Phantom flight

"Bob" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi John,
I had the pleasure of flying most all the F4 models made for the Navy
at Pax River. Also had one squadron tour in the F4J block 46 and a
couple hundred landings. Had many traps in the F8E with more than a
few "wet flight suit" traps in the dark. Also had traps in props. I
believe I can say without fear of argument from any Phantom that the
F4 was the easiest airplane ever built to land, carrier or shore based.
For starters, the F-4s were all assigned to the "big" decks. Having
grown up on 27 Charlies, the "big" decks were like cheating. Secondly
the F-4 dirtied up was ultra-stable. Squeeze a hair of power and the
ball went up a hair. First time in my career I ever saw a ball go out
the side of the lens. In F-8s you left the ball nearing the ramp and
gave it a little high dip to set the hook or it could easily bounce and
hook skip the whole speghetti pile. The Phantom just hit the deck and
planted itself dowm. Tail hook the size of a plow shear, never heard
of one parting. If you did bolt, a rarity, you had enough power to
bend it around in a VFR pattern and get back to the groove in about 60
seconds. About the only gripe we had around the boat was fuel
consumption was high. Almost as bad as present day F-18s. But our
boarding rates were in the 90% range and bolts were uncommon. By far
the best carrier plane I personally ever flew. 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.

SNIP

Can't disagree with most of your commentary. The Phantom got better with
the slotted stab, never needed more than one hand to pull max G. It was
challenging to exploit in ACM. For my first 500 hours, my thought was "No
wonder we beat up on these guys!" (F-8 driver perspective.) Around the 500
hour mark it changed, "How did we ever beat up these guys?"

The F-8 "high dip" cost us a jet for a whole cruise. Broke the nose strut
trunions. 27C, night, pitching deck was an F-8 mishap waiting to happen.
Certainly having a left or right runway, a 3 1/2 degree glideslope, and a
wee more hook-to-ramp made the big decks much more accommodating. OTOH,
they all look pretty small in the dark.

Yes, the Phantom was very solid around the blunt end of the boat. Went
through a whole cruise without a bolt ... until I mentioned that fact to my
RO on the last flight (mid translant). BOING!!! Oh well .... 99%

I found the F-14 a revelation. Not rock steady like the Phantom, but
significantly slower and tons more gas. It took some flying (as did the
Gator), but it was safe as houses. I've always maintained that all the
hogwash about shipboard flying qualities, hard-to-get-aboard, etc is just
that: hogwash. Show me the carrier landing mishap rate. Cause there's the
jets that'll kill you or jets that'll take care of you. Nobody TRIES to hit
the ramp. Nor do they put plumbers in unforgiving airplanes.

R / John

"José Herculano" wrote in message
...
If you get an opportunity to get checked out in the F-8, I recommend you
go for it. THAT was an airplane that could enthrall you ... and then
bite you on the ass.

Not a single one flying anymore... sad...

Isn't there a F-8K or two privately held? Nothing quite like an F-8 in the
break oil cooler door open.

R / John

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.

José Herculano wrote:
If you get an opportunity to get checked out in the F-8, I recommend you
go for it. THAT was an airplane that could enthrall you ... and then bite
you on the ass.


Not a single one flying anymore... sad...
_____________
José Herculano



Doesn't Thunderbird aviation still have one? Last I saw it was at Bug
Roache's memorial service, flown by Hoss Pearson

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.

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 in message
oups.com...
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.

Perhaps the best way to communicate "go for it" is "Fly the ball." A little
nose up could scoop up an early wire, but of course a little too much could
ding a tail pipe and maybe even permanently damage the nozzle. By
comparison, the F-14 could REALLY troll for a wire. More than a few bolters
were saved by a bit of attitude in the wires ... certainly a varsity
correction.

During my initial F-14 CQ I decided to learn to take auto throttles all the
way to touchdown. A nose-up at the ramp (to get the power up for the
burble) invariably resulted in a one on the fly. Took a while to master the
"jiggle the stick a bit" to get the stab input to bump the power w/o
changing the attitude of the jet.
..
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.

The J wasn't too bad with the P-420 engine (19,500 in A/B). We were never
"routinely beat up on" in it, though I tapped a couple of the better Phantom
drivers that WERE beating up on me. The J still couldn't match the D (never
got to fly it, but it was light, had the lighter nose and the P-20 engine).
The P-420 H was the hot rod.

R / John

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...........

.... Not all greenies. I can relate. My first cruise, the air wing average
was 3.06 (I was an LSO until they found out my parents were married to each
other). Nowadays, it's around 3.5, almost exactly what CVW-19's top hook
(one of the best ball flyers I've EVER seen) had for the cruise. Another
trend is to the 1/2 ball high pass as "centered." There are several
generations of LSO's now that will grade you as LOBAW for a genuine rails
pass. A pity.

R / John

"Bob" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi John,
I had the pleasure of flying most all the F4 models made for the Navy
[snip]
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.


Newby question here - I've always been curious as to why any aircraft in the
1 to 1 thrust to weight ratio class (F/A-18? F4? F14? etc) would have
trouble being able to "simply" power out flat spins / falling leafs etc.

Can anyone give me a bit on an insight?

Many thanks,

CC

On 3/27/05 6:21 PM, in article ,
"Cockpit Colin" wrote:


"Bob" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi John,
I had the pleasure of flying most all the F4 models made for the Navy
[snip]
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.


Newby question here - I've always been curious as to why any aircraft in the
1 to 1 thrust to weight ratio class (F/A-18? F4? F14? etc) would have
trouble being able to "simply" power out flat spins / falling leafs etc.

Can anyone give me a bit on an insight?


That 1:1 thing is a sort of fallacy in many cases. It assumes a combat
loaded aircraft (air-to-air load) at half fuel with the motor being run at
sea level--large amount of static sea-level rated thrust on a relatively
light aircraft... Hence the 1:1 ratio. Most spins and departures occur at
much higher altitudes where the thrust of the motor is quite a bit lower.
At higher altitudes, the T:W may be less than 1:1.

Also keep in mind that if you're spinning, the thrust is spinning with you.
Adding full power (providing your jet isn't susceptible to compressor stalls
at slow speed and high alpha) simply adds a thrust vector that rotates with
the jet. It's not effective in "powering the jet out" of a spin.

A falling leaf is essentially a spin with no established rotation. The
aircraft establishes itself in a coupled departure mode. Thrust MAY help
power you out depending on aircraft configuration and altitude... I think
there were some Marines that claimed to have powered out of the falling leaf
in the Hornet, but most folks don't have a lot of success with it. IIRC,
adding power in the falling leaf INCREASES time to recover.

This is all without reviewing the NATOPS notes on falling leaf recoveries.
Any TPS dudes want to sing out here?

--Woody

John Carrier wrote:

Yes, the Phantom was very solid around the blunt end of the boat. Went
through a whole cruise without a bolt ... until I mentioned that fact to my
RO on the last flight (mid translant). BOING!!! Oh well .... 99%

I made the mistake of listing my "100% boarding rate for the cruise" on
my fitrep brag sheet prior to a night go as we prepped to cross the
pond. Duh...