For you Phantom fans

Thank's for posting that.
I knew that S. Korea was still flying them, but was unaware of their final flight.
Lots of memories with the Phantom.
While stationed in Germany, at the Zweibricken Air Base in 74-76 i was a crew chief, aircraft mechanic on the RF-4C models.
Became the crew chief on 69-370 when it was assigned to the base.
I liked launching those Phantoms out for flight, looking back on my Air Force years.
Those Phantom's had a long history in aircraft production.

thank you for your service

I wonder were those four airplanes ended up?
I live in the Victor Valley from 1970 to 2005 where George Airbase was open and flying F4 until 1992 when it was closed after the USAF retiring their F4.
they were noisy as all heck on take offs

I got to see one flying at an air show at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach. If they designed the A-10 around the gun, they built the F-4 around the engines.

I was station at Alconbury, England from 84 - 87 with RF-4C's. There was an end of runway crossing to get to the other side of the flightline. You're right...sitting at the red light as they hit the afterburners for takeoff, you could feel the rumble in your chest.
I thought they were loud until one morning, heading to work, there were 2 of Lakenheath's F-111's lined up to take off. Holy smokes, they were worse than the F-4's! Fond memories...

My old RF-4C Phantom 69-370 was originally an Alconbury, Air Base, Phantom, until they reassigned it to Zweibrucken, in 1974, when i became the crew chief on it.

The base I worked at did depot maintenance on both F-4's and F-111's.

Standard procedure for a F-4 test flight was to get airborne, suck up the gear and then pull up into a "maximum effort" (basically straight up) climb to 10,000 feet AGL; if the pilot felt comfortable with the aircraft, he would occasionally do a couple of barrel rolls on the way up...very impressive.

As part of a normal flight, the ground crew would accompany the aircraft to the end of the runway for a "last chance" check and then watch the takeoff. A F-111 with full internal fuel weights a little over 80,000 lbs. and would accelerate to about 160 mph for takeoff. As an old drag racer I would time their takeoff roll from brake release to liftoff. From 0 to 160 mph in about 16 seconds...also pretty impressive.

Never did time the F-4. Their takeoff weight varied depending on whether they had drop tanks or not...on test flights they never carried external tanks.

When Zweibrucken Air Base in Germany, closed down back in 1991, the Phantoms were reassigned, to Bergstrom Air Base in Texas.
They stayed there until the Air Force deactivated all the Phantoms out of service.
Went into the aircraft bone yard in Arizona, where it stayed for a couple of years.
I somehow found out they took it out of storage, and turned it into a drone.
The reason being, they shot it down, for missile practice, over the Atlantic ocean, on the west side of Florida.
Now it litters the Atlantic ocean floor in a million pieces.
What an ending for an aircraft that i maintained, during my Air Force years.

What it looked like in the Arizona bone yard, before becoming a drone.

I grew up with the F4's as my dad was stationed at MacDill AFB (Tampa) in the late '60s.
I was able to once again see/hear an F4 at the 2016 Reno Air Races.
Here's a pic I took. Unfortunately this one was destined to also be used as a drone. Dang shame, beautiful aircraft:

The guys, aircrews, that worked on them at George, AFB didn't like them

i wanted SO bad to enlist in the Air Force just out of high school, but my damn legs failed my physical, [later to be diagnosed as MS] causing me to get the dreaded 4F status.............

I guess that dependes what you had to do on the Phantom's, or what model of the Phantom that you worked on.

For me, on the RF-4C model, it was a piece of cake, for doing a simple task, of removing and replacing a battery.
On the other models, it was a major pain in the ass to do that task.
After doing your long tour of duty in Germany, lots us were reassigned to George Air Force Base, in Commiefornia.
I was assigned to Mather AFB, in Northern Commiefornia, then on the T-37 Trainers.

Mather was a good base for an assignment but working on the flight line, on those T-37's, you were nothing more than a glorified gas station attendant for an aircraft.
I hated the flight line.
After bitching, moaning, complaining, about the flight line, type of work, they must have got tired of me complaining, and they put me to work, in the hanger, taking them apart, for phased inspections.

For me those T-37's were a big let down, from the responsibility that i had on the Phantom's.

I wanted to be transferred down to George Air Force Base to get back on the Phantom's, but the military higher ups didn't go for that at all.
So i discharged out in 1980, after 7 years active duty.

Jim, do you keep up with any of the pilots or other crew you worked with on 69-370? Shame it ended up getting blasted as a drone.

As a matter of fact i do keep in touch with some of the guys from my Zweibrucken, Germany days from 50 years ago.
We seem to be a close neat group, to this very day.
But as far as the pilots and navigators go, i would have to say nope to that question.
Didn't really know the officers, other than launching them out for flight, on the flight line itself, or around the base.

That's great. I guess no matter what job we all did when we were young, getting to talk to and hang out with the guys that were there with us is always fun. I have been retired 14 months now, and me and some of the guys I worked with/around at the power company for 45 years meet for breakfast once a month. It never gets old telling the tales of things at work from back in the day.

Those T-37 "Tweets" had the highest pitch whine to them, I never did like being around them. The F-4's were impressive on take off, proof that if you put enough engine on something it will fly! The "Flying Brick" is what we always heard from the flight crews LOL.

We called the F-4 the "bent-wing bug sucker". Its J-79 engines with a variable stator made a distinctive howling noise, not as irritating as the Tweet.

Engine start up on the Phantoms was a procedure that you needed one of these, that's known as a Dash 60.

Every so often we had to qualify on what's known as a "cart start"
You put a gallon canister of what you probably could consider a grade of gun powder in a panel under the engine, to get them started if a Phantom was somewhere at field that didn't have a Dash 60, like at a combat environment.
Boy, were they smokey, but lots of fun getting them started that way.