McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom 2 (74-1638)

One of Mr. Mac's "Fabulous Phantoms"!!!

Cliff, the F-4 is one of my favorite jets of all time. It's too bad you usually only see them at an airshow and always one of the highlights for me when it does its demo. Japan and Germany still utilize their F-4's and can be combat ready at a moments notice plus they are the cleanest looking F-4's with some wonderful paint jobs.

Wow, nice!

Ppick, I appreciate the info on the F-4 and it's one of my eternal favorites too. There was a time when the Phantom II was a regular at many airshows I attended. Is the one in your photo is stationed at Tyndall AFB?

Cliff, I'm not sure. One really odd thing is that as many times as I have seen them here at Barksdale, because they are here just about every year, they are parked next to the F-15 demo team, the F-16 demo team, the F-22 demo team and the T-Birds or the Blue Angels, all those demo teams crew have there matching coveralls or flight suits but the F-4 ground crew is usually 2 or three men in blue jeans and a T-shirt. Kind of like they were ground crew back before they retired them but they wear non-matching clothes and you can tell they are much older men than the other ground crews? I am always curious when I see them but they never walk over to the barrier like all the other demo teams do and sign autographs and take photos with the kids that look up to these guys just like they were the ones flying the demo. Sorry for being so long winded.

Ppick, not to worry... and no apology necessary. I enjoyed reading what you said. Those F-4 guys ought to walk across to the barrier and spend some time with those young kids. They might not ever know just how such can change lives and inspire future aviators and maintainers.

I talked with a few F-4 pilots at OSH and Reno this year.
Final flight will be December 20th at Holloman afb in New Mexico. That is going to be 4 ship formation and
Some Supersonic passes

Nice toy!

I'm gonna miss them for sure. The show I watched a couple months ago and knew about it long before then showed them getting a choice few, quite a few to be exact and the U.S. was spending the money to get them back in top flying shape to fly them remotely. Paint a lot of orange on them and have a pilot sitting in his little office cockpit flying the F-4 over the desert so the newer fighters can have real target practice. Shooting them down. Boom! It explodes and drops to the desert ground. Makes me angry when you see one at an air show taxiing about 30 feet feet in front of you and knowing its future is some kind of munitions slamming into it? Just my opinion.