In the phantom, the WSO controls the targeting pod, and even though the pilot does have a forward hand control, it is only used for guiding mavericks and bullpups.
My question is, why didn’t the designers of the F-4 also allow the pilot to control the targeting pod as well, using the forward hand control. They were allowed to see the video feed of the pave spike, which helped them to align the plane correctly, wouldn’t it have been better to give a bit more autonomy and also allow them to control the pave spike as well?
We would see this in later fighter jets (like in the F-15E in dcs for example, both the pilot and WSO can control the targeting pod), then why wasn’t it implemented in the phantom?
