F-4 Phantom flying at Reno

Thanks for the link, no matter what people say the F4 is still a beautiful old girl even without a gun under the nose.

Ritchies real F4D (66-7463) is unfortunately rotting outside the USAF academy and is the ONLY aircraft to ever carry 6 mig kills surely this should be preserved inside a nice museum ?

curlyboy

For what it’s worth, here are some photos and commentary of the Collings F-4D:

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/Misc/F4dAirToAir/index.html

Richard.

Presuming the ‘Colling’s’ example was the one that Steve Ritchie had to re-train :rolleyes: for ???? & displayed a few years ago, once he’d regained his ‘currency’ (like re-training Solskajer to score goals, duh).

Not quite. Richie didn’t originally do a F-4 refresher course at Holloman to fly the Collings F-4.
He re-qualified specifically to fly the two Holloman F-4’s that were repainted in his Vietnam ‘Mig kill’ F-4 markings for displaying at the USAF’s 50th Anniversary Airshow at Nellis AFB back in April 1997.

Steve Richie is no longer flying the Collings Foundation F-4. There are one or two other F-4 qualified pilots in The States however.

I do agree Hornchurch that the drone programme is a waste of these (and all) aircraft, but there were so many E models built that it does not make much differance, however there is talk still in the states of the USAF doing a memorial flight with aircraft from WW1, WW2 Korea and Vietnam so the F4E would be ideal for that.

As for the collins foundations F4D and Steve Ritchie, it is amazing the FAA or the US military letting this plane fly as it is, and Ritchie is getting on a bit but still to put on an amazing show throwing a 30 ton fighter around the sky without much in the way of modern powered controls is still pretty impressive.

But it would have been funny trying to teach the man how to suck egg’s again after so long (just like riding a bike i would have thought).

curlyboy

Great shots papa lima

it is a shame that that aircraft is one of the QF-4E drones that has been given a reprieave to do a few airshows then will be blown out of the sky for research.

The collins foundation do however operate a private F4 (a D i think) which looks amazing, it is a shame that Mark Hanna’s plan to privately operate a F4 in the UK came to nought. curlyboy

Curlyboy – well upsetting news about that QF-4E, gutted.

Expected the drone programme to waste the remaning E’s (& G’s ?) – just seems so sad though, on this one example – Marking it up in T.O.114 camo’ (once again) & then wasting it – great shame (wish the pen-pusher that condemmed it was inside when it finally goes 😀 😀 😀 ).

Presuming the ‘Colling’s’ example was the one that Steve Ritchie had to re-train :rolleyes: for ???? & displayed a few years ago, once he’d regained his ‘currency’ (like re-training Solskajer to score goals, duh).

Great shots papa lima it is a shame that that aircraft is one of the QF-4E drones that has been given a reprieave to do a few airshows then will be blown out of the sky for research.

The collins foundation do however operate a private F4 (a D i think) which looks amazing, it is a shame that Mark Hanna’s plan to privately operate a F4 in the UK came to nought.

curlyboy

Nice shots Papa Lima:)

James