The American Fighter That Changed Air Combat Forever 

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Other nickname for the F4 is 'the flying brick'. But you had to say it affectionately or there would be a fight.

Fun fact South Korea is retiring the F4 Phantom to be replaced with the KF21 fighter but the F5is staying to serve

The German F4s had a pretty unique nickname. Due to their trailing smoke and slightly sluggish behaviour at slow speeds they were called the “Air defence Diesel“

Careful, if you trash the F-111 you might summon THE PIG

Launches Fox-2 Fox-2: "Now I see that fighter you want me to engage... but by golly gee wizz that sure is one big heat signature up in the sky"

Phantoms phight phor phreedom

Damn, the mid-century really was the golden age for aircraft design. You could made a cutting-edge fighter, entering service worldwide and noted in textbooks for decades to come, and it'll be called Satan or smth.

I love the phantom for making me go “wait it’s that big!?” Seeing it dwarf the MIG-29 at Dayton Ohio was definitely an experience

My step-dad was drafted into the USAF during Vietnam. He started out as a mechanic working on the Phantom. He stayed in and became a survival instructor. He had a chance to fly in the Phantom along with the F-15 and 16. He said the 15 was more fun to fly. He said the Phantom was his favorite aircraft. Despite all the trash talk Sprey used to say about the F-4. Hence why my step-dad never liked Sprey. I did get to spend some time around the F-4 while my parents were stationed at Bergstrom in the mid to late 80's. You just have to love this aircraft.

"no, i wouldnt change a thing"

The Flying Bus with a smiley face on its ass!

The Vietnamese MiG pilots were just schooled in older dogfighting techniques that matched their older aircraft, giving them an edge over the American pilots who weren't trained to dogfight. I love how some people will attribute MiG victories over Phantoms to Soviet pilots, but the Soviet Union was seeing the same problems in their fighter pilots that the USAF and USN were seeing with a similar response. Paper Skies has a good video about the USSR's TOPGUN program that I recommend. I had the privilege to spot a couple of Hellenic Air Force F-4s fly past while working SNOOPIE team during the Truman's 2022 deployment.

I have a fun fact and a fun story involving the F4. The fact is that the British phantoms with the newer engines could out pase the air speed indicator. The story is my grandfather was a mechanic who worked on phantoms in the air force, to separate his birthday me and my dad bought tickets for a phantom flight simulator for the three of us, during the pre flight prep one of the instructors was going to each if us and explaining how to start the jet, I got impatient and started the aircraft before he got to me.

Turkey still flies Phantoms. Designated F-4E 2020 "Terminator"

ah, the F4 phantom. the orginal "Joint Strike Fighter"

My grandfather was the USAF liason for Linebacker II. 176 combat missions in F4s over two yours. Anyway his story with the missile problems was to increase the length of the cord that connected to missiles to the aircraft by a few inches (and triggered their ignition). Said it lowered the failure rates by like 90%

The F-4 Phantom - The US's proof to the world that with enough thrust even a barn could fly. My Dad was a Navy Aircraft mechanic in the mid 70's. He would tell me that the Phantom was the worst aircraft to have to work on - any problem and you were guaranteed to have to remove at least 1, if not both engines. In contrast he loved working on the A-4. I wish he was still around to hear more of his tales working on Naval jets.

Can't see the Phantom without remembering Ace Combat 04. Shattered Skies was the game that first got me interested in fighter jets, and Mobius 1 (player) starts with an F4 variant.

I'm something of a F-111 apologist. I believe it's a fantastic little strike bomber with an impressive service record. Yes, I won't deny that the interceptor version was in all likelihood a bad idea, something the reformers will NOT shut up about, though at the same time they conveniently forget that it never actually entered service. They spend all their time complaining how it was a waste of time and resources, but you never know until you've tried, and at that time no one had really tried it before. Also a bit of a tangent, but statistically the F-111 was a better tank buster than their flagship A-10 (no disrepect to the Warthog). I have no idea where this train of thought was headed anymore, so I guess thanks for listening to my ted talk and have a nice day.

The JASDF operated a unit of F-4s at the base i was stationed at back in 2010. Always turned heads.

Yes… Yeeeeeesssss. Embrace the Brick.

The RF-4C, the recon camera-bearing variant is so often overlooked in discussions that I was genuinely startled you mentioned it (even in the context of it serving as the basis for the E variant), and I'm super pumped that you did. Like you mentioned, the core F-4 platform was built to multirole, but while the Air Force chose to outfit a full recon and elint variant with the ability to carry tac nukes if need be (although otherwise unarmed) the Navy opted to use their RF-8 and RF-5C for recon instead. While they did convert 46 F-4Bs to modified recon variants for the Marines, these did not have the same capability nor roles as the RF-4Cs, as might be expected from the Marines. This is one part of why the Air Force experienced higher loss rates for the F-4 overall, as recon missions for bombing runs were particularly deadly, and made up nearly a fifth of all F-4 losses in Vietnam. My grandfather on my mother's side flew as WSO and navigator for 105 missions (he had to fill in a few extra while waiting to be shipped home after he and his partner hit 100 missions) after previously crewing a B-52, and the Laotian mountain pass night bombing run routes were far and away the most deadly for RF-4Cs in his squadron, although later the Barrel runs to Hanoi would outstrip them in casualty rates. In order to capture good aerial photos it could sometimes take multiple passes, and after the first pass you bet your ass the MiGs were being scrambled and every weapon that could shoot upwards was going to be pointed there looking for you. Worse, as the cameras required dropping flash photocanisters to get any good shots at night, you effectively had to light your belly up like a goddamned beacon each time you wanted to take a photo, and being the only thing lit up in the sky at night made you a pretty fucking visible target. Dropping flares to mark targets for a flight of bombers coming after you had much the same effect. Not even mentioning the joy of flying quite low over the mountains and sometimes down through passes at night. On one of the flights where my grandfather and his partner had to make a second pass down a canyon where they'd seen a supply convoy, a SAM skated by less than 10ft off their right wing, scorching it and rattling the airframe pretty good (although considerably less than if it had hit), and they frequently came home with some scars and bruises on the frame from ground fire raking them. I'm well and truly aware of my bias as a grandson who followed him into service (Air Force to anime/cartoon pfp pipeline is strong lmao) but I always admired the recon pilots more than the fighters who got to follow after them and use them as bait for MiGs and ground AA emplacements. Another part of the reason for the difference in shootdown rates between branches is the missions flown, as Air Force had to fly more missions deep into NV and neighboring airspace for bombing runs and the fighter escort missions accompanying bombers or daytime scouts. That's not to say the Navy didn't have better pilots for dogfighting MiGs, as I'm sure that inter-branch dick-waving fight could go on for weeks comparing missions, shootdown rates, and equipment to try and say which had the better fighters, and they absolutely had and have some of the best pilots of any kind on the planet. (The very thought of attempting a night landing on a carrier in an F-4 fucking scares me like little else in flying ever has, salute to those fucking madlads.) But I think that it's not quite fair to compare combat losses 1-to-1 between the two given the different missions they had and the tools available to each branch. That said, it's undeniable that USAF losses were higher, and they had to adapt their doctrines and training far more than the USN did to get to grips with how to use the F-4 platform and its variants. If you couldn't tell, I was super excited to see this video pop up, and loved every minute of it. The F-4 may not be the most overlooked and underappreciated plane out there (looking at you, Aardvark, your comeup in popularity in recent years is long overdue) but I'm always super stoked to see people talking about the plane one of my biggest heroes flew in, and knowing that you're gonna get to climb in a cockpit and film it for the world to see makes me all the happier. Can't wait to see it!

F4 makes me think of the movie/tv trope where the grizzled old guy isn’t much of threat in the game anymore but he definitely wrote the rules to the game

faulty missilles brought to you by the people who made faulty torpedos

+1000 to the "MORE DAKKA" prerequisite

YOOOOOOOO FINALLY THE F-4 EPISODE LESGOOOO

My obsession with combat aviation began with a movie called _Threshold: the Blue Angels Experience,_ which I got on VHS when I was three and completely wore out the tape over the next 20 years. 1970s documentary on the Blues in their big, beautiful Phantoms.

9:00 If you want an idea of just how bad the pre-1962 designating system that the Navy had was, then look no further then the FG-1, F3A-1, and the F4U-1; on paper these three seem like 3 separate Navy fighters, right? The thing is though, that the FG-1, F3A-1, and F4U-1 are all the (Pretty much) exact same aircraft, that being the legendary Corsair; naturally one would wonder why they have different names, and that comes down to who made them. As seen via the graph at 9:17, the FG-1 was the Goodyear built Corsair, whilst the F3A-1 Corsair was built by Brewster, and the F4U-1 was the Vought Corsair. Now compare that to the Army, where despite both Ford and Consolidated-Vultee (Convair) building the Liberator, both were still known simply as the B-24 (And yet the Navy called it the PB2Y Privateer).

Also I figure this is a great place to share the following. My first ship was the Kitty Hawk and home ported in Yokosuka Japan. On weekends I'd take off up to Atsugi to party with my squadron friends and not have to sleep on the ship for a few nights. Once or twice a month, lol probably 3 times a month I'd stagger back onto Atsugi solo on my way to sleep wherever it was I was supposed to ACTUALLY be at. I'd had a deep lifelong love for military aviation and on a night I can't say my drunk brain finally realized dude we're slumped against a gateguard F-4, that A-4 last time etc. We should profess our love for them by climbing up on them and passing out. And so began my still half drunk wake-up from my drunk nap quickly followed by reality smacking me with "DUDE HOW THE FUCK DID WE END UP ONTOP OF THIS PHANTOM!? It did change after awhile but only to "Shit we did it again damnit it hurts getting down from here."

And about those losses over Vietnam. The MiGs claimed 67 aircraft total, fewer than 50 being Phantoms, against 137 losses. Even operational losses, from the risks of operating high-performance aircraft that first flew in the 1950s, claimed more F-4s than the MiG-17s and MiG-21s put together. Overwhelmingly, Phantom losses were to ground fire, and to SAMs, more of the former and less of the latter than one might expect from a 21st century perspective. Why were these jets within range of AAA fire from the ground? Because they were employed in the ground attack role. We talk about the Phantom doing a job it wasn't designed for, in visual range dogfights, but it was equipped with Sidewinders. Much more so than Basic Figher Maneuvers, dropping bombs and rocketing enemy positions from above was a case of the Air Force, Navy, and Marines asking for more, and getting more, from the aircraft than it was designed for. But as with the other roles it was tasked with, the Phantom was quite good at ground attack, as evidenced by the success of the raid on Osirak. No, not THAT raid on Osirak.The first one... by Iranian pilots flying F-4s, who dealt extensive damage to these nuclear facilities. It was in the following year that F-16s of the IDF, with F-15s (the spiritual successor to the Phantom) flying cover, delivered what would be the killing blow to Saddam's reactor. Having planned the raid using intelligence provided by Iran. It was an amazing airplane, with capabilities that were still being discovered and the air crews being instructed and learning how to capitalize upon during its early combat deployments. When doctrine and tactics and technology caught up with it, the Phantom was a beast. And again, about those losses? I don't think either of our fifth-generation fighters are bulletproof, either. For all that they represent a vast leap forward in the capabilities of fighter aircraft... the most significant since the F-4's introduction.

Saying that the missiles were being mishandled during Vietnam's early years is an understatement. I've seen footage of USN deck crews and USAF and USMC ground crews manhandling these missiles like they were medieval cannonballs; using heavy hammer blows to put the guidance fins in place, as an example.

This is one aircraft in my mind whose appearance screamed "I'm made for war and I will end you." Just something about it's look, being harsh, brutal and powerful. Great video!

This channel is criminally underrated

I have the preorder SO PLEASE HEATBLUR LET ME COOK also I like that card set, it's good for recognition

The J-79s fitted to the first phantoms were way short of 18,000 lb thrust. The very first were just a tad over 14,000 and rapidly upgraded to around 16,000 which were fitted to the first Phantom IIs. It was the Mk10 variant that finally hit 18,000. Then with the MK15 thrust was reduced to 17,000 to comply with reliability modifications. British Phantom IIs were fitted with Spey engines kicking out 20,500 but were slower top end due to increased drag. That said the RAF needed a fast climb rate and they got that with the extra 12% thrust to weight,

bumping for the algorithm.

My grandpa on my father's side flew Phantoms in the Air Force over Vietnam

Very well done video. I had to chuckle when you mentioned the "much improved APQ-120 radar" for the F-4E. Not so much. The antenna was squashed at the top and bottom reducing overall gain and making sidelobes a serious problem. the radar would transfer lock to the sidelobes anytime the range gate went through them. MTBF was pretty lousy, at one point in the mid-70s it was down to 1.5 hours. The radar hand control in the rear cockpit was a major improvement over the C and D. 5 mile scope was nice, Vis Ident meter was a waste of space. It wasn't mentioned in your video but the addition of leading edge slats and new cockpit weapon controls totally changed the way the Air Force F4E was flown and fought. For example, the 6G corner velocity for the hardwing F4E was 420KIAS. For the slat F4E it was 320KIAS. That's the minimum airspeed needed to be able to pull 6Gs and is a indicator of maneuverability. With the F4s acceleration, getting to a 6G corner very quickly was a big deal in a hard maneuvering fight or if you had multiple SAMs shot at you.

You and Lazerpig need to design a new Pierre Sprey-approved fighter, much like the IFV/APC/whateverthehell, it was awesome to watch.

17:18 recalls the problem with torpedoes in WW2 where a head-on hit often became a dud

I served with VF-41, an F4J Squadron assigned to USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA-42) from 1970-74. It was a great squadron and I loved the Phantom.

I remember the Luftwaffle F4 doing a low fast flyby near us. A huge smoking brick, but damn was it cool

there is also some rumoured examples of the phantom being called the "death brick" and the tomcat being called the "death brick II"

Lead distributor of MiG parts

I repaired Inertial Navigation and Side Looking Radar on the RF4C in Thailand. Loved that plane. Notice we fall in love with the planes we support.

Its rare that someone makes a video about something I know so much about and I don't pick up on any mistakes. Absolutely perfect video my dude! Although I would argue that the pre 1962 navy designations aren't that bad, but maybe I'm the special kind of retarded that it just makes sense to me

I got habit of watching small youtubers i never watched i do it because sometime you find gems with 30 k subs and crazy video quality. You are one of those good stuff aesthetic is beautiful

It always surprises me just how huge some of these fighters are. The Corsair was about the same size as a B25 Mitchell bomber. When you see the pilots tiny helmet in the cockpit through the canopy, you get some idea just how big they are. WW2 pistom fighters were absolutely tiny in comparison.

When I was in High School in 1972, after school, I delivered newspapers. I remember a newspaper article on US fighter pilot Steve Ritchie who had just become an F4 ace with his fifth victory. With 5 red stars added to his F4. I saved the article cutting and had it for years but alas during a house shift, it disappeared somehow. in 1974 whilst at High School, we were learning tech drawing, We could choose our own mechanical subject to draw. I chose the profile of the F4 Phantom which I did by pencil. My 1970s school days are now ancient history.

The best gen 3. And i will die on this hill

Awesome video! It’s hard to find good content like this that isn’t a stolen book narrated by AI with stock footage, please keep them coming.

America has/had some amazing air craft in its military - a fighter that proves anything can fly if you add enough thrust, a bomber still in service whose newest airframe is 62 years old, a fighter that can withstand a midair collision, lose most of a wing and still fly, and a plane that proves you can make a Gatling gun fly if you put wings on it.

I remember growing up living in base housing at RAF Leuchars back in the late 80s/early 90s. Anytime we went past the main gates, i would always get my parents to stop so I could look at the F4 they had parked on the grass out front. Brick though it may be, I still maintain to this day it was one of the most beautiful planes I ever saw, and the main reason I'm so into aviation and military aviation history.

Later on, the F-4 Phantom role was over taken by F-15 and F-22 for the US Air Force. As for the Navy, it was overtaken by the F-14 Tomcat but in the end the Tomcat was replaced by F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, an aircraft originally conceived as lightweight point defense fighter like the F-16. But in the end, the Super Hornet and the EA-18G Growler taken up roles originally performed by EA-6B Prowlers, A-6E, F-14 Tomcat, A-4 Skyhwak and A-7D Corsair, a feat that F-111 trying to do.

I hear phantom, i watch, god I love the damn thing

22:49 The Spey powered Phantoms the British used were a bit slower as fitting the engines gave a little more drag even though the fans were supposed to make it more efficient in fuel consumption.

4:30, The outer wings were actually angled with a dihedral of 12 degrees, to make 5 degrees over the entire span of the wings. As well, the rear horizontal tails were angled downwards, or anhedral, by 23 degrees. (Edit, you did mention the 23 degree anhedral haha, my bad.)

Mithras would’ve been a a banger of a name for a fighter.

There’s an RF-4B that was converted into a drone in August 1990 on display at the Havelock visitor center outside MCAS Cherry Point. There’s also a lot of other really cool aircraft on display around the general area if you ever find yourself down here.

Ahhh I love your videos man, the graphs, the presentation and the story, it's always top notch!

Love the music. My middle school principal was a f4 piolt in the top gun program. I spent alot of time in his office, at that point i kinda gave up on my dream of being a fighter pilot because my family shot it down. I sent a airforce application in when i was 8, they said give it 10 years and try again. Still have the dream.

I flew the F4E Phantom II for the USAF in the early 1970's. I had an M61 20mm Cannon, built in.

Flew nearly 1,000 hours on the E. Very memorable.

Thank you for making this episode falcon. I don't think I've ever commented on one of your videos but this is particularly great to watch. Especially given over the past few months I've had at least a burgeoning interest in the F4 due to having not ever heard of it until I read up on it during a "Cold war gone hot" scenario and wanted to know what this thing was. This really helps clear it up a lot.

We have an F-4C and a QF-4S at the Fort Worth Aviation Museum. Our F-4C (64-0825) was used by the 366th TFW in Vietnam, and then was used by the 301st TFW at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth (now known as Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base). We're finishing up a SEA repaint for it, after someone with the USN had it painted in a shabby VF-202 paintjob. Our QF-4S (BUNO 153821) was originally built as an F-4J before being converted over to a QF-4S target drone around 1990.

All the various naval F-4's were cool if you think about it; Wildcat, Corsair and Phantom were all great planes. Magic in the name, I guess. The Phantom was stationed at the local air force base and was one of the first models I built as a kid. F-5 was THE first. Good doc, Falcon.

great stuff. making history fun with alot of info ive never knew yet. looking forward to the next one.

I truly love the slight jank and variety of appearance you tend to see in the early jet age fighters of the Cold War, and have really enjoyed this dive into the Phantom. As always you’ve thoroughly gone into its record of engagement and given a more intuitive and in-depth account of its differences and strengths/ weaknesses against its Soviet contemporaries and as ever I am very much here for it. I’ve so far bought stickers and such as support but I’m hoping when I start my new job next month to be joining your Patron ranks. Loved the video and here’s to many more- and to hopefully one day seeing the AIM-9 thumbnail become a sticker too, to become a blursed edition to my art pad with an place of honour 🖤

Yes “Phantoms & Corsairs forever” (slightly edited). Love the upload and the Top Gun coverage 💯. People hated on the movie 🎥 when Maverick hit the brakes and the Mig flew right by, saying things like “that would’ve been impossible…it’s against the laws of physics!” But in 1972 over North Vietnam, actual Top Gun naval aviators from squadrons like vf-96 yanked the stick back and hit the brakes hard so that the Mig overshot, leaving it in perfect position for “Fox Two” which is a good book 📕 by the way.

If I remember correctly from the Royal Australian Air Force museum at RAAF Williams (the oldest continuously operating air base in the world) we got the Phantom on a lease arrangement while waiting on the delivery of F/A-18 Hornets, because our Mirages flew the white flag in typical French fashion. They were a stopgap for only a couple of years, I think. Cool video Falcon. Looking forward to hearing about the F-111 (as I'm sure a porcine friend is also).

I'm really enjoying your content. Been a big military aviation enthusiast since I was 12 (I'm 36 now) and it's great to see younger folks still showing passion about this stuff. Keep up the great work, Falcon! Question, have you covered any WW2 aircraft at all?

I was crew chief on F4 G model from 1985 to 1988 then was retrained and crewed the F16 block 42 night falcon from 1988 to 1990 halfway through 90 I received my honorable.

Due to it's smoky exhaust in Germany it was nicknamed the Air Superiority Diesel.

When are we going to see the next Roundtable episode? LP teased one almost three months ago and still silence... can't wait for it!

I’m sure some of you guys know the song already, but if anyone’s looking for the specific Danger Zone remix that he used, it’s called: Danger Zone Hard Lock version.

One thing I've noticed is that people often claim that Top Gun was the first of its kind but the Air Force had its FWS since 1949

I can't wait for this F-4E release. Looks like Heatblur has made another masterpiece. Such a cool piece of kit. I never knew about the changes in the F-4K used here in the UK. Great video.

Thanks so much for this video it's helped me fill in blank spaces things that I didn't know about the F4.

Can´t wait for the Heatblur F4e my Favourite aircraft my Grandfather always told me stories about the F4f when he worked as a Mechanic in the german air force

They were fun to work on (I was a 328X0 at Moody in the early '80s on Viet Nam era E models, some of which had MiG kill stars) but incredibly maintenance intensive with tube electronics, tuning motors and wall-to-wall circuit breakers so the crew could pull or reset them in flight.

Actually, they served the US until 2016 as targets. Designated QRF-4. I saw one at an air show in the mid-2000's. It was fresh from a rebuild and testing and was headed for some manned dogfighting against current aircraft before being sacrificed to the sea as a remotely controlled drone target. I believe there is still a significant stock of them at AMARG so there is always the possibility of them flying again.

Great video! Thanks for making it.

My beloved flying brick. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

My dad was an F-104 IP in the 60's . While in Vietnam, he flew Fast FAC in the F-4. He grudgingly admitted the F-4 was "capable." When he returned from RVN in '67 he was back to flying his beloved 104. He was flying over the Gila Bend Gunnery Range when he got into a knife fight with an F-4. He said whoever was flying the Phantom knew his stuff and the only reason he didn't get "killed" was a) he knew the Phantom's weak point and b) he flew the 104 like a madman. I hope he and the Phantom driver were able to knock back a few beers. Dad passed in 21. I have his battered flight helmet, ratty flight suit and spurs proudly displayed.

I had F-4 Phantom book covers from the Kentucky Air National Guard on my textbooks in the late 80s. They used to fly right over my High School and we'd have to stop class while they passed by since their distinctive engine roar was extremely earth shatteringly loud!

I love some of the older more forgotten aircraft. While this one isn't forgotten and wasn't particularly effective, the Phantom will always have a special place in my heart!

Those Mig17 pilots were really something else.

Thanks. USAF F4D Radar tech. Ubon, Thailand 1/69-1/70. Love the smell of JP4 in the morning!

I like how youve managed to make me love the Phantom here. I always used to just skip over it, being a Tomcat fanboy. But this plane really was a huge deal.

As always, enjoyable to listen to 😁 Thank you for making my night at work a little less boring

dayum that intro and video is very good made!

4:53 McDonnell F-101 Voodoo preceded the F-4 in conception I believe, and the F-4 had similar engine mounting positions to the Voodoo.

You totally got me with the redlettermedia reference

Ahhh the banshee… at the drag strip I work at, about once a year the jet car shows up. They call it the beast but it’s just an f2h banshee turbine strapped to the back of a dragster. Helluva show to see

Just found your channel and I gotta ask, why the heck is your lil pilot character so adorable

Saw the Thunderbirds flying F-4s back in the day- to see a low fast pass over the runway going faster than sound was an AWESOME sight

Dan Pederson's book on the starting of Top Gun is an fantastic read.

I repaired the radar on the F-4E during my 4 years in the USAF from 1973 -1977. Some of the best years of my life.

"Other one successfully launches but starts tracking the Sun and effs off" when you roll lower than a 4, but not a critical failure