Phenomenal Old School F4 Footage!!!

[Flying Toaster]

Not Navy, but simply awesome nontheless. No reflective belts in sight, I'll leave it to those more informed to comment on the amount of regs they would be violating today (or were back then)...

For those interested this guys channel has a lot more RF-4 footage.

http://www.youtube.com/user/f4flys

 

[yodaears]

Not Navy, but simply awesome nontheless. No reflective belts in sight, I'll leave it to those more informed to comment on the amount of regs they would be violating today (or were back then)...

For those interested this guys channel has a lot more RF-4 footage.

http://www.youtube.com/user/f4flys

I see no regs being violated. Just looks like a recce crew trying to get the clearest pictures they can.

 

[Catmando]

Patooii.... Bunch of zoomie photo-beanie pukes thinking they're hot.
Photo recon guys always were a bunch of frustrated fighter pilots anyway.

No regs broken if no one saw you, and not really much to see here anyway. Pretty mild. But when you lose your F-4 center tank 'cause you are a bit too low, now then you might have some 'splain'n to do.

Keep it moving along.

 

[Flying Toaster]

Pretty mild.

I want proof...

No regs broken if no one saw you

 

[flaps]

there was a guy in vmfa 314 flying out of chulai ('70) on a nape and snake hop had a lizard strike.

 

[Old R.O.]

But when you lose your F-4 center tank 'cause you are a bit too low, now then you might have some 'splain'n to do.

Yep. The guy from VF-96's 1974 cruise can back this one up. After bouncing off the water of Manila Bay, he tried to claim that the centerline tank "just blew off....on its own..." That worked until they dug pieces of the centerline out of the horizontal stabs. Scratch one set of Naval Aviator wings...

 

[Schnugg]

What effect were they trying for at 4:16 besides Phantom meets rock.

This is one of those videos where I wait for the inevitable fireball...glad I didn't see it here.

 

[Catmando]

Yep. The guy from VF-96's 1974 cruise can back this one up. After bouncing off the water of Manila Bay, he tried to claim that the centerline tank "just blew off....on its own..." That worked until they dug pieces of the centerline out of the horizontal stabs. Scratch one set of Naval Aviator wings...

Not surprising. (Although trying to lie about it was perhaps the greater offense that did him in.)

But back then, it was like somebody flipped a switch. What earlier had been "somewhat" acceptable during wartime, suddenly became grounds for losing your wings overnight, just as soon as the war ended. It caught many off guard.

Our guy only got an ass-chewing for ripping off his centerline. He apologized to the Maint. O and the metal-smiths, and was back in the saddle the next day. That was it!

Also, one of our RF-8 guys clipped off part of his wing when he hit a low logging cable in a PI jungle canyon. Lucky to have made it back to Cubi. Stayed on the flight schedule, and didn't stop him from later making CO of an F-14 squadron. There were a few other similar instances too on that cruise.


***********************************************

Actually there were legitimate reasons for extremely low, extremely fast flying training. F-4s frequently went into Indian Country alone as a two-plane, without the benefit of ARMs, jammers, or multiple other targets to spread the AAA and SAM 'wealth'. They were magnets.

Therefore F-4s on a photo escort or MiG-CAP had many, many SAMs shot at them.

The F-4s corner speed was 420 kts. and this was really needed to defeat a SAM. But after defeating a couple with high-G barrel-rolls with not a lot of altitude to begin with, you then became a sitting duck having bled off too much energy to defeat the next SAM coming!

The only thing left to do was to get way-way down in the weeds – or flat rice paddies in this case – below the Fan Song radar, and so low no Gomer with an AK or even a big rock could see you coming in time to hit you, and you got the hell out of dodge!

Flying that low and that fast is not conducive to life. Nor does it come naturally. It needs practice. And practice we did. But it saved a lot of guys when they were out of airspeed, ideas, chaff, and terrain masking.

​

Sent from my right index finger to my mouse, and into the ether to you.
[Please, no nose picking jokes, either]

 

[KBayDog]

The only obvious violation I noticed was the Van Hagar soundtrack.

 

[bunk22]

HackerF15E was saying this is from the Reno ANG unit in which the pilots in these video's lost their career/wings over the flying in this video.

 

[Flying Toaster]

HackerF15E was saying this is from the Reno ANG unit in which the pilots in these video's lost their career/wings over the flying in this video.

In the comments on the guys channel someone "from the unit" mentions another video and "Lizard Gate," sounds like the making of an interesting story. Putting two and two together that would seem to confirm what Hacker said.

edit:

Using my overly developed Google abilities I dug up what I would assume was Hacker's post on the matter-

There's a big story behind this video that nobody's talking about. If anyone knows Rick Vandam, he can provide better details than I, because mine are secondhand from two ex-High Roller WSOs whom I flew with in the F-15E community.

This video was a result of the Commander out there telling the members of the squadron to go out and get some video of cool Phantom Phlying before the airplanes were sent to the boneyard.

The other unfortunate result of this incident (there are actually two different instances on the video -- one is the series of low passes out over the desert, and the second is the Pyramid Lake event) is that there was a Congressional inquiry into this incident which ruined (or more accurately just ended) the military flying careers of several Reno ANG pilots. Quite a big deal and quite an unhappy ending for the High Rollers.

 

[Catmando]

Everyone in the below photo flew extremely fast, and extremely low...a lot!...... except for our great, and now unfortunately late, as of this past year, Maintenance Officer. He being 2nd row in Green. He also kept the squadron on an even keel, despite our follies. [Entertaining guy, although this photo doesn't do him justice.]

I don't think there were any restrictions on us as to how low you could go at the time of this photo. We did it all the time. Wakes in the water. Even rooster tails. I was the skipper's wingman (he being left in the photo in a green bag) and he really pressed it. Never did I fly at his few feet above the water as his wingman. (But I was close above.)

Sadly, a number of those pictured in the front rows are no longer with us. But they died not of combat, nor of flathatting – though they certainly could have, and many others we all know that did. They all died of natural causes many years later, after serving their nation honorably, having had great experiences, and flying in ground effect while bubbling their leading edges with aerodynamic friction heat, and with all the panache and verve of a fighter squadron in harms way and more, as is mildly depicted.

A den of warriors; a band of brothers. God rest ye merry gentlemen, true warriors and true brothers in arms.

 

[Kaman]

I would have to say that if I knew my career as an F-4 pilot was coming to an end and I was going to be either stuck in the Herc or put in some ground-pounder position...Yeah, I'd have done it! It is very sad that some damned good pilots had to suffer through the humiliation of a Congressional inquiry for scaring the local lizard and fish population. Sure beats the hell out of what I am doing...droning in a POS turboprop, but it's a living...