Who's F-4

[tex-fan]

I have seen the F-4 Fantom in a few pictures. May be I just missed it, but who's is it? As far as I knew only the Collins Foundation has a private F-4, is this still a Govt plane?

[rpzo]

Re: Who's F-4

What I heard is that the U.S. Air Force is providing training to the German Air Force, who still uses the F-4. For political reasons it has Air Force markings with the exception of the German colors on the top of the tail.

It was really cool to see it fly. Would have been even cooler if they could have put it in the air at the same time as one of the F-15's and an F-16.

Rick

[tex-fan]

Re: Who's F-4

While you guys were at the Air Races I went to the Ft worth, Tx air show, and they had F-14, F-15, F-16, & F18 demstrations. They were AWESOME. It's kind of a shame they are retiring the F14 by 2007. It still looks like some kind of weapon to me. I had fun there but some day I hope to get to the races.

[Stevo]

Re: Who's F-4

The are based out of Holloman AFB NM assigned to a German AF training squadron.

"On 1 May 1996, the German Air Force Tactical Training Center was established in concept with the 20th Fighter Squadron which provides aircrew training in the F-4F Phantom II. The TTC serves as the parent command for two German air crew training squadrons.
The F-4 Training Squadron oversees all German F-4 student personal affairs, and provides German instructor pilots to cooperate in the contracted F-4 training program provided by the US Air Force (20th Fighter Squadron)."

http://www.air-attack.com/page.php?pid=13

The official website ---> http://www.flgausbzlw.net/

[tex-fan]

Re: Who's F-4

I was at the PIMA Air measuem and took the AMARC tour, and there were 735 F-4s were in storage. I sure am glad some body is going to get some good out of those great F-4s, and that they wont just get scrapped or shot down as droans.

[Ron101502]

Re: Who's F-4

As a former USAF F-4 driver, I saw one of the first German F-4Fs at George AFB when I was in RTU. It was basically an F-4E, without the DCU-94 (nuclear delivery capabilty), and it had no "TANK 7" fuel, so it was not as tail heavy and therefore did NOT have the slotted stabilater. Later, the F-4Fs got slats (as did the USAF E models-better turn but lots more drag) but don't know about if they kept the trailing edge BLC(which caused most maintenance problems-the leading edge BLC was taken off the slatted planes).

Seeing the Germans fly at Reno brought tears to my eyes, even though it was obviously a whole order of magnitude weaker that the F-15/16/18s. I couldn't ever see the position of the trailing edge flaps to see if the BLC was totally disconnected, and could not tell from the gunsight if they had installed CCIP, as I was surprised to learn about 6 months ago from a First Officer I flew with that USAF installed CCIP on the last remaining F-4Es.

As a Checkered Flag Club member, I was fortunate to talk to one of the German crews who were kind enough to come to our hangar, and they said that the F-4s go to the junkyard this December.

And, yes, I had a good chuckle as the F-4 pilot on one of the demos made a go-around in full burner, but still had his speed brakes out! I've done the same thing (admittedly I wasn't the best stick in the squadron).

Ron Henning

[gv71]

Re: Who's F-4

I got to talk with the pilots (east german) at the Niagara Falls air show this year. From what he told me was that they sold all there mig 29s already to poland and were keeping the f-4s until 2015 if I recall right and they were getting eruofighters. I have a great movie of them coming in the day before the show. There is a public road that goes right past the end of the runway and there is a junkyard there alot of people park on the side of the road but the police tell them to get off the side of the road because it creates a traffic hazard but if you park on the junkyard property they won't do anything and you can watch the blues do the whole show right underneath them LOUD, CLOSE, FAST, AWESOME. I wish I could download it somewhere so everyone could see it, someday I'll get my website up.


Greg

[AirDOGGe]

Re: Who's F-4

The(y) are based out of Holloman AFB NM assigned to a German AF training squadron.

That might explain why I saw a Tornado in the military display area with German markings, eh?