Hi John,
I had the pleasure of flying most all the F4 models made for the Navy
at Pax River. Also had one squadron tour in the F4J block 46 and a
couple hundred landings. Had many traps in the F8E with more than a
few "wet flight suit" traps in the dark. Also had traps in props. I
believe I can say without fear of argument from any Phantom that the
F4 was the easiest airplane ever built to land, carrier or shore based.
For starters, the F-4s were all assigned to the "big" decks. Having
grown up on 27 Charlies, the "big" decks were like cheating. Secondly
the F-4 dirtied up was ultra-stable. Squeeze a hair of power and the
ball went up a hair. First time in my career I ever saw a ball go out
the side of the lens. In F-8s you left the ball nearing the ramp and
gave it a little high dip to set the hook or it could easily bounce and
hook skip the whole speghetti pile. The Phantom just hit the deck and
planted itself dowm. Tail hook the size of a plow shear, never heard
of one parting. If you did bolt, a rarity, you had enough power to
bend it around in a VFR pattern and get back to the groove in about 60
seconds. About the only gripe we had around the boat was fuel
consumption was high. Almost as bad as present day F-18s. But our
boarding rates were in the 90% range and bolts were uncommon. By far
the best carrier plane I personally ever flew. Now in the air in ACM
it was a dog and took both hands to pull max G's. Pretty good vertical
with it's power and gave you a real edge over guys who didn't like to
get their nose up. Nasty and unrecoverable flat spin mode, not as bad
as the F-14 but usually resulted in either a punch out or a mort. So
you didn't spin it, simple enough. The guy who told you the F-4 was
scary dirty must have been a helo pilot or an USAF guy. Not all that
analytical for sure.





John Miller wrote:
John Carrier wrote:
The Phantom was very stable aircraft around the boat. Despite its
genuine
mach 2 capability (well, maybe not the S model), it was remarkably
docile
and forgiving throughout its envelope.

My flight instructor once mentioned that on his first flight in a
Phantom, as he got it slowed down for landing, it scared the poo out
of
him (apparently *felt* like it was in danger of departure, even
though
it was O.K.).

Can any of you experienced Phantom pilots shed any light on this?

--
John Miller
email domain: n4vu.com; username: jsm(@)