Phirst Phlight Phantom

[Glyn]

[quote="gunnyperdue
In airplanes like that you are always in a hurry... gotta use your fuel wisely... think well ahead of the jet.

Very true. Even in the Hunter, especially without drop tanks the fuel contents guage was the one most often scanned. I read somewhere that the Lightning was in a 'fuel critical' situation right after take-off!

[RickH]

As an aside, you guys are looking at the last flying manned aircraft of the 147th FIG and 111 FIS. They are flying Predators now.

[Ztex]

Very Cool Rick!

Congratulations to you and your crew!

[skymstr02]

As an aside, you guys are looking at the last flying manned aircraft of the 147th FIG and 111 FIS. They are flying Predators now.

Don't F-16's count?

[CAPFlyer]

Read the last sentence again. They converted to Predators (MQ-1) UAV's late last year. No more F-16s.

[retroaviation]

Nice job Rick and crew. Looks good in the air again!

I hate to be so nitpicky, but don't y'all have the carburetors set a little rich? That sure looks like too much black smoke out the exhaust for any "real" round engine.

Gary

[Holedigger]

Great job getting her back up where she belongs.
I was also wondering about the chute, figuring it was probably just a test. I know the Starfighters team does a balancing act with the expendables of chute, tires and brakes, I guess you crunch the numbers on what is easiest and cheapest to replace and do what you have to do! If parts are rare AND expensive, you baby them as much as possible.

[snj5]

Brilliant work!
Congrats and deep appreciation for getting the ol' Rhino up where she belongs.
Some of my career's most memorable times are in the back of G's and E's.
Again - just terrific!

[Sasquatch]

For what it's worth, the drag chute's primary purpose is not landing roll-out reduction. It's for spin recovery. If you tumble the bird, item one is to reduce power and pop the chute, then when you get nose more or less down, you lower the drag chute handle to cut it away and throttle up. And yes, packing without the bag is a lot easier than putting it in the bag.

--Tom
Phormer Phantom Phixer

[retroaviation]

Interesting, Tom. Thanks.

Gary

[Sasquatch]

Thanks Gary. In Virginia we often had very wet spring weather. We'd hang the chutes to dry them in the hangar, but often ops were so hot that we'd run out of dry chutes. So we'd pack them moist for shorter flights (bounce flights--where the pilots were just going to the local outlying field for touch-n-goes), where they wouldn't be flying high for long. This was okay, as the chutes wouldn't freeze at altitude, so no problems getting the chutes to deploy on landing. But on occasion--missions with higher flights for longer periods of time--we'd hold our breath watching landings to see if the chute popped on rollout or if a big lump-o-frozen-nylon popped out instead. If it did...a certain a$$-chewing was on it's way, as it meant that--had a pilot spun the jet--he wouldn't have had a chute to aid recovery. We always felt bad about that, and the subsequent rosy rectumization. But with only one dryer in the paraloft and it working overtime, and a certain amount of time hanging in the hangar required to fully dry the chutes, we were between a rock and a hard place. Real life ops.

--Tom

[Matt Gunsch]

Jets don't compute fuel burn in gallons, it's in pounds.

Unless your paying for the fuel, then it is computed in cubic dollars.

[skymstr02]

Read the last sentence again. They converted to Predators (MQ-1) UAV's late last year. No more F-16s.

But both units operated the Falcon's after the Phantoms, so the F-4 couldn't have been the last...see?

[Ryan Keough]

Awesome! Great to see her running again with D-Day behind the stick! Hope she makes it out here sometime this year or next too! I'll always remember her... ahem... New England junket in '05

[RickH]

DZ, try to keep up !

She IS the last manned 147th Fighter still pflying. All other manned aircraft have been retired and parked ....