| Collings
Foundation F-4D Phantom II Air-To-Air |
The F-4 Phantom II was America's top of the line fighter during the Vietnam
war - indeed it was to the Vietnam war what the P-51D Mustang was to world
war two, and what the F-86 Sabre was to the Korean war. Because
of its operational abilities and the historic role it played in this conflict,
it is also one of the most well-loved of American military aircraft, with
devotees of the "Rhino" coming together from America and Europe for the
annual Phancon convention. In 2004 this was held at Holloman
AFB in New Mexico, which was a training base for German Air Force Phantoms,
as well as home of USAF QF-4 Phantom II drones.
In October of 2005 I had the incredible opportunity to do an air-to-air
photo shoot of the F-4D Phantom II owned and operated by the Collings Foundation
in the USA. This is the only civilian owned Phantom in the
world, and in fact it took an amendment to a 1999 Act of Congress to make
it possible.
So it was that the day after the
2005 Prescott Air Show I climbed into a small Metroliner turboprop
airliner with a couple of other photographers, we took off, removed the
emergency exit door over the wing and started shooting this magnificent
warbird. It was a difficult task - the Phantom is a fast aircraft,
so the Metroliner had to maneuver steeply and keep cutting on the inside
of its path just to keep up. I expected to be able to shoot
with a short lens, but ended up having to use a 100-400mm zoom at full
extension, the equivalent of a 640mm focal length on a 35mm camera.
I took just over 100 photos, about a third of which came out acceptably
sharp. Given the often turbulent air this was a pretty good
result, and it's something I would definitely do again if given the opportunity,
even though I ended up retching my guts out after the shoot had finished
and we'd started flying straight and level again! |
 It
takes a lot of money to operate a gas guzzling jet like this, but despite
the high costs it's been able to successfully compete in the crowded airshow
market, even being invited to perform at military shows like the
2005 Edwards air force base airshow, which could just as easily have
invited the
air force's own QF-4 drones to the show, some of which have been painted
up in color schemes much like the Collings aircraft. However,
to true enthusiasts a drone isn't quite the same thing as the unmodified
Phantom, and it seems that some at least of the air force brass feel exactly
the same way. |
| The
Phantom II was designed and manufactured by the McDonnell Douglas aviation
company and first flew in 1958. It was intended to be a pure
naval fighter like the first Phantom, which was also designed by McDonnell
and was the first US navy jet. The Phantom I wasn't wildly
successful, with a maximum speed of only 479mph (771km/h), largely because
early jet engines weren't very powerful, and it seemed that the Phantom
II might suffer the same fate when the planned J47-GE-8 jets failed to
materialize and had to be replaced by lower powered J79-GE-2 engines.
Thankfully the early J79 engined planes were soon followed by ones equipped
with the J47-GE-8 and the later J79-GE-10, which allowed the aircraft to
achieve its full potential. |
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| The engines weren't
the only trouble spot for the Phantom - the distinctively downturned tail
and upturned wingtips were introduced to correct serious deficiencies in
the handling of the aircraft. The upgraded powerplants rescued
the plane, and pilots used to joke about the Phantom that you could even
make a brick go supersonic if you just fitted it with powerful enough engines! |
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| The performance
of the Phantom II allowed various impressive feats to be achieved, such
as an altitude record of 98,556 feet (30,040 meters), a speed record of
1606mph (2585 km/h) and a low-altitude speed record of 902mph (1452 km/h)
which stood for 16 years. These capabilities were so good that
the marines and air force also placed orders, with eventual production
of 2874 for the air force and 1264 for the navy and marines.
The Phantom became the first American aircraft to serve simultaneously
with the air force, navy and marines and is arguably the only aircraft
which has operated successfully with all these branches of the military,
despite repeated failed attempts by politicians to concoct aircraft like
the F-111 and F-35 to pull off the nearly impossible task of doing all
things well. |
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| The success and
longevity of the Phantom were due not only to its high speed, but also
to its ability to carry a large and varied payload, allowing it to operate
equally well as a pure fighter or as a ground attack aircraft.
Up to 16,000 pounds of bombs and rockets could be carried on external racks
- twice the load of the American world war two B-17G Flying Fortress bomber,
which had a crew of 10 men. |
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| During the course
of the Vietnam war Phantoms shot down 107 MiGs out of a total of 137 brought
down during the conflict - 33 MiG-17 "Frescos" like the one that flew at
the
2005 Holloman AFB airshow, 8 MiG-19 "Farmers" and 66 MiG-21 "Fishbeds",
like these Vietnamese
air force MiG-21s I photographed in 2004 in operation at the former
US air force base at Danang. The Frescos and Farmers were inferior
aircraft, but the MiG-21 was a worthy opponent, armed with air-to-air missiles
and some models had either 23mm or 30mm cannons. |
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| Several Phantom
crew members distinguished themselves during the war by shooting down 5
enemy aircraft and so achieving the coveted status of "ace". In the
navy, Randy Cunningham and Willie Driscoll became aces while flying Phantoms,
and in the air force Steve Ritchie and his back-seater Charles DeBellevue
also became aces in this aircraft type (one back seater, Jeff Feinstein,
did participate in 5 shootdowns with different pilots). Ritchie and
DeBellevue were the only air force aces of the entire conflict, destroying
5 MiG-21s during a four month period in 1972, and the Collings Foundation
Phantom is painted to represent the F-4D they flew as part of the 555th
("triple nickel") tactical fighter squadron. In the same way,
Cunningham and Driscoll were the only navy aces of the war, so if you wanted
to become an ace then this was definitely the only aircraft to do it in! |
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| By shooting down
the fifth MiG, Steve Ritchie broke the four-year old combat record of Colonel
Robin Olds, who is considered by many to be the greatest US air force fighter
tactician of the war. He became an ace during world war two
flying a P-38 Lightning, and not only did he shoot down 4 MiGs himself
in Vietnam, he also led the 8th tactical fighter wing to a record 24 victories,
a total unsurpassed by any other wing during the war. Olds
was something of a renegade, even wearing a very un-military handlebar
moustache, which was perhaps tolerated because he was an "old man" of 44
when he entered combat in Vietnam. He chaffed at the unimaginative
tactics being used, like taking a long string of aircraft over a target
one by one, allowing them to be picked off by ground fire and SAMs.
His most famous mission was called Operation Bolo and involved flying a
large group of Phantoms as if they were the more vulnerable F-105 Thunderchiefs,
and then picking off the MiGs when they came up to attack.
This single one day mission destroyed 7 MiGs, a record which lasted for
the duration of the war. Despite his successes, some people
feel that Olds would also have become an ace if he had listened to his
backseaters more, instead of playing the solo fighter jock. |
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| Operation Bolo achieved
its results without a single American aircraft downed, but that was an
exceptional outcome during the Vietnam war. In Korea the kill
ratio of F-86 Sabres against MiG-15s like the one at the
2005 Edwards AFB airshow ran something like 10 to 1 in favor of the
Americans, but in Vietnam the ratio became as low as 1 to 1, and this eventually
forced the American military to respond. As well as introducing
new tactics, new equipment in the form of a cannon was added, first in
an underbelly pod and then in a fuselage mounting with a large muzzle fairing
under the nose. The Phantom had been conceived as an all-missile
interceptor, but it was finally realized that combat almost never occurred
at supersonic speeds, and to succeed in a close-in dogfight a gun was necessary.
The poor kill ratio also led the navy to establish its Fighter Weapons
School, afterwards to become famous as Top Gun, which improved the ratio
to 13 to 1 and later to 22 to 1. |
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| Numerous other nations,
including Australia, Germany, the UK, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt and
South Korea also bought the Phantom, and Mitsubishi in Japan license built
138 aircraft, for a total production run of 5195, the last one rolling
off the production line in 1979. The British ones were equipped
with Rolls-Royce Spey engines, which resulted in lower top speed, range
and flight ceiling than the American aircraft. |
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| The British version
of the Phantom was retired in 1992, but several other countries plan to
keep their aircraft in service for some years to come. The
US military also operated Phantoms as RF-4C reconnaisance aircraft, and
in the Wild Weasel role to destroy enemy radar-guided missile sites.
The last American Phantoms flew as Wild Weasels over Iraq in 1996, and
most American Phantoms ended their operational careers in storage in the
desert. Periodically several of them are brought back into
service and fitted with equipment to allow them to operate as QF-4 drones.
Some of these are based at Holloman air force base in New Mexico, and are
used for testing at the nearby White Sands Missile Range. During
this testing they're remotely controlled, but they can also still be piloted
in the regular way. |
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