Berny, were the inboard pylon ECM pods carried on TER’s or were they directly mounted under the winder rails?
No TER’s were carried. They were mounted directly to the MAU-12 bomb rack on the pylon. The type of sidewinder launchers used were the newer Aero 3B launchers which replaced the LAU-7A/A. The sidewinder launchers in the Revell 1/32 scale F-4E are the older type LAU-7A/A. All of our aircraft got the AIM-9J mod and launchers as soon as we arrived in country. Our first combat mission was with the new sidewinders and launchers.
Glad I found this. I made mention that my dad has pics. After several phone calls it is a no go. He will not let me borrow them. Sorry. It would have been great to share them!
Berny
I got to know Chuck DeBellvue while I was stationed at Seymour Johnson and he was the Asst. DCM and had the pleasure/displeasure of hearing the “long story”. Chuck is a great guy and was always friendly with the maintenance guys. I first met him when I was working debriefing and he had just flown one of our jets. He was a Lt. Col at the time. He was filling out the forms and I asked for his name to put on my maintenance sheet and he said “Chuck Debellvue”. I stopped writing and just looked at him and said “THE Chuck DeBellvue ?” and he replied “yeah, I guess so”. His pitter just had a curious look on his face while looking at both of us until I told him Chuck was the leading American ace in Vietnam with 6 kills. Chuck was a pilot then. I suppose the Air Force didn’t like the fact that their leading ace was a backseater.
The ecm pods are mounted straight to the bottom of the pylons.
eagle334. I met Capt DeBellvue after he and Capt Ritchie flew my F-4E. After Ritchie finished chewing me out I asked DeBellvue what happened. He said to me, “We missed. That is all. We missed.” I got to talk with him several times after and he was a very fine person. Not at like his famous front seater.
I also had the ocasion to meet him again at Nellis AFB during a Red Flag exercise. By then He was a Maj and he still remembered me. He was a down to earth type of person and a fine man.