[simpits-chat] Phabulous Phantoms....

[Chris Woodul]

Funny. Full of good points, and also full of errors too.
If anyone wants to see the bulk of damage done in the first gulf war, they
only need to look at the record of the The Mighty Vark. I challenge any of
you to show me an aircraft with a better record of damage done in Gulf War
I. Especially tank plinking and LGB drops/hits. Even the EF-111 got a Kill
on a Mirage ( no shit)_ask me bout that one when I got time.
And if I had a choice of steeds to go into combat against migs in the skies
of North Viet Nam back in the day, I would take another Texas Product, The
Mig Master- F-8 Crusader. I would not want to be in something as big as the
F-4 trailing 20 miles of smoke as a "follow me" sign to some GCA controlled
gommer full of Spiz and Atoll.......The Crusader was a fighter pilots dream
( for the time) fast, manuverable and it had four 20 mm cannon- missles were
a secondary option. Single seat fighters are the way to go.
Most GIB's/RIO's/WSO's usually were dead weight, as opposed to being an
asset, and if an asset in that jet it was only for a second pair of eyes. Id
rather carry around the equivilant amount of fuel or weapons than his
ejection seat, avionics, and human flesh.
As for the Viper, I remeber from my early childhood reading dads Aviation
Week and Space Technology ( aviation leakly to the "in crowd") and seeing a
picture taken from the ground of the YF-16 and an F-4 in a great big turning
circle in the sky. Both were trailing smoke to define the radius of the
circle, and I think even as a small boy I understood the implications of the
little GD jet out turning the F-4. I will give you that the "tits" Light
weight fighter concept that was the YF-16 got ( as always) every thing
everyone could stick in it and hang off it, so now its not quite as much the
fighter it could have been...but it aint too far off the mark, especially
with the later model "shit hot" engines.
If you want to just go for the pure macho of a dog fight, I will state this.
A real fighter pilot makes a kill with guns. AAMRAMM shots are for all the
coke bottle glasses, PC programing, geek types found in many parts of
todays military. A real kill involves the strategy of outmanuvering your
oponent in a dog fight in the oblique vertical. All fighter pilots should
have this down as a fundimental. Of course if you have the AAMRAAM fire it
first, then go to mid range, then to guns as a last resort. But in the real
world, weapons dont work like Raytheon, and other Contractors tell you or
show you in the films. If I had a dollar for every guy in Viet Nam fired off
a AIM-7 Sparrow, or even AIM-9 Sidewinder only to see it go off chasing the
sun or just plain ballistic, only to find them self at gun range in the
original C and D models of Phantom with no gun, and then no kill. Trusting a
missle is like trusting lucy when she was holding the ball for charlie
brown.
Even though I know that Gene posted this to rouse the F-16 folks ( which can
be fun, although I qualify as one too since I own an F-16 cockpit, not to
mention F-4E) I think that even Gene knows that if he had to go do battle
against the Phabulous Phantom, that it would be in Genes favor to choose his
own F-15 if he wanted the odds in his favor.So keep this in mind.
All that being said, I get a hard on watching a Phantom in full burner, and
I do miss them very much. I love the Brittish Phantoms too with the big Spey
Engines.
Dont fret, Justin, you know I love the F-4, but in this subjective world of
aviation love, we all gotta speak when we read these threads   : P


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb@deltasoft.com>
To: <simpits-chat@simpits.org>
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 5:23 PM
Subject: [simpits-chat] Phabulous Phantoms....


> This was posted to a message board I read.  <sense_of_humor=ON>
>
> TO: Capt. Eric Best 3 SEP 93
> FROM: The Wild Weasels
> SUBJ: Gross Written Buffoonery
>
> 1. In case you hadn't noticed, the F-4 is the F-4 of the 1990s. Any
> comparison between that worthless piece of flying FOD that you buzz around
> in and the Mighty Phantom II is insulting to the many men who have fought
> and died In the F-4. The Phantom II was flying Defense Suppression and Air
> Superiority missions over Hanoi, dropping LGBs with PAVE KNIFE on the Paul
> Doumer Bridge, and flying CAS in the Iron Triangle (to mention just a few)
> long before your flying toy was a wet dream in the minds of the Texas
> Congressional Delegation.
>
> The misplaced belief that the F-16 is a true multi-role fighter is no
> doubt a contributing factor to the common occurrence of Vipers spearing
> rocks, dirt, trees, other aircraft and large bodies of water with the
> pitot tube. The F-16 was designed to be a cheap, day VFR fighter and no
> amount of training or money will ever be able to overcome that imitation.
> If any aircraft today approaches the potential for comparison to the F-4,
> it is another two seat, two engine McDonnell Douglas product in the Air
> Force Service.
>
> 2. Any attempt to inflate your basement-level status by comparison to what
> is, quite simply the best jet fighter ever built and the Defender of the
> Free World for over 30 Years, is a pitiful attempt to boost your ego by
> comparing yourself to better men flying a better aircraft. The F-4 has
> flown more types of missions, in a superlative fashion, than the F-16
> could ever consider. We would all love to see the day when an F-16 lifts
> off with 24 Mk 82s and four AAMs on a combat mission. And the F-4 became
> the world's best ever distributor of MIG parts with 1950s technology,
> AIM-7Es, AIM 9Bs and cannon, without having to wait for the introduction
> of the AMRAAM.
>
> 3. The simple fact of the matter is that the dismal combat performance of
> the F-16 in the Gulf War is directly responsible for the continuing
> service of both the F-4 and the A-10. The F-16s inability to deliver
> ordnance load accurately resulted in the need to re-attack targets,
> endangering men needlessly and wasting resources. It wasn't the F-16 that
> ran a SAM-killing 8 ship through the most intense air defenses ever
> encountered by the USAF over Baghdad on the first night of the war. The
> only reason "Magnum" is even in your vocabulary is because the dwindling
> numbers of Phantoms led to the conclusion that an F-16 on the wing is
> better than nothing at all, but only just.
>
> The only people that have not caught on to the glaring inadequacy of the
> F-16 are the people who drive them. The only foreign customer stupid
> enough to purchase the F-16 since the war has been Taiwan, largely
> because, (1) they placed their order long before the war, and (2) they had
> no real option because they were not offered the F-18 and didn't already
> operate the Phantom II. Even your own manufacturer bailed out of the
> business as soon as they realized that they could no longer rely on
> general and gross stupidity to sell their flying failure.
>
> 4. To wrap this up, we greatly resent the misguided and faulty comparison
> of the F-4 Phantom II to the Fighting Falcon, the only fighter aircraft In
> history to be named after a second-rate college football team. Any
> resemblance between the McDonnell Douglas Phantom II Supersonic,
> All-Weather, Fighter-Bomber (Mostly Bomber), and the miserable,
> single-seat, single-engine, computer designed, fly-by-wire, composite
> airframe, software-driven, day VFR, ice-FOD sucking, weakdick bubble
> canopied, target missing, ground impacting, non-hook raising, auto
> trimming, piddlepack ejecting, G-LOCing piece of flying pork barrel
> politics is limited to the fact that both aircraft have an F- designation.
> Your aircraft should have a blue stripe painted around the nose and "FOR
> TRAINING USE ONLY" stenciled on the fuselage. And you can go to the club
> tonight knowing that you, your article, and this letter occupy a
> significant place in our Doofer book
>
> THE WILD WEASELS THINGS TO DO LIST:
>
> * GRANADA
> * PANAMA
> * SOMALIA
> * BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
> * CUBA
> * NORTH KOREA
> * TEXAS
>
>
> :)
> g.
>
>
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