Phantom flight

On 26 Mar 2005 14:19:03 -0800, "Bob" wrote:

Hi John,
. Now in the air in ACM
it was a dog and took both hands to pull max G's. Pretty good vertical
with it's power and gave you a real edge over guys who didn't like to
get their nose up. Nasty and unrecoverable flat spin mode, not as bad
as the F-14 but usually resulted in either a punch out or a mort. So
you didn't spin it, simple enough. The guy who told you the F-4 was
scary dirty must have been a helo pilot or an USAF guy. Not all that
analytical for sure.

That's low. Really low.

And, notice how I resist saying that USAF guys could pull max G with
out using two hands.

I just wouldn't say something like that.

Of course, if you didn't have to hover on the CAP at "max conserve"
orbiting at 250 KIAS to meet cycle time it was a lot easier. Just run
around the alloted area a bit above corner velocity and you can grab
all the G you want with one hand.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com

Ed Rasimus wrote:
On 26 Mar 2005 14:19:03 -0800, "Bob" wrote:


Hi John,
. Now in the air in ACM
it was a dog and took both hands to pull max G's. Pretty good vertical
with it's power and gave you a real edge over guys who didn't like to
get their nose up. Nasty and unrecoverable flat spin mode, not as bad
as the F-14 but usually resulted in either a punch out or a mort. So
you didn't spin it, simple enough. The guy who told you the F-4 was
scary dirty must have been a helo pilot or an USAF guy. Not all that
analytical for sure.


That's low. Really low.

And, notice how I resist saying that USAF guys could pull max G with
out using two hands.

I just wouldn't say something like that.

Of course, if you didn't have to hover on the CAP at "max conserve"
orbiting at 250 KIAS to meet cycle time it was a lot easier. Just run
around the alloted area a bit above corner velocity and you can grab
all the G you want with one hand.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com

Two hands to pull 'max 'G'? Hogwash. I could overstress the thing w/o
problem.

As for everything else, pretty close. I did love it but never heard of
one in a flat spin. Lots of OOC, spin stuff but nothing flat. Even when
the stab horns were breaking, 1976.7, we lost a F-4J(VF-33) when it
broke. The plane spun but when the airloads allowed the stab to fall
full leading edge up, it recovered.

OK, you are strong. Stick force to get 9 Gs at 600 kts at 1000 ft was
over 50 pounds. Not many good reasons to be doing that in ACM since
the vertical was best for the F-4. The F-4 had a rare but
unrecoverable flat spin mode. In this mode we tried everything
including special anti-spin chutes and still never recovered one. Most
of these flat spins were entered from very nose high, slow speed high
yaw maneuvers, like trying to kick the nose down from a very high yo
with the rudders. Drag chutes, even anti-spin chutes just streamed
above you. very gentle spin rate and low altitude loss per turn but
just plain unrecoverable. We lost at least four F-4s at Pax learning
about this mode. MacD denied it even existed.

Bob wrote:
OK, you are strong. Stick force to get 9 Gs at 600 kts at 1000 ft was
over 50 pounds. Not many good reasons to be doing that in ACM since
the vertical was best for the F-4. The F-4 had a rare but
unrecoverable flat spin mode. In this mode we tried everything
including special anti-spin chutes and still never recovered one. Most
of these flat spins were entered from very nose high, slow speed high
yaw maneuvers, like trying to kick the nose down from a very high yo
with the rudders. Drag chutes, even anti-spin chutes just streamed
above you. very gentle spin rate and low altitude loss per turn but
just plain unrecoverable. We lost at least four F-4s at Pax learning
about this mode. MacD denied it even existed.


How about 8.5 g(the max for a clean F-4J) and corner, about 450 kts.

As for 'not many reasons', well ask Rookie Rab that when he saw Mig-17
tracers goin' over his canopy...