Any current or former F-4 pilots here?

[mytai01]

Are there any real pilots who fly or have flown the F-4?

[Jug]

Are there any real pilots who fly or have flown the F-4?

Try Wagsled

[MigBuster]

I think Robert Ward did also:

 

http://combatace.com/forum/254-interviews/

[ezlead]

I got 'fammed' in the RF-4b in 1972. I have about 100 hours in it. It was big and heavy,but the control response seemed unusually light to the touch. The POWER was tremendous! Those J-79's would set you right back in the seat.

[Lexx_Luthor]

ezlead, fixed it for you...

 

Those J-79's would set you right in the back seat.

 

There. So the guy in back with his controls had to cut afterburner, and reduce throttle, all with you in his lap, so you could climb back up front?

Edited November 22, 2011 by Lexx_Luthor

[ezlead]

Hey Lex:

They were Navy/Marine F-4's. No dual controls except in some stateside training (VMFAT-101,201)

Overseas,We flew with pilot in back on first 2 flights,then senior experienced RSO's.

[Lexx_Luthor]

Right -4b didn't catch that. So you had to stay in the back seat until fuel ran out. gotcha!!

[mytai01]

I was hoping to find a real F-4 pilot who still remembers the feel of the plane that would be willing to flight test the game's F-4's and give input about how he thinks they compare to the real plane. Particularly during approach and landing and high alpha flight and hard maneuvering.

[MigBuster]

Might be info in some old threads - like this:

 

 

http://combatace.com/topic/27931-phantom-tactics/page__p__156003__hl__phantom__fromsearch__1?do=findComment&comment=156003

[ezlead]

mytai01:

I haven't flown the games F-4's in a while. I'll fly them again and let you know.

[ezlead]

mytai01:

You need to add some power to the engines and burners. AN F-4 with 8 missiles and 2 full drop tanks would be airborne in about 1200-2000 ft of take off roll. That would be about 150-200 kts. With full AB at the end of a 10,000+ ft runway if you leveled off at about 10 feet you should be indicating about 350+ kts with gear and flaps retracted(A high performance take off). That F-4 would really haul a$$!

[DWCAce]

Didn't know it would take that LITTLE runway to get airborne (for that kind of load). Thanks for sharing! :)

[mytai01]

mytai01:

You need to add some power to the engines and burners. AN F-4 with 8 missiles and 2 full drop tanks would be airborne in about 1200-2000 ft of take off roll. That would be about 150-200 kts. With full AB at the end of a 10,000+ ft runway if you leveled off at about 10 feet you should be indicating about 350+ kts with gear and flaps retracted(A high performance take off). That F-4 would really haul a$$!

 

I'm still modding the data.ini. I already added some newtons to military power to get them to 10,900 lbs thrust per the NATOPS. I'm concerned that the game programming may not be accurate enough though. I flew some patterns with no external load and tried to follow the procedures that were stated in the NATOPS about the landing technique. It stated that upon touch down the pilot is to retract the speed brake, chop the throttles and then deploy the chute and PULL THE STICK FULL AFT! It says the nose wheel drops at touch down because of the CG, etc. Does this sound right to you?

[ezlead]

Upon touchdown,you would leave the speedbrakes out,throttles to idle,deploy the chute(if needed),then you would raise the nose wheel off the runway and hold it until it fell back on its own,then below 100 kts you would start using the aircraft brakes.

We only used the chute if we were on a short runway(8000 ft or less) or if we landed heavy. It made the 'turnaround time' for the maintenance crews a lot less.

Holding the nose wheel off was called 'aerodynamic braking'. You would make the wings create lift thus inducing more drag,helping the aircraft to bleed off speed.

Once you were at taxi speed you would retract the flaps and speedbrakes.

Coming aboard a carrier,as soon as the wheels hit the deck,you would retract the speedbrakes and go to full power. If the hook missed a wire or you missed a wire(called a 'bolter') you would be ready for a go-around. This procedure is used on ALL Navy aircraft.

If the hook catches a wire you WILL stop,no matter how much power you have on.

The wires are 'tensioned' for the particular aircraft coming aboard,according to its landing weight. There is a big difference between an A-4 'Scooter' and a RA-5 Vigilante or a C-2 Hawkeye.

 

DWCAce: The F-4 had so much power in burner that you could not keep it on the ground much above 150 kts. It REALLY wanted to go fly.

You would not light the burners until you released the brakes and started rolling.

If you lit the burners sitting with the brakes on,the airplane WOULD start moving, sliding the locked wheels and probably blowing a main mount tire.

 

ezlead:A phormer phantum phlyur and still a huge phantum phan.

[mytai01]

Upon touchdown,you would leave the speedbrakes out,throttles to idle,deploy the chute(if needed),then you would raise the nose wheel off the runway and hold it until it fell back on its own,then below 100 kts you would start using the aircraft brakes.

We only used the chute if we were on a short runway(8000 ft or less) or if we landed heavy. It made the 'turnaround time' for the maintenance crews a lot less.

Holding the nose wheel off was called 'aerodynamic braking'. You would make the wings create lift thus inducing more drag,helping the aircraft to bleed off speed.

Once you were at taxi speed you would retract the flaps and speedbrakes.

Coming aboard a carrier,as soon as the wheels hit the deck,you would retract the speedbrakes and go to full power. If the hook missed a wire or you missed a wire(called a 'bolter') you would be ready for a go-around. This procedure is used on ALL Navy aircraft.

If the hook catches a wire you WILL stop,no matter how much power you have on.

The wires are 'tensioned' for the particular aircraft coming aboard,according to its landing weight. There is a big difference between an A-4 'Scooter' and a RA-5 Vigilante or a C-2 Hawkeye.

 

DWCAce: The F-4 had so much power in burner that you could not keep it on the ground much above 150 kts. It REALLY wanted to go fly.

You would not light the burners until you released the brakes and started rolling.

If you lit the burners sitting with the brakes on,the airplane WOULD start moving, sliding the locked wheels and probably blowing a main mount tire.

 

ezlead:A phormer phantum phlyur and still a huge phantum phan.

 

 

It's always nice to hear from the real flyers about how sims behave. I wish someone would make a true hard-core sim (ala DCS style) of the F-4 family. Now that would really be cool!

[ezlead]

You must remember,this was designed as a 'light' sim. It does a pretty good job of simulating the flight characteristics of most aircraft. With a little 'tweaking' of the FM's it gets pretty close.

That's why I fly it. I've tried almost everything out there and this comes the closest. I don't count rivets. I: kick the tire,light the fire,brief on guard and first one in the air is lead.(An old Naval Aviator saying)

A sim that simulates all aircraft perfectly would be very cost prohibitive.

 

Plus:With what TK has done and all the terrific modders out there contributing to the sim it becomes tremendous.

Where can you get a sim that lets you fly almost every aircraft from the Wright brothers to the F-22 or F-35. It even lets you fly missions and campaigns.

IMHO it is the BEST!!!

[malibu43]

Also, if you were to tweak the F-4 so it flies "per the manual," the game would be out of balance unless you did the same thing for all other aircraft as well.

[JediMaster]

That's my main beef with most sims that model multiple types. You can't model one plane to ultra fidelity and then half-way it with the others. All planes need to be modeled to the same standard. Look at Il-2...most all planes done according to Soviet sources, which means the Luftwaffe planes are based on captured articles that had who-knows-what problems and time since proper maintenance while the Soviet birds all had "manufacturer" data since after all they were famous for lying to themselves. The result was Soviet planes that performed better than reality with Luftwaffe planes that probably were fairly close to "below average" real performance...meaning they were at a disadvantage often vs those Soviet planes. Perhaps a better gauge would've been Luftwaffe numbers based on testing captured Soviet planes!

[+Typhoid]

You must remember,this was designed as a 'light' sim. It does a pretty good job of simulating the flight characteristics of most aircraft. With a little 'tweaking' of the FM's it gets pretty close.

That's why I fly it. I've tried almost everything out there and this comes the closest. I don't count rivets. I: kick the tire,light the fire,brief on guard and first one in the air is lead.(An old Naval Aviator saying) A sim that simulates all aircraft perfectly would be very cost prohibitive.

 

Plus:With what TK has done and all the terrific modders out there contributing to the sim it becomes tremendous.

Where can you get a sim that lets you fly almost every aircraft from the Wright brothers to the F-22 or F-35. It even lets you fly missions and campaigns.

IMHO it is the BEST!!!

 

"I: kick the tire,light the fire,brief on guard and first one in the air is lead.(An old Naval Aviator saying)

 

those were generally the missions that worked out the best.....

 

 

"With what TK has done and all the terrific modders out there contributing to the sim it becomes tremendous.

Where can you get a sim that lets you fly almost every aircraft from the Wright brothers to the F-22 or F-35. It even lets you fly missions and campaigns.

IMHO it is the BEST!!!"

 

My opinion too! This is a great sim and the modding community has made it absolutely awesome!! Where else can you log in and get a complete standalone mod from a whole range of modding teams for specific periods to go along with the core sim?

 

And given the number of real flyers here, that alone is testament to just how good it is at the current level of fidelity.

 

Besides - as someone pointed out a while back, if this was really, really precise - you'd spend an hour just running the checklists to get engine start and launched!

 

If you want to throw lots of switches - there is MS Flight Simulator.

 

Now, having said that, back in ancient times when I was still with the Mirage Factory team I know there was a definite effort to get the Phantom flight characteristics correct to include adverse yaw and spin characteristics. So it just depends on how much effort one wants to put into it for how much realism before you just go fly it in the sim.

Edited November 29, 2011 by Typhoid