Hi John,
I guess my "hi dip" remark wasn't quite that. In the days of paddles,
the LSO would give you a high dip signal and expect you to just drop
the nose a hair and then return to level. This just worked off about
ten feet or so from your flat groove altitude. In the F-8 if I wanted
to get aboard without chancing a hook skip or a BAR (flat at the ramp)
bolter I'd pull up the nose a hair just before touchdown to set the
hook. As long as you weren't fast this tecnique kept you from a flat
bounce and usually got you a one wire. On a really dark night if the
deck was moving I had to depend upon the LSO to tell me when to go for
it, like, "OK, fly it on down". Landing an F-8 on a black night with
the deck moving was high risk no matter how you did it. I always
calculated, the fewer passes over the ramp per night, the better chance
I'd make it down to the ready room dry.

Back to the Phantom and using two hands for max G's. Figure of speech,
please forgive. Yes you could usually get max G with one hand.
Getting 9 G's (max) below ten grand at 600 kts took me both hands. But
I was a weak-assed pilot who was used to pulling an F-8 around with
half the effort. Agree, a savvy F-4 pilot could whip an F-8 everywhere
but prior to 1968 the number of ACM savvy F-4 pilots was low. Later
F-8's, like the F8J, were dogs and the F-4 guys routinely beat up on
them.

We had a couple of guys who went through an entire cruise (100-120
traps) without a bolter in the F-4. I had two of my three F-4 cruises
bolterless, not all greenies but bolterless. Wire average probably
around two. Different strokes...........

Sorry if I offended the USAF guys. What I meant to say, was carrier
pilots were used to landing at slower speeds and felt comfortable
dirty. We spent more time with a donut than any blue suiter given all
the FCLP's and constant speed approach patterns. Not necessarily
better, just different. I spent time with a number of USAF exchange
guys and they caught on just fine to our different way of doing things.