Military Aircraft Pictures & Stories

[parcany2]

Back in 1977 while stationed at Zweibrucken AFB in Germany, we went TDY to Sardinia Italy. We were going to be in a exercise with the Navy. F4's from Spain were already there trying find the Aircraft carrier group. We got there and the next day about 1/2 hour after our planes took off we got the word that the navy was found. One of our pilots [who was getting out when we got back to Germany] did a barrel role over the front of the carrier. Well to say the least the Admiral was not a happy camper. Our pilot already had a job flying passenger planes so he did not really care. See we had the most up to date RF4C in the inventory. Was a good trip.

[Sfopilot]

nctox...I had a couple of Iranians in my class but they didn't make it through. Also had a Belgian who was an ace.

Before the Iranian revolution I use to fly to Tehran once or twice a month. Got stuck there for a month because the Turks and Greeks were fighting over Cyprus and neither country would give us DIP clearance to fly through their airspace because we also would/had flown through the other's. Finally after a month we had to fly the imaginary borderline separating the two countries' airspace. Thank goodness for navigators!

Had 2 Turkish aircraft intercept us without us knowing. Came time to make a turn following that imaginary boundary and I turned into them. My C-141 being somewhat larger than their aircraft caused them to dive for the ground. Didn't get bothered the rest of the flight.

Nice thing about the month long stay in Tehran is we got to stay at a retired USAF colonel's "hotel" instead of the Intercontinental Hotel, our usual overnight. What a dump!
End of story...

[FL420]

Originally Posted by Traildust

The F8'S J57 sure had a way of announcing that the burner had just litoff.
First time I heard that boom I thought for sure something bad had just happened.
Bill

The propensity of the J79s in the F-4 to smoke badly is well known. It got worse the higher the power setting up to Military Power(100% RPM but not in afterburner.) The bean counters had never counted on the engines being worked so hard and they weren't making it to the predicted time before overhaul. IIRC, the J79s were detuned twice while I was flying them to limit the maximum EGT to lengthen their service life but as a result they smoked even more.
Our "hack" during an intercept was to cruise at slightly less than Mil. Power to minimize the smoke during the early phase of the intercept then go right past the Mil. Power setting into Minimum afterburner to eliminate the smoke while conserving some fuel while accelerating to a speed appropriate for engaging the bandit or bogey.
The F-8 was a smaller cleaner airframe than the F-4 and was harder to see, especially when approaching head on. The problem with the F-8's J57 wasn't smoke but fuel. It didn't smoke noticeably while at any power setting below or above Military Power up to Maximum Power.
What it did do was make a large perfectly formed "smoke" ring whenever the pilot engaged afterburner marking his location precisely in case his opponent hadn't yet picked him up visually. I was told the "smoke" ring was actually fuel that wasn't burned before the afterburner ignited.
[emoji40]

[Traildust]

The first 10 years I was in the Navy I was always with A7's started out in an A7-A squadron we then transitioned to A7-B's VA-153 onboard Oriskany finally moved up to the A7-E but if you were a mech that was not much fun. I always loved the F4 back in those days and really wanted to get orders to a Phantom squadron but it was not to be. I loved to listen to them on final approach, that sound only the Phantom made. They did smoke I do remember that, The old A7-A/B with the TF30 P6 and the P408 smoked so much we had to service the fuel system with smoke abatement compound when we were operating in Vietnam. I was not a pilot but during the three Vietnam cruises I made I really had so much respect for those guys especially when I was a plane captain and the planes I launched might not come back.
Bill

[nctox]

Originally Posted by Sfopilot

nctox...I had a couple of Iranians in my class but they didn't make it through. Also had a Belgian who was an ace.

Before the Iranian revolution I use to fly to Tehran once or twice a month. Got stuck there for a month because the Turks and Greeks were fighting over Cyprus and neither country would give us DIP clearance to fly through their airspace because we also would/had flown through the other's. Finally after a month we had to fly the imaginary borderline separating the two countries' airspace. Thank goodness for navigators!

Had 2 Turkish aircraft intercept us without us knowing. Came time to make a turn following that imaginary boundary and I turned into them. My C-141 being somewhat larger than their aircraft caused them to dive for the ground. Didn't get bothered the rest of the flight.

Nice thing about the month long stay in Tehran is we got to stay at a retired USAF colonel's "hotel" instead of the Intercontinental Hotel, our usual overnight. What a dump!
End of story...

I agree. The Intercontinental was a dump. I got to spend one night there when I was in 141's at Charleston AFB, and was happy to never go back.

[F4Gary]

Originally Posted by FL420

The propensity of the J79s in the F-4 to smoke badly is well known. It got worse the higher the power setting up to Military Power(100% RPM but not in afterburner.) The bean counters had never counted on the engines being worked so hard and they weren't making it to the predicted time before overhaul. IIRC, the J79s were detuned twice while I was flying them to limit the maximum EGT to lengthen their service life but as a result they smoked even more.
Our "hack" during an intercept was to cruise at slightly less than Mil. Power to minimize the smoke during the early phase of the intercept then go right past the Mil. Power setting into Minimum afterburner to eliminate the smoke while conserving some fuel while accelerating to a speed appropriate for engaging the bandit or bogey.
The F-8 was a smaller cleaner airframe than the F-4 and was harder to see, especially when approaching head on. The problem with the F-8's J57 wasn't smoke but fuel. It didn't smoke noticeably while at any power setting below or above Military Power up to Maximum Power.
What it did do was make a large perfectly formed "smoke" ring whenever the pilot engaged afterburner marking his location precisely in case his opponent hadn't yet picked him up visually. I was told the "smoke" ring was actually fuel that wasn't burned before the afterburner ignited.
[emoji40]

10 miles out we would pull the right throttle to about idle and put the left throttle in burner and then just modulate the left burner to maintain airspeed.


The most impressive burners at takeoff were the F-101s. TWO hard lights.

[FL420]

Here's an example of how badly the Phantoms smoked back in 1970. I was leading a section of F-4s one bright sunny day on a BARCAP(Barrier Combat Air Patrol) in the northern Gulf of Tonkin. We were under the control of an AIC(Air Intercept Controller) aboard a guided missile cruiser callsign "Red Crown."
We were on a westerly heading when I noticed a very small black streak in the sky way ahead of us. I watched it for a few moments as the streak got a little longer and I could barely make out a tiny little dot at the front of it. It was a singleton coming out of North Vietnam which was unusual in that one of the many political bombing halts was in effect at the time. Also, nothing smoked like a Phantom and we never flew into NVN alone.
I called a "tally" on a bogey at 12 o' clock low to my wingman. Red Crown immediately jumped in to tell us it was a friendly at 56 nautical miles. In those BOA(Before Old Age) days I knew I had 20/20 or better in both eyes but had never seen a fighter-sized aircraft that far away before.
The smoker turned south well before he got to us so we couldn't get a VID(Visual Identification) on him. We decided later we must have been watching the F-4 escort of a RF-8A returning from a recon mission. We never could see the photo F-8 but he was probably there. Air Wings in WESTPAC usually had a small detachment of photo F-8s from VFP-63 aboard except for some of the bigger newer boats with RA-5C "Viggies." They also had J79s but I don't remember them smoking anything like the Phantoms.
https://youtu.be/CvB8QFxXcPQ

[FL420]

Blue water ops with no divert/bingo fields, a pitching deck and a dark night. It don't get no better than this![emoji33]
https://youtu.be/4gGMI8d3vLs
https://youtu.be/uTVj_ZSwxGE
Those VFA-41 Black Aces are everywhere! They must have a full-time Media Relations firm on retainer.
[emoji40]

[FL420]

Omega Air Refueling Services........am I the last to know?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omeg...est_Ranges.jpg
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omeg...eling_Services
Apparently they have air refueled F/A-18s, F-35s, MV-22s, E-2Ds and even the X-47 drone plus others equipped with a probe.

[777 Driver]

Originally Posted by FL420

Omega Air Refueling Services........am I the last to know?

Well, somebody has to be the last to know. Still, I'm not sure that you're the one.

You need to visit the scuttlebutt more frequently. You wouldn't want to get dehydrated.

Take care,
Stu

[FL420]

That's got me to thinking I should maybe go buy me an A-4 with a J52-P-408, strip all the extra weight out of it, bolt the slats up and hire myself out as an adversary or a mercenary. If I installed a relief tube and with flying commercial gas stations I could stay airborne all day taking on all comers just like I used to do at Red Flags.
I wonder if Omega takes that TSD fuel card?
Hey Zip. This is right up your alley. I could use a good experienced wingie. You in?
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/stor...sary-aircraft/

[777 Driver]

Originally Posted by FL420

That's got me to thinking I should maybe go buy me an A-4 with a J52-P-408, strip all the extra weight out of it, bolt the slats up and hire myself out as an adversary or a mercenary.

You've got a little catching up to do. Check this: Draken International | Draken International and this: https://air-usa.com/aircraft. This story: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...f-a-18-hornets suggests that the owner of Air USA is working a deal to purchase 46 F/A-18's from the Royal Australian Air Force to add to his stable of adversary aircraft.

Take care,
Stu

[zipmart]

Originally Posted by FL420

That's got me to thinking I should maybe go buy me an A-4 with a J52-P-408, strip all the extra weight out of it, bolt the slats up and hire myself out as an adversary or a mercenary. If I installed a relief tube and with flying commercial gas stations I could stay airborne all day taking on all comers just like I used to do at Red Flags.
I wonder if Omega takes that TSD fuel card?
Hey Zip. This is right up your alley. I could use a good experienced wingie. You in?
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/stor...sary-aircraft/

You are senior to me, but as Maverick mentioned in "TOP GUN", "[Mod Edit], you can be mine."
I actually thought seriously about doing it with a couple of different companies, including the one 777 Driver mentioned, but I had been hired at SWA and was enjoying my time off and quality of life. BTW, a video I made years ago, "VFC-12 Adversary A-4's", is linked in the website you mentioned. The compilation footage was from the late '80's-early '90's using an 8mm camcorder I used to take with me often, before cell phones or GoPro were around. Sometimes it got rather sporting, taking video while also flying a single seat a/c, although some of the footage was from the two seat TA-4. Go to YouTube and watch it instead of the embedded link. I listed the squadrons involved and the locations in the description.

[zipmart]

Since we're on the subject, I went through TG when Hollywood was in talks with the Navy about making the film. One day, walking down the passageway in the hangar with my flying partner, the TG XO, who had been a previous squadron mate with my partner, called us into his office and asked us to have a seat. "Rat" proceeded to tell us about a plan the film company had to paint their F-5's black, with a water-based paint they said could be easily washed off. After explaining, in great detail, how this was to take place, he exclaimed, "Do you believe this [Mod Edit]?" Rat later became an admiral and had this conversation with Rep. Hank Johnson from GA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q