And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
F4 Corsair & F4 Phantom, both unique and beautiful planes. Phantoms were stationed locally at McConnell when I was a kids and I always loved watching them fly. -Snakepit
In the early eighties I worked just outside of Andrews Airforce Base in Maryland. We were about a mile from the end of the runways, as the fighter jet flies, and smack dab between the two of them. F4s screaming out of there on afterburner were an almost daily site. The sound of freedom, as they say. The air traffic into and out of Andrews was wonderfully varied. A common occurrence on Friday afternoons was to have Harrier jump jets going round and round. I always assumed it was reservist pilots doing touch and goes while doing their monthly weekend. Maybe, who knows. Cargo planes were a very common site,C130s, C141s and C5s. You could hear a C5 coming miles away. They sounded God awful, like the engines were going to blow and second. One windy March day I saw a C130 hang motionless in a stiff headwind. I wouldn't have thought it possible if I hadn't seen it. The week before the annual Armed Forces Day air show it was hard to focus on work with the Blue Angles or the Tbunderbirds or the British Red Arrows doing rehersals for the show just outside. Back on the subject of F4s, many years later I met an old F4 pilot in church. I told him the above story stressing how load the F4s were. He commented that it was in the development of the F4 that engineers first learned enough noise would cause an aircraft to fly.
Love the beast. Grew up around them in the 60’s; my dad was a Phantom Phixer at McDill & George AFB’s. I got my turn in the late 80’s. Got to put the F-4D static display jet together for Eielson AFB just before I retired. Come to find out my old man wrenched on that pig when it was flying.
Bad ass, through and through.
ReplyDeleteold Droopy Nose is ugli as all get out but still kinda purty
ReplyDeleteMy fav.
ReplyDeleteF4 Corsair & F4 Phantom, both unique and beautiful planes. Phantoms were stationed locally at McConnell when I was a kids and I always loved watching them fly.
ReplyDelete-Snakepit
Crew chief, worked on F-105 Thunderthuds, 1970-72 in Wichita. F-102 Delta Darts my last year in Keflavik Iceland (Reykjavik International Airport).
DeleteThe triumph of thrust over aerodynamics!
ReplyDeleteOld Smokey could take a cat shot with more ordinance than 4 Crusaders and then set a time to climb record or 2!
The World’s Leading Distributor of used MiG Parts.
A Navy aviator friend of mine once observed, "The F-4. McDonnell-Douglas's proof that with enough power, even a brick will fly."
ReplyDeleteUdorn RTAFB 1972...
ReplyDeleteMemories...
In the early eighties I worked just outside of Andrews Airforce Base in Maryland. We were about a mile from the end of the runways, as the fighter jet flies, and smack dab between the two of them. F4s screaming out of there on afterburner were an almost daily site. The sound of freedom, as they say. The air traffic into and out of Andrews was wonderfully varied. A common occurrence on Friday afternoons was to have Harrier jump jets going round and round. I always assumed it was reservist pilots doing touch and goes while doing their monthly weekend. Maybe, who knows. Cargo planes were a very common site,C130s, C141s and C5s. You could hear a C5 coming miles away. They sounded God awful, like the engines were going to blow and second. One windy March day I saw a C130 hang motionless in a stiff headwind. I wouldn't have thought it possible if I hadn't seen it. The week before the annual Armed Forces Day air show it was hard to focus on work with the Blue Angles or the Tbunderbirds or the British Red Arrows doing rehersals for the show just outside.
ReplyDeleteBack on the subject of F4s, many years later I met an old F4 pilot in church. I told him the above story stressing how load the F4s were. He commented that it was in the development of the F4 that engineers first learned enough noise would cause an aircraft to fly.
Love the beast. Grew up around them in the 60’s; my dad was a Phantom Phixer at McDill & George AFB’s. I got my turn in the late 80’s. Got to put the F-4D static display jet together for Eielson AFB just before I retired. Come to find out my old man wrenched on that pig when it was flying.
ReplyDelete