McDonnell F-4 Phantom II US Navy. Story by Howard Rundberg.

My long association with Navy F-4s began when I was shown three small-nose F-4As (F4H-1s) on an assembly line at the McDonnell plant in St. Louis, Missouri in 1958. The Navy F-4Bs, eventually the retrofitted small-nose F-4As, and subsequent US Navy/USAF models had larger radomes to accommodate larger radar antennas except the USAF F-4Es, which has a cannon in the nose under a smaller radome. The F-4Cs were basically F-4Bs bought by the USAF and had the original narrow tire and thin wing. The Air Force wanted a wider tire on the F-4Ds for rough-field use and the inboard wing was made thicker to accommodate it. Consequently, when the Navy F-4Js were produced later they also had the wide tire and thicker wing. In the F-4 photos on the National Museum of Naval Aviation, the indoor view is of an F-4B with the chin IR dome and AIM-7 Sparrow-III missiles installed. The lower photo is of an F-4J in flight. The F-4J had the AN/AWG-10 Fire Control System which included the AN/APG-59 radar. I was involved with the Sparrow-III system in F-4s from the beginning because of previous experience with the F3H. Improvements were incorporated throughout the service life of the Navy F-4 series and they were still being processed at North Island when I retired from there in 1980. At the McDonnell plant there was a spike strip located near the end of the F-4 flight line that caught my attention. It was used to blow out the tires in case the drag parachute didn't deploy during landing roll-out. Without the drag chute, the brakes would get hot enough to cause the tires to explode after the airplane was parked. The F-4 was one of the first aircraft to use an integrated systems concept. In previous aircraft, each system that needed vertical gyro reference, such as the artificial horizon, autopilot, radar antenna stabilization, etc. had a separate gyro. Some older aircraft types had as many as six gyros. The F-4 had a Central Gyro Reference System (CGRS) that provided gyro information to systems that needed it. Earlier aircraft had numerous pitot pressure tubes, static ports and temperature probes. The F-4 had a Central Air Data Computer (CADC) which used fewer pitot pressure tubes and static ports and a temperature probe to provide all air-derived information including transonic static pressure correction, altitude, indicated airspeed, true airspeed, temperature and Mach number. Because of my experience with overall aircraft systems, I inherited engineering responsibility for the Central Air Data Computer (CADC). Some interesting CADC related in-flight problems occurred. Engine air induction ramp position is scheduled for Mach number which is provided by the CADC. The ramps on one airplane were popping open in the transonic speed range and causing engine problems on repeated flights in spite of extensive troubleshooting. Everyone involved was called to a meeting in the executive board room. They all said they couldn't find anything wrong and I kept telling them the problem was caused by loss of Total Pressure (Pt) from the pitot tube. Eventually, a loose coupling was found in the Pt line that was allowing the tubing to back out of the fitting at high speed and then go back in at lower speed. Another time the ramps on all flight-test F-4s were repositioning at too low speed at high altitude. There was a hot "Santa Ana" wind from the east causing unusually high temperatures at high altitudes that was causing the problem. I showed the design data to the senior flight test officer to convince him the airplanes were OK. Another thing that came to attention was that altimeters in different types of airplanes were calibrated using different "Standard" Altitude Tables. It wasn't very obvious in prop planes at lower altitudes but in jets at higher altitudes it was a problem. Two jets would be assigned different altitudes by Air Traffic Control and find they were at the same altitude. The problem was resolved by calibrating all altimeters using the same altitude tables, right or wrong. Commander Sven Nelson, our F-4 Project Officer; Herb Gilsdorf, our radar shop foreman; and I, representing engineering, attended a conference at NAVAIR in Washington, D.C., to bid on an F-4 Weapons System upgrade project. In attendance also were representatives of contractors who wanted the job. We were first to make our presentation. Commander Nelson stood at the podium and said he learned in Toastmasters that a speaker should qualify himself to speak on a subject. He followed by saying he had degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering, had flown several F-4 combat tours in Vietnam, had served one tour on the carrier as F-4 electronics officer and one tour as F-4 maintenance Officer. Then he leaned forward and said: "Now I would like to talk about upgrading the F-4 Weapons Control System." The contractors reps got up and walked out. I stayed over for a few days and wrote the detail specification for the upgrade which was sent to North Island along with funding for the project. On our F-4 assembly line one day, an employee walked up and ask if I was an engineer. I replied I was and he asked if I could tell him why a switch in the wing flap system is connected in the missile firing circuit. I explained it was to prevent the wing-mounted missiles from being fired when the flaps were down because the rocket motor exhaust would damage the flaps. He said 'I knew there must be someone like you around here somewhere.' He made my day. One of our most extensive projects at the North Island depot was Operation Beeline, mentioned at the beginning, which began in 1969 and completely stripped the F-4Bs, installed the hundreds of aircraft service changes, incorporated structural and hydraulic sustem improvements, and installed all new wiring. There were approximately 15 miles of wire in 450 separate wire bundles. Because of the extent of the modification the airplanes were redesignated "F-4N". I wrote the test procedure for the entire F-4N Weapons Control System based upon contractor's preliminary data and with the cooperation of highly skilled production shop personnel.