On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 15:14:04 GMT, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

Thanks Walt for explaining that. I knew they were cracked, but not the
exact why. I never got over seeing those massive plates on the outer
wing panels. Just seemed like more madness of the Vietnam war...


The corrective reinforcing plates, while a bit ugly weren't all that
massive--probably about 4x8 inches and maybe 1/4 inch thick.

I go for 12x8 and 3/8ths, but anyway they were massive to me. I never
saw anything that big on a B-52, and it seemed completely out of place
on a little F-4. (I was out of B-52s from 1966 to 1976 so the D model
and such might have grown patches like that while I was away.)

The went
in place abutting the hinges at the wing fold on both sides; main wing
and tip section. The real "ugliness" was that the paint had to be
scrapped away from the hinge and reinforcement to allow visual
inspection for cracks during preflight.

Not at all related to the "madness"--simply a fact of life that metal
can only be flexed so many times before it fatigues. We had the
reinforced wings at Torrejon while I was flogging F-4Cs from '73 to
'77. Hardly noticed them after a while.

A fact of life that the U.S. government can't supply the people that
defend it with something more than a patched up worn out airframe?