Warbird Information Exchange

Had a chance to go to Canton for the Trade Days and as leaving town stopped by the Van Zandt County Veterans Memorial.
Since the last posts here from last summer the Huey has been painted and mounted. The F4 is about a mile away and will be painted with a southeast Asia (VietNam) camouflage scheme and moved to the memorial, hopefully by next summer. The volunteer at the gift shop said their research showed the Huey to be an E model and the F4 came from California. I could not find any numbers on the Huey, The F4 had beside the N #, F-4D 64 0965.

Found a couple of pics on airliners.net of the F-4 when it was still "alive".

Here's a couple more,



http://www.airliners.net/photo/Tracor-Flight-Systems/McDonnell-F-4D-Phantom/1449381/&sid=be53e42a7a6f9b8f4d0f9ffc31066c01



http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-%28Flight-Systems%29/McDonnell-F-4D-Phantom/0952389/&sid=be53e42a7a6f9b8f4d0f9ffc31066c01

the n number begs the question, do they own the bird?

_________________
-recovering Viper crew chief
-AWACS driver/soon-to-be A-26 driver
-displaced Philadelphian

The FS number makes me think Flight Systems. So might be still government owned, but loaned to FS for tests?

_________________
Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

that F-4 is looking a little sad right now, BUT an F-4 that is not being scrapped or shot down from testing missles is a GOOD thing.

In some of those photos, you can see the name "Tracor Flight Systems" painted on the vertical tail, so it's pretty clear who the operator was.

The "N" number does not necessarily mean that the operator owns an aircraft, just that they operate it. There have been many military aircraft that were operated by civilian contractors, registered with "N" numbers, but still owned by the Government. The A-3 Skywarriors that were recently scrapped in CA and AZ are a good example. They carried "N" numbers and were operated by Raytheon (and by other contractors before Raytheon acquired them), but the Navy was the actual owner. I'm not saying that Tracor didn't own the F-4 (although I'm fairly certain they didn't), just that the "N" number is not an indication of ownership.

_________________
Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

According to the web page below, It was registered to BAE System Flight Systems, Inc. as the operator, and the USAF as the owner. Also noted that this registration was cancelled for the following reason: Destroyed (!!!! )

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry ... rtxt=424FS

_________________
Bob

the same bird was in an old issue of air classics.

_________________
-recovering Viper crew chief
-AWACS driver/soon-to-be A-26 driver
-displaced Philadelphian

my dad is one of the people that put her together when it got to canton. Yes, they do own her. If my dad is involved it will look good when she finally goes on display.

was he a phantom maintainer? they are beasts to work on. looks good so far.



that is a horse of a different color.

_________________
-recovering Viper crew chief
-AWACS driver/soon-to-be A-26 driver
-displaced Philadelphian