Kirk66

Eh, TISEO was OK when it worked; but probably not worth the drag or the workload. APX-80A (Combat Tree, essentially), however, was really nice! I did get a big scare from TISEO one day during a DACT engagement against some Vipers; I had locked up a 16 with the radar just as he turned into the fight, then went eyeballs outside to clear our wingman's 6; when I came back into the cockpit I had somehow selected TV on the scope and instead of seeing a radar display I saw the nose of a Viper head on that looked REALLY CLOSE! Of course, it was just magnified, and we just passed beak to beak, but I didn't expect our radar to maintain the lock or cue the TISEO that well. Normally, you had to spend time calibrating the TISEO to your radar then switch from radar to TV then search around and by then an F-5 was giving you pipper burns on the back of your helmet... Vulture

My fini flight was in late 87. We didn't have the rails necessary for 9L/Ms; we still had Aero-3 without the fin retainers needed for the gucci 9Ls, so were stuck with E/J/Ps. Don't recall ever seeing a USAF E with the L rails - but I think the Wild Weasel Gs finally got them.

Absolutely agree! In real life it should be boring...in a game it should be fun! Vulture

I never saw anything better than an AIM-9J on the F-4s I crewed; we shot 9Es for training and hoped to get 9Js or 9Ps if we went to war. I really like the 7E-3s we fired; it was reliable and if in parameters was a killer! On a deployment to Wittmund flying with JG-71 we got to see how the early F-4F fared against our ARN 101 F-4Es. We had AIM-7s but AIM-9Js, while they didn't have a Fox 1 but did have an all-aspect Fox 2 with 9Ls. Radars were pretty similar (pre radar upgrade and AIM-120s), but they still had the diesel engines while ours were nice and pollution free... Result was totally different tactics as the Fs tried to run in and get close for a face Fox 2, while we would try to stiff arm them with Fox 1s and get in for a slashing gun shot while they were dodging the great white hopes. Vulture

Yep, been teaching myself how to crash trap on a carrier lately; after a bunch of rampstrikes I finally figured out the jet sticks out 40 feet behind the pilot and managed a 3 wire. What a blast. The tom does remind me of a bigger, more complicated Rhino in a lot of ways. Vulture

Good stuff! The poor old soft wing F-4E had so many bulges and junk attached (external mirrors, combat doc cameras, TISEO - really?) that it was barely supersonic...but still fun. We had to fight to get the useless combat doc camera fairings removed, and some squadrons took off one of the WSO external mirrors and moved the remaining one to the top (as pictured above); they were still only good for hero pics and checking to see if you were conning...and were beastly noisy at low level and high speeds! I'm definitely going to scare the closest CAG by planting my E on the deck of a carrier as soon as I can (we used to practice "carrier landings" on the runway at Cubi Point, which had a carrier deck painted on it for FCLPs, I guess. Gave the Navy/Marine tower operators a giggle, I'm sure). Vulture

I may be wrong but I thought the USAF jets had the same main gear as the Navy (why change?) except for the bigger lower pressure tires - which were also on the Marine F-4B/Js, I think. Nose gear strut may be different - didn't the Navy struts extend for takeoff? I know the Brits' F-4s had a longer extending nose strut, at least. USAF nose struts didn't extend, for sure. I trained in Cs at Luke (some of which still had Mig kill stars on them!) and they were pretty close to an F-4B - BLC flaps, short nose, etc. They were actually nicer to fly than the later slatted E's in my opinion; faster on the deck and a lot more stable on final approach (which makes sense). Just don't use any aileron at high AOA! New WSOs were told to keep their knees together when their student pilot was maneuvering at high AOA to force him to use the rudder to roll by limiting sideways movement of the stick - rudder worked so well you could do 4-point rolls using rudder only. But if you let some aileron creep in out of habit the jet would depart rather aggressively in the opposite direction! I'm really looking forward to see how well all the Phantom's quirks are modelled in DCS. Cheers, Vulture A lot has to do with where the landing gear is located - most modern jets have the main gear mounted on the fuselage, leaving room anywhere on the wings for stores. The F-4s main gear extends almost all the way to the fold, so the external tanks (or stores) have to be out there to clear the gear. Note that the inboard pylons are forward of the landing gear; any store mounted on them cannot extend back past the rear of the pylon. Vulture

Apparently (and remember this was 37 years ago!) the Mav was hooked up correctly, as we were able to do the pre-takeoff video and control checks, but there was another "arming" cable or pin that had to be hooked up or pulled in the arming area to allow launching a live weapon. Or a pin, like you say. Like I said, the missile video came up fine after I blew the dome cover, and I was able to slew and lock on to targets; it just would not fire. Perhaps it was an internal failure (I'm sure it was an old A or B model)? Still pretty disappointing at the time. I think we were told why it didn't work by the de-arm crew after pulling off the runway. Vulture

Nope, we tried several times to get that missile off the rail without success. And we only carried one, so just safed it up and took it home. Vulture

This. Spike for old school daytime LGBs with the earlier (and faster) pre-ARN jets, along with A/B Mavericks; Truck for nightime LGBs, and GBU-15s (graduate level weapon, that) with the ARN jets (which also have TISEO and a slightly better radar for A/A, but they are heavier/slower...). Low altitude GBU-15 attacks were crazy - run in at 300' or less, 540 knots, and at around 4 miles from the target, pitch up a bit, release the weapon, and immediately do a slice back down to low level. Meanwhile, your buddy is back 10 miles or so guiding the weapon via TV datalink trying to find the target "looking through a soda straw", while his pilot counts down the time till predicted impact. Before GPS it took a LOT of practice to get it right; the local prisons in North Carolina ended up calling the base commander at SJAFB to tell him to stop attacking his prisons! When training, you used one jet to "be the bomb" and fly the weapon profile (as far as you dared) while the other jet flew the release and guidance profile and it's WSO guided the "weapon". Not bad when doing high altitude deliveries, the "bomb" jet just flew fingertip formation until "released", then the pilot watched the camera video from the captive weapon on his jet to see where the WSO in the "guiding" jet was trying to steer him. There was a specific power and flight path profile you flew to simulate the weapon profile. The fun started when you practiced low altitude deliveries. Now the bomb jet is in close formation at real low altitude hanging on to the controller jet that is trying to line up for the shot, then when "released", flying up a few thousand feet, pitching over, pulling back the power, and following the weapon video to fly at whatever the guiding WSO in the other jet thinks is the target. This sometimes involved lofting the bomb over a ridgeline into a valley - you only had a few seconds to find the target and guide to it. Two jets would go out together and take turns; one of our favorite targets was a big truck stop on I-95 close to the South Carolina border - it had a huge billboard that made it easy to see when in the weeds, and no one complained about jets roaring over it. Vulture

Clark AB in the 80s was a great place to be flying F-4s; great weather (except for the occasional typhoon), Aggressors right on the field (so lots of DACT), bombing range right next to the base (so bingo could be low), and Cope Thunder exercises every few months so lots of action with all sorts of interesting units and aircraft. The furballs out over the ocean by Iba (west of Clark) were awesome - you would just keep your speed up and circle around until someone on the other side (usually some Navy toad) would spit out - then jump him for a quick F1-F2-snapshot guns. Or they would jump you! Plus monthly deployments to Korea (Kunsan or Osan, usually) etc. And lots of opportunities to jump in visiting jets - got rides in OV-10s, OA-37s, and NZAF A-4s - but missed my chance to ride in a Singapore Hunter! Vulture

Pretty sure Pave Spike was not compatible with the ARN-101 jets - it didn't have the controller box or front seat LOS indicator. Pave Truck was supposed to replace it, but it didn't take long for the Truck pods to go over to the F-111 (perfect for them) and we were back to dumb bombs (although now with CCIP/CCRP, so pretty accurate) and the real fun toy, the GBU-15! Now that beast was a LOT of fun! Vulture

Pre-ARN-101, manual dive bombing was practiced on every range mission, and was where you won or lost your quarters; but the serious crews also worked on dive toss to get the system tuned up (especially if going to Red Flag, for example). Manual bombs in a combat or Red Flag environment only worked if you dropped a LOT of them - normal load was 6 x Mk82s, 3 on each TER on the inboard pylons. If your dive toss system was working, it was a LOT better than trying to meet manual parameters during a pop attack with F-5s snapping at your heels... ARN-101 brought CCIP to the F-4 and finally made it a pretty good iron bomber, but even then it took more skill than say an F-16; the F-4E CCIP only had the legacy F-4 reticle without the predictor line or post release guidance (in a Toss delivery) so it took more skill to get the moving CCIP pipper on the target; the ARN-101 F-4E also had a Dive Toss mode that I thought was a better system, as the pilot could maneuver pretty aggressively with a stable pipper, put the pipper on the target, designate, then pull hard until the bombs came off. Some pilots liked it, most preferred the CCIP mode where the bombs came off as soon as they picked. Vulture

While we are waiting for our Rhino, check out the outstanding F-4EJ videos on the 1-300 youtube channel. Breathtaking! And there is no reason to not at least LAND an F-4E on the boat - the hook is exactly the same. Only difference in the gear is the high pressure tires on the Navy jets, but we landed the same way in the USAF (although the approach speed on the slatted jets was a bit faster), so they should work... Now getting off the boat might be a challenge, as there are no bridle hooks on an E, so a crane may be needed!). I once saw an F-4E take the (supposedly disconnected) approach end MA-1 cable during an emergency landing due to a hydraulic failure. This was at Myrtle Beach AFB, back around 1986 or so; we were flying out of there while the runway at Seymour Johnson AFB was being worked on. Anyway, I was the SOF for a large force launch with LIVE BOMBS (!) and one of the jets had Util Hyd failure (pretty common no-big-deal EP in the Rhino), so came back for an approach end cable - which means the BAK-12 1000' or so down the runway, NOT the MA-1 cable which is ONLY a departure cable (uses old ship anchor chain). I asked the tower crew to confirm that the MA-1 was disconnected, and they assured me it was, and the aircrew got a bit low on short final, looking at the big yellow balls 1000' down the runway where the cable was - and dragged their hook in the underrun, picking up the MA-1 cable that wasn't supposed to be there. That stopped the jet way before it got to the BAK-12! No damage to the F-4, but the MA-1 cable was destroyed. Pretty cool to watch - the local guys were pissed that we broke their cable, but they shouldn't have left it there! Oh, and the jet had six live MK82s onboard at the time... Vulture

In my experience, typically the WSO locked on and fired the Maverick; the pilots job was to point the jet at the target and cross check in his TV that the WSO had locked the correct target instead of a "tactical bush". In the F-4 the Maverick (especially the TV As and Bs) was a bit tricky to use and lock on, which is probably why the WSO had that job. Fun weapon to play with, but the TV versions were pretty useless. Any kind of camouflage would defeat them. I had one chance to fire a live Maverick, as part of my IWSO check ride during a Red Flag mission at Nellis (no pressure there!), and all went well, found the right tank target on the range, had the Mav locked up, took the shot...and nothing happened. Turns out the last chance arming crew forgot to hook up the arming cable. Boy was I pissed! Still passed the checkride, though. Bit of Maverick trivia: In the F-4, the pilots Maverick controller (actually the old Bullpup controller) uses "pilot logic", so pull back and the seeker looks up, push and the seeker looks down. For the WSO, using the radar hand controller, pulling back moves the crosshairs down on the display, so it's moving the seeker down. I preferred the pilot way. Vulture

When Star Wars first came out, I was going through F-4C training at Luke AFB. Of course we all went to see it. The consensus from all the F-4 crews (instructors and students) was that Star Wars proved that, in the future: There will still be fighter pilots (Luke, of course) There will still be WSOs (R2-D2 in this case) And Dive Toss will still not work... (Dive Toss in the F-4 was notoriously finicky, and unless well maintained, pretty much useless. That being said, when it worked, it was great!) Vulture

That source (Joe Baugher) is flat out wrong about where the Pave Tack pod was carried on the ARN-101 F-4Es. It was ONLY carried on the centerline; I dropped quite a few GBU-10 and 12s in the mid 80s in that configuration (Pave Tack on CL, LGBs on inboards, 370s on outboards). When loaded with 2 GBU-10s, that was right at our max taxi weight! My unit (3TFS Peugeots) received our Pave Tack pods along with the ARN-101 mod; I did some of the early flying with the pod demonstrating it's capabilities to the Wing Commander - we made night time simulated LGB attack on the base commanders house and taped it so the new capability could be shown to the bosses - the video tape showed me cueing the pod to the area of the general's house, then putting the aiming crosshairs on the corner of the house where his bedroom was during the full simulated delivery (medium altitude at night). Pave Tack (or Pave Truck, as we called it) was an awesome pod, but just too big for the F-4, Pave Spike was a lot more limited (and harder to use!) but it made more sense. What we really needed was a way to cue a Spike pod via DMAS; never got that which really limited the use of LGBs in the ARN jets. Vulture

Mover is just jealous because he never flew a real phighter. In USAF F-4 community, the FUF (F***er Up Front, AKA Front Seat Stick Actuator) rowed the boat, while the GIB (early on, when they stuck pilots in the pit), or later, the WSO (when they realized that they needed a sentient being to handle the hardware and keep the pilot from getting lost or putting the jet out of control, they switched to navigators - renamed Weapons System Operators) shot the ducks. A useful tool for the WSO was a banana on a stick - used to make the pilot turn the jet on command. WSOs/radar operators had been around in the USAF for a while (see P-61, F-82, F-89, F-94, F-101B, etc); what made the USAF F-4s unique was the additions of flight controls to the back seat - something the Navy never had. Not sure why USAF insisted on adding the controls - the F-101B didn't have them, for example - but because they were there some idiot decided to put two pilots in the jets at first! I'm surprised any of those jets survived any of their flights with TWO fighter pilots at the controls... Fortunately, Vietnam resulted in a pilot shortage so Navs were given some training and took over the pit, to the immense relief of the pilot GIBs! A good Pilot/WSO team was unbeatable, a bad team was useless. Oddly, while WSOs were expected to be able to fly the jet home incase the pilot ate a bird or something, and even land the jet, we were not "allowed" to fly the jet below 10,000 ft and there was no official training program. Some (most?) WSOs were in pit because of bad eyes, so pretty much learned to fly the jet on their own, usually with lots of help from their pilot (most of whom appreciated the utility of having an voice-command autopilot in the back seat) and a lot of extra time in the sim. Some rare WSOs had no desire to fly, those guys were not popular during long deployments (12 hours in the seat was not unusual) in a jet with a really crude and unreliable autopilot... Lots of games played between pilot and WSO during control handoffs. Popular was to run full nose down trim before handing over the jet. Ha ha funny. Sneakier was for the pilot to turn off the yaw and pitch stab augs - without them the jet was pretty squirrelly, to say the least! WSOs as a last resort could threaten to start pulling random circuit breakers... In ref to a previous post about where the nickname "Arnie" came from - the ARN-101 mod, which we got in my unit around 1981-2. Great enhancement to the jet, but it had some interesting teething problems! Looking forward to this release, it will be interesting to see how well they capture the different flying characteristics between the later slatted Es and the earlier Navy hardwings (which the F-4Cs I trained on still had). Adverse yaw is a bitch, but the rudder is your friend! Vulture

Terry, Thanks! I'll give them a try. Been meaning to give the Harrier a try and now will have to ;^) Kirk66

Totally agree!

Hi Terry, I'd like to use your neat little add-on for the TMWH throttle but my cockpit setup has my throttle mounted on a Monstertech desk clamp/plate; as a result the clamping height from the top of the throttle box to the bottom of the mounting plate is 60.6 mm instead of the 50 mm I measure for the throttle box itself. As I lack the skills to edit your file for the mounting clamp, could I impose on you to edit your clamp file to make the clamp height 61 mm? Or if it is easy to do, instructions on how? Cheers, Vulture

For those of us who are technically (and printer) challenged, there is also the option of getting the Thrustmaster TCA Airbus throttle quadrant. I put it (backwards) on my desk in front of the TMWH throttles, and it provide two really nice accurate long throw prop controls (along with a few useful buttons/switches). When they are available, I'll probably add the associated side panels, that will add a couple more axes (for flaps or whatever). Vulture

Hi, I too have been learning to fly the Mosquito and needed to come up with a solution to the British brake issue- without it it is REALLY hard to taxi as braking is pretty much all or nothing when using the full TMWH HOTAS setup (stick/throttle/TPRs). My throttles are modded with this analog TDC mini-joystick (https://deltasimelectronics.com/) and I found that by setting it up to only apply up to 40% braking, with a big dead zone, and using a custom curve that only uses one side of the TDC mini-stick throw (down, in my case), I now have the ability to "tap" the brakes just enough for steering using the TDC mini-stick, while using the F-16 Paddle switch on the warthog stick to apply full brakes when needed (I use the pinky switch, along with the paddle switch, to engage the parking brake). Takes a little getting used to and tweaking the custom curves to get the correct amount of braking, but it is a LOT better than "all or nothing" or trying to use only one of the TPR pedals! Vulture

Hi Reflected - I finally figured out the file system and launched the Bonus mission - thanks for all the patient help! Looking forward to working through your fascinating missions. Low pass in my LS6 right after I got it. 140 knots at a couple of meters... Cheers, Vulture