Only the Phantoms I worked on were the Recces.
Leon.
NOW you are talking a REAL airplane. Too bad you didn’t make the recce version. I wish I had a nickel for every foot of film from one of those things that I looked at as a PI. Except I never worked with any of them from Spangdalm. Mine was all in Viet Nam. LORAN rack and a SUU-23, ready for action, but why that useless AIM-4? What a POS! 793 earned her red star on Oct 26, 1967, when she bagged a Mig-17 while assigned to the 555Tac Fighter Sq of the 8 Tac Fighter Wing.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
I agree with yardbird.
Yardbird- Would you happen to have any pictures of those Phantoms? I’m looking for pictures of a specific aircraft and its nose art.
Which airplane and what nose art are you wanting? I have several books on Phantoms with lots of pictures.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Nice build Leon. Is that the Hasegawa kit ?
Regards, Rick
Nice build on the Rhino!
I worked on the Rhino, sorta, near the end of it’s service life, when I was assigned to Kirtland’s Transient Alert. Spent many a time packing those drogue chutes, watching out for those aux air doors… but a true Rhino Phixer I am not.
Well for anyone planning a different Phantom
http://koti.welho.com/msolanak/f4.html
ahhhhhhhhhhh yeah!!! gotta love the phantom!! nice lookin’ build friend. later.
Ah, the Filthy Second at Spangdahlm. I spent three years there working on the E and G models. Our motto, “Our mission is to fly and forget, and don’t you fight it”.[(-D]
Nice looking aircraft. It is a little too clean to be a Phantom. Must have just came out of the paint barn.[;)]
I hear ya berny, about it looking clean, that’s one of my flaws, as I painted Phantoms
back in the 80s, and they always looked like they,(just came out of the paint barn)!
I guess I always saw them as, on their way back out to the flight line, instead of looking
like a war torn combat veteran.
That has shown through, in most all of my builds.
Thanks.
Leon.
Excellent job on this one, Leon!
Another winner. But even this lifelong civilian had to wonder why the, um, POS AIM-4. When I first saw it, I spotted the fin flash before the base code and I thought for a second it was a Puerto Rican ANG bird from the 80s. But then, I think they traded the F-104s for A-7D’s, so that was wrong anyway. Still, that IS a Puerto Rican flag. Coincidence? Tradition? Anyone know the origin of that? BTW, Leon, you still got an old TO 1-1-4 in your footlocker? What I woulnd’t give to have an old one again. Or any, for that matter. I used to get them from friends in the TANG unit at Ellington, and had enough to pass them out. Lost mine in the blaze and haven’t been able to replace it. When I asked the guys in the paint shop what FS numbers they used for those cool Texas flags on the tails of their birds, they looked at each other and laughed. It was, and is to this day, DuPont car paint from an auto bodyshop supply house.
One more question: when did they change from the “towel rack” to the modern LORAN antennas? Only the D’s like yours carried them, as far as I know.
TOM
I would like you all to help me understand this talk of the AIM-4.
Now, what I understand is, it was called the Falcon, and was an air-air missle, Correct?
If this is so then, there are no missles on-board 793 in my pictures.
If the white unit hung from the left forward missle bay, is what we’re talking about,
then I would ask you to take a closer look at the rear, of said unit, and you will see
that there are no fins,
That’s because it is an ECM Pod, hung from a mount, that is installed into the missle bay.
I hope this may have cleared up any confusion, and NO I don’t know what model/series
the ECM is.
Leon.
OK, my mistake. I was looking at what is peeking out from the inboard side of the left inner wing pylon. I thought that it was the nose of an AIM-4 Falcon air to air missile. I looked closer and see that it is the front of the AIM-9 Sidewinder launch rail. Sorry about that. BTW, your ECM pod is an AN/ALQ-119.
I made the initial derogatory remark about the AIM-4 because it is/was a horrible example of an air to air missile. The F-4s carried them during the early stages of the war in Viet Nam and they were terrible. Colonel Olds railed against them while he was Commander of the 8th Tac Fighter Wing in Thailand and refused to allow them to be loaded on any of his aircraft. It is a good thing the F-102 and F-106 never had to defend the US mainland against any bad guy airplanes because the AIM-4 was their only armament. The F-102 had some unguided 2.75" rockets inside the missile bay doors for awhile and the F-106 got a belly mounted 20mm gatling gun late in its career, but that @#$%^&*()( Falcon was the primary armament for both planes. The IR version was totally useless and the radar guided version was only marginally better.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
yardbird78
What you see is the LAU7A/A Sidewinder launcher mounted on the inboard pylons. Monogram included them in their F-4C/D kit. These launchers were used only on the early C models and ANG/RES aircraft. They are actually launchers used by the Navy and taken from Navy inventory. They were replaced in the AF inventory by the AERO-3B launcher which has a different shape to it.
The ECM pod is a AN/ALQ-101(V)-2, and was carried on the right forward missile well on the C/D and left missile well on the E. It could also be carried on the inboard pylons if the aircraft had all stations loaded with missiles.
The AIM-4 series of missiles were designed to knock down large aircraft such as bombers. It wasn’t very good at killing small aircraft that was able to yank & bank, turn & burn. The missile required a direct hit in order to be effective. No proximity fuse, only a contact fuse.
Thanks for all the GREAT info guys, I’m eatin’ up.
One thing I’d like to point out, is that I was on a Recce base,
where the only equipment put on our birds were, the 600 gal.,
high speed centerline tank (from the F-15), the two 370 gal. wing tanks,
an ECM pod AN/ALQ-119, from time to time, of course your travel pods ( converted napalm
tanks) on either inboard pylon, and even more rarily seen, Pave Tack pod AN/AVQ-26,
mounted on the centerline.
As you can see, our Armament Specs. didn’t have a whole lot to
keep themselfs busy. Although we did have the Photo flash ejectors, we maintained.
Great memories,Thanks,
Leon.
Leon
I worked on the RF-4C in Vietnam. The aircraft I was crew chief on was a 63 model and was only four years old. At that time the RF did not have inboard pylon capability. We always flew with three gas bags on missions over north. We had the SGT Fletcher 370’s and Mac D 600 gal centerline tanks. The centerline was a PITA to load, not like the high speed tanks that were used later.
My aircraft was originally painted gull gray over white. The SEA paint job was applied after arriving in Nam. Through many supersonic flights the gray over white was showing through. She was scheduled to go through her first 600 hour PE and paint job in January 1968, but was shot down by AAA in December 67 over Hiaphong, killing both crew members.
The only things the armament guys had to do was cart the tanks and load photo flash carts. The only flight line job softer than that is being on the BPO crew for a cruise missile.
Berny : That’s just Too Damn Cool… interesting backround.
Very sorry for the crew being shot down…that’s Not cool though.
I remember working on some 63 models at Bergstrom, maybe some “friends”
of yours, maybe?
Leon.
Leon.
Could be. The 16 TRS was one of the first units to get the RF-4C. We had 63 & 64 models. As our combat losses grew , we started getting new 67 models. I wasn’t lucky enough to crew a 67 model as by then I had made SSGT and worked the maintenance crew on nights. I was on nights during TET 68.
I was put on nights after my second aircraft was shot down. The crew came home by US Navy chopper the next day. They gave the Egress Shop a case of Scotch and me a case of Canadian Club. I was very popular untill the CC ran out.