Seafuryfan has told me of the interest in my site, so a couple of explanations. The USN F4’s are just that, F4’s but my ISP used a capital ‘S, instead of lower case ‘s :rolleyes: I’ll get it changed!
We had cross decking quite often, both the F4’s pictured and Intruders, which have to be the noisiest aircraft that I’ve ever come across. Occasional visit by USN COD aircraft were even more daunting, not much clearance on the wingspan of a Greyhound. I’ve got some scanned pics that I can post, if wanted.
The USMC Phantom with 892 NAS tail was an interesting tale: we were operating in the Med, and the subject F4 went U/S on the cat quite a few times. We were due into Grand Harbour, Valetta, but the Maltese (under Mintoff) had declared the Sixth Fleet persona non grata, so the presence of a USMC aircraft presented a bit of an embarrasment. So, it was struck down into the lower hangar, hidden amongst the Bucc’s.
After a couple of days, it was moved into the upper hangar and repaired, during which it mysteriously aquired a paint job on the tail fin, identical to that on 892 😉 A lot of brown paper stuck over the US markings, and up on to the flight deck for ground runs 🙂 First call after leaving Malta, flying stations and launch the F4 back to mother. The aircraft “belonged” to the squadron CO, and apparently he was quite impressed, taking it back to the USA unchanged 😀
Our F4K’s had an extending nose leg, which increased the AoA for our shorter cats. The waist cat was 200′, the bow cat 180′ long, each with 1 second/hundred foot acceleration rate. I only got to go off on a Gannet, but it was quite a push. Mind you, the Gannet was the only aircraft to slow down after a cat launch 😎
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