Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 02:32:12 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

snip

My point is that aircraft scheduled for Hunter/Killer and aircraft
scheduled for A/A escort, and aircraft that were scheduled as bomb
droppers all came out of the basic 27 aircraft that were available to
the 34th TFS--24 UE plus 3 attrition spares.

Be that as it may, Coe's a/c wound up with a pair of pods, and it's not the only one. I've
got another shot of a 34th bird (68-0498) with a pure A/G load: Mk.84s on the O/Bs, 2 CBUs
on each I/B, a C/L, pods in both forward wells, and NO AIM-7s. Both of the 34th TFS birds
I've mentioned, Coe's 0493 and 0498, have the long gun blast fairing (given the serials it
had to be a retrofit, as they weren't installed on the production line until 69-7261) and
formation strip lights, so these photos almost certainly date to the latter half of 1972.
I once asked Dweezil when they got the long fairings and striplights, and IIRR he thought
not before 1972 for the fairings; I don't remember what he said about the strip lights, but
it's clear from photos that neither was a universal fit in 1972, as numerous a/c lack them,
especially some of the TDY units like the squadrons from the 4th TFW. Do you remember if
both features were present (on at least some a/c) when you arrived in July?

I arrived at Korat in June of '72. I'd gone through the quicky
check-out at Luke flying C-models in May-June. All the airplanes I
encountered had the strip lights. I didn't register the gun fairing
difference at the time, so couldn't comment. I don't know if it was a
local mod (Logan mentions it in a photo caption and since he was
downed in July of '72, it had to have been on at least some of the
birds by that time. We got TCTO-556, the new conventional weapons
switchology in July/Aug of '72.

Okay, thanks. After trying various search words on google, I found Dweezil's post from several
years ago, in reply to one of mine:
-------------------------------------------
writes:

[ big snip ]

Of course, the a/c could be assigned to the 8th in 1972, but there's a
couple of details that make me think not. For one, it's lacking the
electro-luminescent formation-keeping light strips. While apparently
not universally installed by 1972, they were on many if not most a/c by
then (BTW, anyone know when they first appeared? I'm tentatively saying
1970, although one photo purportedly taken in November 1968 shows an a/c
with them. I've got my doubts on the date).

I'm not absolutely certain, but I seem to recall that F-4E 69-7551's
arrival at Korat early in 1971 marked the first time I saw the EL
panels. (It was eerily "ghostlike" taxiing at night...)
That same aircraft (fresh from the factory) also boasted the first
extended gun fairing I had seen. It was the only one on base with it.
----------------------------------------------

The above would agree with the information I have that 69-7261, the first Block 44 a/c, was the
first a/c to be factory fit with the long blast fairing. 69-7551 was also from Block 44, which
totaled 64 a/c. Possibly the EL strips came in at the same time in the factory as the blast
fairing, with the rest of the a/c retrofitted with them and the blast fairing as they rotated
through IRAN.

As for that load on 0498, I never encountered a mix of -84s and CBU.
When I carried CBU and GP bombs, it was always 6xMK-82 on a C/L MER
and 4xCBU in pairs on the I/B TERs.

I've always thought 0498's load in that photo was somewhat odd; if the Mk.84s had had fuse
extenders I would have guessed it was for an LZ prep, but these Mk.84s appear to have the
standard Mk. 904 nose fuses. The only other mission that occurs to me would be road
interdiction on the HCM trail; You clearly wouldn't plan to drop Mk.84s and the CBUs in the same
pass, so presumably the 84s would be used to crater the road or bury it in a landslide, while
the CBUs would be dropped on trucks or any likely patch of trees, or else used to mine it. I
can't for the life of me imagine what other use would be made of that combo in the same sortie.

I just looked at my form 5 and found that I flew 498 one time in my
year at Korat--what are the odds of that, not hitting a tail number in
9 months of single-squadron operation?

How early on did you fly it? Perhaps it was shot down or severely damaged before you could fly
it again?

snip


Well, sort of. Coe's account in "and kill MiGs" goes into a lot more detail. Coe says he
was at about M1.6 and estimates the MiGs were at about M1.1 when he shot, and Webb called a
break immediately after the shot, which caused another pair of MiG-21s to overshoot over
the top of him (these were probably the ones that had been called merged by Disco, and
which caused at least one of the strikers to jettison when the strike flight spotted
them). BTW, I believe this is the highest speed attained during a kill in Vietnam, and
very possibly the highest speed attained by a tactical a/c during a combat mission.

We all get taller, smarter, braver and better looking as the years
pass. I'm just a bit skeptical of the M1.6 estimate. Starting with
three tanks and wall-to-wall missiles from 420 KIAS in the escort role
and then being able to configure to clean, accelerate and hit that
kind so speed at the typical altitude would be very unlikely.

To get
M1.6 with the missiles, the pods and the altitude under FL 400 just
doesn't seem within the realm of capability of the airplane.

You may be right. Coe says they were cruising at 450 knots @ 20kft with the strike flight at
350-400, and the escorts were weaving to stay with the strike. If those speeds are KIAS or
KCAS, the escorts would be cruising at something upwards of .9. Those speeds seem kind of low
to me to be TAS for F-4s, even fully loaded.

Anyway, after one of the strikers called MiGs and broke, he says he jettisoned his tanks and
went burner, while beginning a descending turn. He says he made about two turns, ending up at
about 15kft with the strike flight out in front of him (they'd been turning too), when he saw a
pair of 21s out in front and above at about 20kft. He'd loosened up the turns as no Migs had
appeared immediately, so would have gained considerable speed, although perhaps not to1.6, which
does seem a bit fast for 15kft. What do you think -- could he have gotten that fast relatively
clean, in a diving, non-windup turn? I don't have a -1-1 for the F-4, so can't do a ballpark
estimate of the accel.

Checking Jenkins book on the F-105 confirmed my memory that the -87 didn't have deception
capability; that was the -101. He writes "Besides laying down a continuous jamming barrage,
the ALQ-87 also had a sweep modulator that could introduce random bursts of reinforcing
noise in a so-called pulse power option. The pod could simultaneously perform any two of
three functions: denying range and azimuth data to Fire Can; depriving Fan Song of range,
altitude and azimuth; and jamming the position beacon installed in the sustainer section of
the Guideline missile." so carrying a pair of them would certainly add to the
jammingpowerandcapability, even if each pod was able to cover the entire threat frequency
spectrum (I don't know if they could). Re the -101, he writes "This pod could perform
either deception or noise-barrage jamming, and was specifically intended for activities
such as Iron Hand [Guy: Also used for MiGCAP by the 432nd in 1972, for the same reason]
where formation flying wasn't feasible."

Well, as much as I respect the considerable research that Jenkins did
on the F-105, as we've often discussed, the use of pods by Iron Hand
flights was much more the exception than the rule.

Use of, yes, but mandated carriage of, no. 7th AF required pod carriage by all a/c going into
NVN, even the Weasels, despite their protests that this limited them to a single Shrike and they
were rarely turned on in any case, as the jammers interfered with reception by the Weasel gear.
I've got shots of 105Fs carrying single ALQ-101s in '68 or so. The dual Shrike launcher also
seems to have been developed in response to this silly mandate, but the pilots disliked the
vibration and drag.

The order for Weasels to carry a pod led to the requirement for an internal jammer for the 105F
to recover a weapon station, which became the ALQ-105 scab mount on the 105G, essentially an
ALQ-101 split in half lengthwise. They still rarely turned it on, but could once again carry
Shrikes on both O/Bs.

Guy