A Phantom dogfight tale

[+MigBuster]

Back to Op Pulsator (Beirut 1983). Between trips to the Lebanon, we did a lot of excellent training flying, taking advantage of the glorious weather in Cyprus. It is worth mentioning a fight that my nav and I got into one glorious and cloudless Friday afternoon on a training sortie there. Not a fight as in fisticuffs, the more gentlemanly pursuit of aerial jousting; Air Combat Training. Although it was not all that uncommon to practice 1 v 1, 2 v 2 and (occasionally) 4 v 4, three element fights were more unusual; in this case 1 v 1 v 1. Three aircraft each on his own side trying to 'kill' the other two and attempting to avoid being shot by either. Perhaps I should explain how this works.

 

All three players start at the same point and split outwards, at 120° intervals, to a pre-nominated range (say, 10 or 15 miles from the start point (This is known as the 'Mercedes Split' - think of the Merc symbol and it will all make sense). Then they are allowed to turn in and may take shots on either or both the other players. The training advantage of this is that it stops crews from getting involved in a lengthy, 1 v 1 fight as the third aircraft can enter the fray at any moment and engage the other two players. The idea, as I saw it, was to force the other two to get tied-up and be the third jet, the one who gets to kill everyone else. So, on the Friday in question, I had a brilliant game plan; so brilliant that it couldn't possibly fail. 

 

We split, to set up the fight, with us heading southeast. As we extended out towards 15 miles from the centre point, I started a climb to get as high as we could whilst explaining to my nav what my wily scheme entailed. We would not rush into the fight; we would take our time, gain as much altitude as possible and let the other two get tied up together and, hopefully, lose sight of us. Then we could swoop down on them from the heavens like a silent avenger from the Gods, unseen and unopposed, heroically to shoot them both while they were too busy even to see where we came from. Then we would roll in behind them and take a few yards of gun camera film with which to taunt the other players later. He seemed reasonably impressed with this. Oh, yes, one other thing, I was not going to get caught slow, I would have 'fighting speed' (at least 450 knots)all the time.

 

Everything went swimmingly. Our powerful F-4K FG.1 made it to over 50,000 feet and still at a respectable speed. Nobody would ever see us up here. And, even better, the other two were engaged in a 'knife fight in a phone booth' directly below us, highlighted beautifully against the shiny Mediterranean. Rolling my mighty Phantom on her back and leaving both throttles parked up by the firewall (full burner), I pulled the nose down to point at our unsuspecting prey. Now in a vertical dive, God's own gravity combined with the potent thrust of the Phantom's two Rolls Royce Speys in full burner to accelerate us dazzlingly quickly toward the gleaming sea. In the time it took me to position the sight on each of our opponents in turn and to unleash terrible destruction upon them, we were too. Upon them..............I mean, not only upon them but straight through the middle of the now defunct fight, still accelerating. I heaved on the stick, planted it firmly in my lap in a vain effort to level out from this screaming dive.

At such high speeds the F-4 Phantom was not over-blessed with what we call 'nose authority'; the ability to point the nose of the aircraft where desired - in this case, above the horizon. Now I was no longer battling to enter the fight with unarguable advantage, I was battling to recover from this self-induced, high speed, high angle, death dive in the distance remaining between the sea and us. 'Calmly' I closed both throttles, opened the speed brakes and pulled like a bastard, remarking 'casually' to my back-seater 'I think we've blown this', to which he replied, 'What do you mean, “We”?'

 

 

from Paul Courtnage ex RAF

[Derk]

Read Robert Prest "F4 Phantom, a pilot's story" , full of stories on RAF Phantoms.

[Nesher]

hahaha.. good one!