Gregory_Schulz@mil-elect-tool.com wrote:
>
> leadbelly:
> I worked on F-4E's in the AF in '70-71.
> Even wearing ear protection I still lost
> 25% of my hearing in one ear and slightly
> less in the other.
>
> What was really a pain in the ass
> was being called out to the test pad
> for an engine check. They'd have one
> of those sons-a-witches chained down
> and run that bastard wide open forever
> (it seemed).
>
> After the F-4 pilots flew 100 missions over
> 'Nam they took artistic license during their
> last final approach at home base. A mini-
> "Thunderbird" air show if you will.
>
> Only one thing (to me) can rival the sight of
> a race car coming down the Moraine Sweep
> at RA flat-out - and that's an F-4 streaking
> toward the runway at 75' elev & full throttle...
> BOOOOOOOOOM! A little afterburner action
> and that flying brick would point it's nose to the
> heavens and was gone.
>
> "Speed Is Good"
>
> Sidewinder ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Sprite #517
Sidewinder,
In 1972 I saw both the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels flying Phantoms
in their shows. In those days if you flew in to the Reading Airshow, it
was quite easy to go out to where your airplane was parked and watch the
show from your plane. We happened to park the Skylane adjacent to the
runway and were no more than 100 feet off the side of the runway. We
went out to get our lunches out of the cooler and sit down to eat under
the wing a little before the Thunderbirds did their arrival routine
before landing. I happened to be sitting looking toward the approach end
while my buddy Bill was sitting looking the other way. I failed to
mention this little white dot approaching from behind him. They
apparently came in at about .8 Mach and pulled up virtually right next
to us and lit the burners. The shock of the noise bowled him over and
pop went one direction while food went another and the cooler got kicked
over etc. We later watched the show from under our wing undoubtedly in
violation of the FAR's 500' minimum, but nobody told us we had to leave.
Less than 2 weeks later on July 2, I had the pleasure of seeing the Blue
Angels flying around Manhattan drumming up business (trolling as we used
to say in the airshow arena)and looking down on them from the 2nd floor
of 17 Battery Place on the corner of Battery Place and the end of the
Weest Side Highway across the street from Battery Park. the show was on
July 4th at what was then Suffolk County Air Force Base in South
Hampton, I believe, Long Island. I took my then 6 year old son to see
them and we got within about 400' of the runway as both the diamond and
the solos took off. As they were departing he was yelling something at
me but of course I couldn't hear him. The ground was vibrating enough to
make him bounce off the ground. After they departed I asked him what he
was trying to tell me and he said that something had been wrong with his
eyes as everything he was looking at was blurred. And this was 500' to
the side of the aircraft.
Probably one of the loudest, if not the loudest aircraft ever built.
By the way I had an illegal ride in a Phantom in 1959 when they were
brand new. Never got my Mach Certificate, as this Commander would never
want any evidence of giving a ride to a civilian cousin of his former
CPO aircraft commander on Dec 7 1941 to be left lying around in a paper
trail. But what the hell my first airplane ride was illegal too in the
back seat of a T2 with my cousin in the front seat in 1956.
Leadbelly
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