Flying the F-4 Phantom II,

[+MigBuster]

Life for British Phantom pilots was seldom boring. Whether it was training for near suicidal night attacks against the Soviet Navy, intercepting ‘Bear’s or performing low-level attacks. During the Cold War Chris Bolton flew the mighty F-4 for both the RAF and the Royal Navy. Hush-Kit met him to find out more.

 

https://hushkit.net/2017/07/31/flying-the-f-4-phantom-ii-british-style/

[Toryu]

An addendum to that:

[Toryu]

The interesting part of the KBO/WSO issue is that the Luftwaffe had already transitioned it's RF-104G wings (AG 51 and AG 52) to RF-4Es in 1971 and thus there were some experiences on implementing KBOs/ WSOs when the fighters and fighter-bombers started transition in 1973.

New recce-guys went through Shaw AFB and later Bergstrom AFB, while fighter and fighter-bomber crews went through George AFB.

 

Here's a recruiting-video on how KBOs were trained (in German, but you'll get a hang of it anyway):

 

Back when pilots wore proper leather-jackets, not those plastic-abominations which are used today...

Edited August 8, 2017 by Toryu