed at Hanscomb Air Force Base (Bedford, Massachusetts). We would stand on the flight line as the aircraft would fire up its afterburners and perform combat takeoffs. Vertically! Your whole body would rumble as the aircraft shot quickly upwards and out of sight. We were only about a hundred feet or so from the aircraft at takeoff. Moments later the F-4 would come up behind us, afterburners roaring, rock their wings, and they were gone. I will always remember those days and that beautiful aircraft. Thanks for the memories.
The F4 was an awesome ground support aircraft in Nam. I loved those planes still today.
When I was a small child they had a festival in town and these F-4 Phantoms would fly in between the buildings. it was Louder Than Hell.
As a crew chief on F-4,A-7s and F-16s I still love the F-4. One of my old F-4s is 463 which resides at the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
I worked for many years with a McDonnel Douglas engineer who worked on these back in the day. Two fun facts:
1) The ejection seats were made by Martin Baker in the UK and they were shipped to the US in individual crates that the Brits sources from one of their former colonies - and so the crates were made completely out of Teak wood. None was wasted and many workers ended up with Teak panelled rooms in their homes etc:)
2) One of his jobs was to check production quality on the ones license built in other countries. He said that the Japanese version built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had the superior fit and finish of all of them even the US built ones.
Cool 😎
You might ask, "How many gun kills did Phantoms actually get in Vietnam once the cannon was fitted?" The answer is 7... compared to well over a hundred missile kills.
In fact, the BEST kill to loss ratios went to the US NAVY's Phantoms, which never fitted a gun at all. Not in pods, nor integrated into the airframe. What was more of a weakness was the lack of dogfighting training given to USAF pilots at the time.
In fact, the US Navy created a school called the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, which produced graduates which ended up increasing the kill ratios from 2.4:1 to 12.5:1 without the gun; meanwhile, the USAF's kill ratios actually dropped slightly even after the gun was added. That fighter pilot school nowadays is better known as TOPGUN.
I always remember the F-4 as one of the most important planes to teach us why it’s important to always have a machine gun canon in a fighter jet no matter what. It’s the reason we still install them today on planes like the F 22 and F 35. The F-4 did not have one and it was a serious failure.
I recall when the designers of the F22 and F35 said it didn’t need an internal cannon, while the Air Force insisted that it had to have one. A rare instance of a government related institution learning from past mistakes.
@@hummerskickass There is this saying that generals always fight the last (previous) war. This could be a case of that.
@@Mike-oz4cv the problem was that the generals running the air force in the 50s and 60s were bombers pilots during WW2. They believed speed and missiles is all that's required for future fighters. Which is why jets like the Starfighters were designated as "intercepters". Just fly up and shoot down Soviet bombers crossing the Actic. That was the case with the Phantom. A horrible mistake to not include a gun! The missiles missed their intended targets over North Vietnam 50% of the time. An expensive mistake in money and lives.
@@black10872 This is just the Reformist's slanderous version of history. The USAF was still using the doctrine used by the Army which was pick the weapon for the most demanding use cases assuming that it would also serve well under less demanding missions. Hence the focus on speed, high altitude, etc. This was Army doctrine that the USAF inherited from the USAAF days.
The Phantom was designed for fleet defense, which is a mission where you can't position yourself behind the attacker for a guns solution or else you're just offering the carrier you're going to need to land on on a silver platter to anti-ship missiles.
Despite the problems with early missiles, the F-4 scored the majority of air to air kills by missile. Only 5 kills are attributed to the F-4E with internal gun over Vietnam.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD but in many cases, the F 4 had to get in close for that kill! Long range kills are great! But those cases were the F 4 had to get in close were those missiles missed their intended targets were not good! This is were the MIG 17 had the advantage! Those cannons on them MIGS were deadly! Some F 4 pilots lost 2 or more missiles due to malfunction, or a clean miss at close range. The North Vietnamese feared the Corsair 7 because it carried guns and missiles. And it was a good fleet defender all the way to the mid 80s.
As a kid growing up in the 70's the Phantom was the coolest fighter going, I remember having two Airfix models of the Phantom painstakingly put together and painted, one in European dark camo and the other in marine blue...awesome aircraft.
When I was a kid around 10 years old I saw an air display from the USAF Blue Angels display team. They were flying the F4 Phantom and it was one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. The sheer power and maneuverability plus the incredible noise absolutely amazing.
I'm a simple man, I see an f4 or f4e and I click
Cringiest meme ever, even worse than '.. prove me wrong'. Git gud. :D
F4 is like boobs like that eh..
The F4 really climbs like a rocket! Great plane, thank for another great video.
Well if the f4 is rocket like, how would you describe the lightening then?
@@jukeseyable quoting former Lightning pilot Cliff Spink, about the jet's climb characteristics: "Stupendous. It's like someone grabbed the world and pulled it away from you".
Actually, the rocket climbed like an F4 🤣🤣🤣
Brings back a lot of memories... I worked on comm/nav equipment on the F4C, D and E models while stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam war. They were flying tanks, even the C models which were used for recon. You definitely knew when they kicked in those afterburners!
US Navy Carrier Vet...Loved watching these Big Fellas roar off the flight deck ..... even more spectacular during night ops
a man amongst men. Keep up the good work curious droid
Sometimes I stop and try to imagine experience of pilots in situations they were put in.
Go and chase that rocket, stay close. Wuuuut
I envy those man, they were in craziest time. Dangerous and risky, but damn interesting.
Can I get a blinkist advertisement for blinkist
"Blinkist. It got words."
If this is such a revolutionary idea, then they shouldn't need long advertisements.
I kind of always liked the Wild Weasel role. Go out until they shoot at you then fire on their radars. That took big brass ones..
Nah, a real fighter jock would say "How close, Boss?"
A mostly error free summary of Phantom history. My years flying F-4J/S with the Marine Corps were the best of my military flying career. Phantoms Phorever!
This also shows how rapidly the technology of aircrafts was driven along by military efforts:
~1860 first decent glide attempts
~1900 first successful powered flights
~1910 first military use
WW1 planes were already very important.
WW2 where the planes built at its beginning were completely superseded in basically every way possible by the end of the war. (so much so that the late fighters would be better bombers than the actual bombers at the start of the war). Also aircrafts started exceeding human limits - planes could perform maneuver that pilots, even after intensive training, could no longer withstand.
And right around the 50's o 60's we hit the aerodynamic limits of aircrafts. They became so powerful and fast that we no longer could improve those aspects without developing radically different materials.
After that the development started focusing more and more on getting them more efficient, more support-systems for the pilot, information gathering and hiding from your enemies. But the fighterjets from the 60's are still really capable and fitting them with modern control-electronics would often put them right on par with modern fighters in terms of flight capabilities.
The F-4 will always be my favourite WW2 propeller plane. Beautiful!
??? You're thinking of the F4F. The F-4F was flown by the West German Luftwaffe during the Cold War.
The F4U Corsair 😂
I know you're joking, but the first Phantom in WWII actually had twin jet engines already.
@@Games_and_Music , the FH Phantom did not fly operationally during WWII. Kyrie is merely trolling.
@@Easy-Eight Yeah i know, and i know it wasn't officially operational until 1947, but it did fly in 1945, so it sorta.. counts.
I wouldn't call it trolling though, i mean, he's got a parody channel, it's just a joke.
I just couldn't resist, because it was so close to being a rational, albeit misplaced outburst of admiration.
😭I’m so glad I found your channel Paul. Wish we had so many more people like you on telly for others to watch across Britain. I’m such a huge fan 😁
EAT IT! EAT IT!!
The F4 Phantom is one of my favorite jet fighters of all time. It's design was not only iconic, but beautiful as well.
The first time I saw an F4 was driving home from New York to Los Angeles. I was on I15 just crossing the California state border when I heard and saw them roaring in the sky! I was stationed in Germany back in 1988 and coming back home (LA). My new base was George AFB, CA, home of the Wild Weasels. Those guys are awesome! I only served during time of peace though helping them train for the wars that eventually followed.
I love your videos Droid they’re so informative and calming.
The “F-4 Satan”? And here we thought that the 50’s generation was repressed!
They ended up saving that designation for a Soviet ICBM - the SS-18 I believe. 😉
My friend flew one for two years and loved them , He then went onto the Tomcat as that was developed and problems with it were fixed ! But he prefered the F4 over the first of the f-14's for flying
This is one of my favorite aircraft.. Like the A-10.. They are amazing.
Finally! My man C-Droid does a piece on the Phantom.
Old fighter jets are always pretty damn cool!
Always liked the F-4 design, just the look of it I mean. Can't say what it is, but it has got something most other US planes lack.
I agree, it still has some organic shape to it, with the swept wings and perky and wide 3-point tail make it look like a graceful.. pigeon.
It looks dated, but in a good way, it was the best of a generation between old tech and new tech planes.
The Phantom was truly the first modern jet fighter, especially when it came to radar and missile systems. Two engines went a long way to improving safety, during an era when jet engines failed far too frequently.
It is my favorite. Thank you!
Really like your Videos ! Keep up the good work !
Nostalgia, these were still in service in USAF bases in Germany when I was a kid. It's the plane of my childhood dreams.
I was flying them in Germany probably when you were a kid there.
At 8:33 is aircraft 63-7477. That was my first jet as an aircraft crewchief. I joined the Air Force in 1980 and showed up to Luke AFB in late October of that year. I became her Dedicated Crewchief the next year jut two weeks after sewing on A1C.
Can we please have a video on Mikoyan's fighters? That would be excellent.
Indeed. MiG-21 comes to mind along with MiG-25.
@TODarkschnider420 You must be the worst storyteller
@TODarkschnider420 you must be fun at parties
Oh come on, this video is about the world's largest distributor of Mig fighter jet parts in the 1960s and 1970s.
Paul, you're the best! My favorite plane, finally on your channel!
Can't wait to see what you have to say about it, your insights are always appreciated.
EDIT: Cool, i had no idea that they were used by NASA for the Gemini project, happy to learn something new, thanks!
Btw, you did forget to mention that the Blue Angels flew with them for a while(and the Thunderbirds), but hey, i still learned something
Truest an icon, I was born in 04 and I love the F-4! So cool and nice lookin
By far my favorite supersonic fighter
Yaa me to look me up on the web...
Reminds me when i finished Ace Combat 4 on hard with only the F4
Interesting that this plane was designed by the industry, based on what they perceived the armed forces needs to be - not the usual protracted, government-led process of asking companies to design something to meet a theoretical concept. I'd be very interested to know if this way of doing it was more successful. My gut tells me it should be!
Back in the day, DoD had no clue about the industry's capabilities. So companies were pushing a lot of initiatives. Then DARPA was created.
Still, that's got nothing on Kelly Johnson from Lockheed going to fighter pilots themselves and asking, "Hey guys, I'm designing a new fighter plane. What do you want on it?" and they were like, "lots of speed, maneuverability, a gun, etc." and the result was the F-104 Starfighter.
@@ivantheteribul which is terrible aircraft.
@@maxant4285 well apparently, it works great once it's in the air at speed and until you have to slow down to land.
i always loved the F4 with its aerodynamic shape, and when i was in the Greek air force i loved watching them struggle to take off, their blue exhaust gases lighting up the airport before sunrise...
I lived in Okinawa as a kid and used to watch them take off. Extremely loud but awesome. Then when I was active duty AF I was at Holloman AFB they used them as remote control drone planes. They would take off in pairs. Very cool to hear them.
0:27 "All three of the U.S. armed services: the Navy, Air Force and Marines." :coughcough: Army :coughcough: Coast Guard.
Yes, but you know full well he meant those that fly fighters.
All three that fly fixed wing aircraft then...though the Coast Guard does have some C-130s
@@rogerscrogham3392 Not sure why you say "all three" and then admit that there are four. And, actually, the Army has a number of fixed-wing aircraft, too (transport and reconnaisance), so we're back to square one.
Look, he didn't make any kind of disclaimer. He flat out claimed that there are only three branches of the U.S. military. That's not true today, and it wasn't true in the period he was talking about.
@@beeble2003 Clearly you're an insecure puddle pirate.
@@kingofaesthetics9407 Right, that's why I'm posting insults to CZcams in the hope that people will validate me by clicking the "like" button.
Kind of surprised that he didn't mention its service with the FAA.
I worked on F4 weapons control systems on C, D and E models for 12 years from 1966 - 1978. The C and D models had old school systems which we repaired all the way down to the component level, while the E model had a modern (for the times) integrated circuit system. The video featured a couple of shots of some RF 4Cs, the recon variant, but they were not mentioned in the narration. One interesting feature of these aircraft was a system called BLC, boundary layer control, which took compressed air from the 17th stage compressor and ducted it to blow across the leading edges of the wings, which produced extra lift so the aircraft could land at lower indicated air speeds. Without BLC, the F4s could not have landed on aircraft carriers because their stall speed was too high.
Correct Jim. The recce planes were the fasted btw.
Those twin J79 turbo jet engines sound totally amazing the Phantom is just such a badass airplane
Please do a video on Bell UH-1 Huey! :)
And the SuperCobra while he's at it :P
And the Hind.
8:17 "Shot down more enemy aircraft than any other plane in the US"
Le Hellcat: "Hmm.."
Context was the Vietnam conflict
The Air Force fighter of my childhood, I remember seeing the Thunderbirds flying them in an airshow at Eglin AFB.
I worked on F-4C,D,E, and RF4C at Eglin 77-81
She's one of my all-time favorite aircraft. The Rhino was the first plastic model kit I build as a kid...loved that ugly, beautiful beast from there on.
sooo.. next will be Mig-21 ?)
That F-4 gun problem is and has always been a myth.
Not really or they wouldn't have developed a solution to a problem they didn't perceive.
@@jwadaow The F-4 in USAF scored the vast majority of kills during Vietnam by missile, with the internal gun on the F-4E only scoring 5 kills. Sometimes perception is a b*tch.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Yes but what about all those failed missile shots? The F-4 was originally intended as a long range interceptor which is why it was armed with missiles. But in Vietnam it was forced into low level dogfights with lighter, more maneuverable MIG,s. Their were many frustrated pilots who were in gun range, but were forced to use a missile that many times would fly towards the sun, or would not detonate on impact, or sometimes just fell off the rail, never igniting just becoming an expensive fence post in the jungle. The Navy was running into the same problem with missiles as it did with it's counterpart in WW 2, the torpedo. Despite the difference of operating in water and the other air, there are many similarity's. What was discovered was that building a propulsion system was not too difficult to do. What is fiendishly tricky to achieve is a accurate and reliable detonator/fuse and a guidance system. This has to survive: shocks(dropping), intense vibration, G forces, high humidity, and high or low temperature. And then being crammed into a narrow steel tube. It takes a huge amount of money and time and hundreds of test shots to work out the problems and get a usable weapon.
@@davidmarquardt2445 Most of the failed missile shots were due to pilots firing out of proper launch parameters and poor training of the ground crews, as mishandling missiles was one of the causes of their unreliability.
"more maneuverable MIG" - This means nothing. The F-4 could out turn the MiG despite being less "maneuverable".
"The Navy was running into the same problem with missiles" - And yet they didn't buy into the internal gun.
Your comment makes no sense.
I was in the US Navy in the early 70s and we went to Roosevelt Roads airbase. It was a small detachment so many times we just stayed at the hanger and catch a nap. We’d put bubble wrap on a corner of the ramp. I woke up once with fours of these suckers a few hundred feet over my head hauling ass. It was so cool.
My aunt, uncle and cousins used to live rather close to Wright Patterson AFB in the 80's. I don't recall the exact details, but I believe it was the Air National Guard still flying Phantoms out of Wright Pat at that time. I'll never forget being outside in their yard as a thunderous sound erupted out of nowhere and we witnessed a pair of F-4s in full afterburner pull straight up directly above us. That moment cemented my love of aviation.
An Air Force Reserve unit flew F4s out of Wright-Patterson in the 80s.
F-4 Phantom II: the triumph of thrust over aerodynamics.
Thanks for another great video. The only tiny correction I'd offer is the fact that the initial development of the Phantom II was solely a McDonnell Aircraft Corporation project. Douglas did not merge with McDonnell until 1967 (3:14).
As a child this was my favorite fighter aircraft. I totally dug the upturned wings. Then one day I saw an A-10 at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds and had a new love.
2:38 to get down to business, and as usual, it's worth the wait🤘 completely unreal the F4 was used by both the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds. Such a beautiful brute.
I have an uncle who flew one of these in the Vietnam war. He ended up with major lung problems, and then got Covid. He was barely hanging on before he got sick. But he lived well until the end.
My pops flew them as a Naval Aviator in the USMC (VMFA-212 in Kaneohe HI, sometimes in Okinawa Japan). He lovingly called her the Phantosaurus
Seeing the F-4 always brings a smile to my face, the stories that my pops and my uncle told me of there service days back in Ramat David were amazing.
I know every nut, bolt, and wire of this beautiful machine and I have never been near one
YES!!!! Thanks so much for this video!!! F4 Phantom II airframe has always been my favorite, aesthetics alone. And over time, learning more and more about them only cemented my love for these still relevant birds
Thank you for creating this video. This aircraft has been my favourite of all time. It just keeps on giving.
Many moons ago my unit used to call them Thunder Pigs. I called mine unofficially the Boar.
Loud, mean and loved a lot of maintenance. A very good in commission rate was 86%.
The low smoke engines were the J79-GE-17, older smokers were the -15
The plane was built like a crab. All the structural strength is in its skin. Certain panels if removed without a jack supporting the tail caused the planes body to sag and bolt & screw holes not line up.
A plane from 62 years ago, still in use today. Nothing but the brightest minds worked on it.
I still think it's one of the meanest looking fighters ever developed!!
Have to say I really enjoy this channel - no gimmicks or flashy lights, just interesting, well-researched content. Kudos to you Paul, it's especially impressive given you're doing the whole thing yourself these days.
I'm French and the only American plane i've seen was an escadrille of B52 flying over my country during the first irak war. I was walking with my family in the field. All planes where black. It's was terrifying and beautiful at the same time.
Worked on F4C/D/E radar, bombing system, gun sight, missile firing system for 20 years of my life. Lots of phantom bytes.
As always, great content CD! Thanks for the upload.
Stellar work and professionalism, as always! Thank you.
Two years on, but a bit about early nomenclature: Before the unification of aircraft designations in the early '60s, Navy Phantoms remained F4H and the Air Force aircraft were designated the F-110 Spectre
Another Fantastic Video!! Thanks so much fo making my day just that little bit more informative and fun.
Very pleasant and informative, thank you!
I'm so glad I found this channel. Great job as always!
I never knew about that high speed camera mission. Good work. Awesome video.
WOW! I was stationed in Holland back in 1978. Soesterberg Air Base was the Ditch side, Camp New Amsterdam was the American side of the base. They were in the process of replacing all the F-4's when I arrived and within six months they were all gone and replaces with the F-15. Great to hear the ol' girls are still flying. Just my $0.02
This and the B-52 have outlived their own designers