This is the only picture I have and it’s bad, but what is the item on the lower station of the TER?
I would say it was taken over Vietnam, it would be useful to know what type of aircraft the ordinance is hung on. Just a guess but either a F-4 or a B-52.
It’s an f-4C over Thailand or Nam.
Dean
Ignore me lol. didnt see the latest post. Looks like an intake. could it have been an extra boost on the pylon?
It looks like a SUU-11 gunpod to me…
-O
O,
I thought it was a gun pod also but I can’t find anything that allows it to be mounted on the inboard pylon.
This was early in the Viet Nam war so anything could have been done.
Dean
It’s too short for a gun pod and looks to be about the same length as the bombs (Mk-117’s?). A TER isn’t rigid enough to provide a stable mount for a gun pod.
It looks like a napalm tank without the nose cap. That is just a WAG.
It’s a camera pod. The cropped pic was taken from the well known photo of the gull grey/white F-4C 37656, shot by a boomer. I believe that I’ve seem a similar pod carried on a stateside F-100 before the war. Some people say that it is a modified napalm tank, but I don’t think so.
Best wishes,
Grant
Grant,
I think you are getting close because stations 2 or 8 could carry a camera pod. AAVS IV is the type of camera pod but I’m having problems finding a picture of it.
Dean
Heres the full image, someone might be able to work from there.
I dont know whether to feel happy or sad… I ve been sitting here for hours dtermine to find that pod… And I did!
Right when I find it FSM goes down and I cant get the website to come up… GRRR… looking for more pics.
Ripcord,
That settles it. The first picture is great. Thanks for your work.
Dean
Very interesting and informative!
For those of you that might be interested, while scolling through the book I saw a couple of additional pix of the camera pod on pages 11 & 17.
Good stuff!
-O
there’s another shot in one of the Phantom books from long ago, too
but, what’s always puzzled me about that being loaded,why are they on the bottom of a TER?,knowing that we’d want to “bring those home”, the stores above them would be expended, wouldn’t that have exposed the cam pod to damage?
just something that always struck me as “wrong”, I guess
sure makes ya want to carve one from some other part, though
Rex
Rex,
That’s a very good question. This was a few years before I worked on Phantoms in the Air Force and I never saw this pod until the picture. Also kind of interesting is who loaded these on ? Munitions or Recon personnel? Someone here probably knows.
Dean
The TER would not have impulse cartridges installed on the lower station. Then the outboard station would release first, followed by the inboard. The problem there is if he has a hung bomb or a “One Lugger” he would have to jettison the TER. It would be a lot of paperwork explaining why the camera pod was dropped. It has the Navy style pylon so the pylon weapons adapter would also have to be jettisioned to get rid of the TER.
On release any thing carried on the shoulder stations are kicked out and down.
That was very early in the war in SEA. A strike camera was later developed which could be carried in the right forward AIM-7 missile well.
To be honest, I never saw one loaded. By the time I got on the F-4 it was the RF-4C in Nam in 1967. When I went to the 13 TFS at Udorn RTAFB our F-4D’s carried strike cameras on the right forward missile well. That was in 1968. Good question on who would load it, sensors or weapons.
Berny, that might also explain the reason for the KB-18,“let’s do it this way from now one, the old way wasn’t quite right”