Chapter 2

 

The Front Line

 

 

 

 

there's a Bear in the air

 

F4 Phantom line - (86059 bytes) 

Four years.  Still know nothing.  Bottom of the pile.  Dual check, night check - engine fails - is it always like this?  Air to air refuel check, high AOA check, air combat check, trappers check, instrument rating check, phase III VID check, low level handling check, QRA check, air to air gunnery check.  Pay check - money too?

 

Fully armed F4 Phantom on the point - (58348 bytes)

Phantom F4Ks - ex Navy, funny Mods.  Fast reheat wired out, throttle locks, commit switch?  Fat body, big intakes - RR Speys?  Airliner engine, sloppy response.  Most powerful, heaviest, most expensive...... slowest F4 in the world.  Labor government, chop TSR2, chop F111, fix Phantom - ha!  Still, great fighter.  PD radar, 8 missiles.  Gun on a pod - hmmm.

 

 

F4 Phantom tanking from a Victor - (52963 bytes)F4 Phantom in contact with a Victor - (57832 bytes)

Off to Cyprus. Six weeks. Sun, sand, shooting.  Tank out.  Six hours.  Bust arse, bust bladder.  Two divert, bust hydraulics. 

 Love gunnery. Vulcan cannon, 100 rounds a second.

 

 

Norhtern Quick Reaction Alert sheds - (59588 bytes)

Back home.  Gray weather, gray shed.  Quick Reaction Alert.  Meet Russians.  Protect home - 2 aircraft?  Smelly kit, 24 hours.  Siren goes, 10 min, bog to airborne.  No excuse. Zombie, Vector, Angles.  Tanker airborne, all for you.  Long trip.  Piddle pack.  Miles North, arctic circle, no HF, no INS.  Got a navigator, nice guy, doesn't navigate.

 

KC10 tanker on QRA duties - (45788 bytes)

Found the tanker.  All wave.  Top up.  Center-line hose, big basket, nice and easy.  Heavy, 3 tanks, 8 missiles, full up.  Chat to Saxa, delta four four zero tiger plus lots.  AEW Shackleton airborne, way behind, never hear him.  Plod North.  Goes quite, out of range.

 

Soviet Bear - (49180 bytes)

Nav who doesn't navigate searches sky, head down.  Gets excited.  Green tube, speckles and blotches.  A contact?  Maybe.  Near MBC.  Tweaks the set.  Green mess, contact - where?  Doesn't navigate, good job anyway.  Mustn't lock.  Slack 90, more speed.  Creep up, takes ages.  Three, in trail.  Tally.  Set to standby, heads out, camera up.  Bears.  Long way North - should be polar bears!

 

 

Soviet Bear - (51304 bytes)Soviet Bear - (68560 bytes)

Int photos, close up.  Door number, intercept report.  Big props, contra rotating, 12 foot diameter.  Off synch beating fills the cockpit.  Count the rivets.  Last top-up, tanker's gone.  All alone, sort of.  Russians wave.  Aviators together.

 

Soviet Bear - (43329 bytes)Soviet Bear - (47124 bytes)

No smiles here - Party man on board or just plain bored.  Beehind tracks - guns sit still.  Out comes a camera - big box Brownie?  Swap sides, takes a while, here he comes, swap again, won't give up, give him a chance.  Grin beneath masks.  Another shot for the Kremlin walls.

Soviet Bear - (57896 bytes)

F4 Phantom escorting a Soviet Bear - (27804 bytes)

Lots of gas to get home, not long left.  Position? who knows.  Q2 arrives.  Hi guys, weather at base OK?  Chicken RTB. Only 3 hours transit, back for tea.

 

 

 

F4 Phantom - (78181 bytes)

Winter comes, nights draw in.  Jets go gray - probably from age.  Exercise season.  JMC, Priory, Northern Wedding, TASMOs, Profit, Blue Four, Coffee Charlie, Highwood, Ocean Safari, Cavalcade, Granular, Natinads, Elder Forest, Phantom Leap, Stalwart Friend, Minival, Teamwork, Mallet Blow, Tacival........

 

 

 

Phantom at guns range on an EC130 - (37936 bytes)Phantom at guns range of an EC130 - (71369 bytes)

Kills assessed from gun camera film.

Hercules (EC130) were difficult but Jaguars........two a penny.

Phantom at guns range on a poor little Jaguar - (30223 bytes)

 

Sidewinder AIM 9 moments before flare impact - (95399 bytes)

 

The real thing - coke and missiles that goes bang.  A sidewinder AIM9 takes out the flare towed by a Jindavic.  

 

 

 

An F4 Christmas Tree (65190 bytes)

 

A Merry Xmas to all our customers.  The engineers decorate the hangar Christmas Tree.  Never enough spares, dead aircraft get robbed of anything useful.

 

ATC tower - (76801 bytes)

 

Raise the Black Flag and quit to the bar.

 

Northern QRA sheds - (91012 bytes)

 

All except Q............

 

 

 

Soviet Bison - (122815 bytes)

Soviet Badger - (49008 bytes)

Soviet Coot - (47809 bytes)

 Two Badgers and a rare Coot............Russians don't have Christmas do they?

 

Phantom hangar -(71670 bytes)

How come there always seemed to be more in the hangar than in the air?

A Phantom in the hangar - (81267 bytes)

 

 

 

 

 

F4 Phantom in a Hardened Aircraft Shelter - (49241 bytes)F4 Phantom during a see-off - (58556 bytes)

Things get a little better....

 

Hardened Aircraft Shelters....

 

 

F4 Phantom on take-off - (40727 bytes)F4 Phantom on landing - (34343 bytes)

 

Aircraft with a few mod cons.....

XX and one X - makes you wonder!

 

 

Tristar tanking an F4 Phantom - (34255 bytes)Phantom in contact with a Tristar tanker - (65968 bytes)

Tristar converted to a new tanker.

Queued around the block......

Only takes one at a time....

Give the man a medal....

 

 

 

Phantom climbing out - (43349 bytes)

Getting old.  Needs replacement.  Something that can turn, climb, fight, modern radar...

I know, Mother Rileys Cardboard Aeroplane........

Can't call it that........

OK Tornado!

 

No, no.  I said something that can turn, climb, fight, modern radar...........

 

 

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