Juni,
Both Distiller & Transall are correct. The bomb bay was originally designed to carry a tactical Nuke but later carried the 390 US Gal fuel tank. The bomb bay door was not bolted shut during operational life as there were multipul elec junction boxes in the bay that needed frequent servicing. Yes we did on almost every occasion take off with only 25 – 30% fuel on board and then refuel as quickly as possible. When it’s 115 deg F with 99% humidity and your loaded with 6 750lb Mk117’s, an ALQ 87 jamming pod plus 1 or 2 AIM 9 B’s the a/c had a tendency to not want to fly. You started on the first brick and staggered into the air by the last brick which led to disparraging comments like “if someone built a runway that ran around the world and stopped 10 feet short of itself Republic would build an a/c to eat up every inch of it”. But conversly on cold day in Germany or Alaska the J-75 would develope gobbs of power and get you airborne in less than 5500 feet. 🙂

Cheers
Itch

For me it would have to be the BoF and into the BoB, with 32 Sqd or 610 Sqd. The others would be with the USAAF 5th AF in the SW Pacific or the 15th AF in the Aluetians. Stirring times and soul testing events.

If you look in the lower left corner you will see it was signed by S.Koike. Just a observation. Cheers

[QUOTE=PhantomII]I was under the impression that some Missouri ANG birds and some RF-4C’s were fitted with wrap-around windscreens to improve visibility, but that these were the only birds so equipped.

PhantomII
The Missouri ANG, 131st FS, had F-4E’s with F-15 forward windscreens. They fly out of Lambert field in St Louis and are across from MacDonald Douglas (now Boing) so one wonders how they got them :rolleyes: . It was an experiment tried by Macair and they equiped about half the units a/c.
Cheers

I’ve always had the impression that the dummy was laying on the wing at the root, then released at the correct camera moment, a cable or line was played out to open the chute at a safe distance from the a/c. The “hump” on the wing in Mark’s pic could be a winch to reel in the cable after dummy launch, again for safety reasons and as it is near the trailing edge on the upper surface of the wing would be unobtrusive photographically and not obstruct the flaps. The hump could just be a aerodynamic fairing over the winch arrangement and help hide it in other later or earlier sequences. It would be easy enough to install and dismount when the scene was completed.

Just a thought.:)