The F-4 Phantom II fighter aircraft went onto the design stages in the early 1950’s. The U.S. Navy began flying the F-4 Phantoms in 1958 from the decks of the U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. The twin General Electric J79 power plants propelled the Phantom to break air speed records, time to climb records and became the main fighter of the Vietnam Conflict for both Navy and Air Force components. Many aircrews used to joke about given enough power even a brick can fly. The F-4 Phantom II weighed more than the thrust output of the power plants that propelled them. The F-4E Phantom II was a major turning point in both the performance and role the aircraft played in the US Air Force inventory. The F-4E has a longer nose section that contained a 20-millimeter cannon shooting 4-6k rounds per minute. Until now, the RF-4C (reconnaissance) version had photographic equipment in the nose section. The Vietnamese used to come out from hiding when the RF-4C came around taking pictures of the combat areas. When the first F-4E’s flew with the RF-4C’s, what a surprise to them when the 20mm cannon started spitting out rounds at them. The F-4E became a multi role fighter now. It was a fighter interceptor. The first Air Force Ace Richard “Steve” Ritchie of the Vietnam War shot down five enemy MIG aircraft with his F-4D aircraft. There were several other aircraft with multiple MIG starts painted on their intake vanes. Designed in the 1950’s and are still being flown today by a few limited squadrons of the US Air Force and several other nations Air Force units.
While they controlled the skies of Vietnam, they were quite different in the eyes of the maintenance troops affectionately called Phantom Phixers. The early designs of the aircraft and the high demands that were placed on them by her aircrews put quite a toll on the maintenance. The Phantom II required an average of four hours of maintenance for each flying hour she logged. The original F-4 was designed with a GE J79-GE-15 engine. This is 15 stages of compression and smaller exhaust nozzle. The GE J79-GE-17 became the standard engine from the F-4E and beyond airframes. The aircraft did not get bigger with the new larger engines. This made repairing them more interesting. For me, I was in for a rude awakening when I transferred for a unit with the single engine A-7D SLUF (Slow Little Ugly Fellow) to the F-4E Phantom II. The A-7D was a very maintenance friendly light attack aircraft and the F-4 Phantom II was a nightmare in retrospect, but the F-4E was a fighter, interceptor, bomber and flew at Mach 2 plus (twice the speed of sound). My next edition will reflect what it was like being a Crew Chief on the F-4E Phantom II during my assignment in South Korea in the mid 1970’s.
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