053 - F-4 Phantom II (part 2)
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- Опубликовано: 28 июл 2019
- And we're back!
On this episode we conclude last week's discussion with former F-4 pilot John "Tiger" Kerr and RIO Jack "Fingers" Ensch, both retired US Naval aviators. Hold on to your hats as we talk Vietnam-conflict shoot downs, shot downs, POW stories, and how they earned their callsigns.
Episode artwork by Janek Krause. Bumper music by Jaime Lopez / announcements by Clint Bell. 
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That colonel telling him that he was sorry for the suffering he experienced was extremely powerful. Wow.
AQ2, VF121, Feb, '68 to Jan '71. Thanks gentlemen. What a treat.
I'm so glad that "Fingers" talked in detail about their Mig kills! I stumbled across their mission on the old show Dog Fights. When I saw the CGI of that departed flip ...... I literally dropped my jaw open! I may have peed a little. Why do we not see this move in movies? It should be in Top Gun 2 ... but I digress. I hope it's okay but I'm including a link to that old episode. ruclips.net/video/YfQVehFjvaI/видео.html
(If you jump to 23:36 on the Dog Fights video) that's where Mugs & Fingers story starts). The quality of this copy is quite low, it appears that it was recorded with a toaster...but I appreciate the conveniance none the less. BTW: Tiger was great too and another brilliant show gentlemen.
A superb conversation. They tell these stories with the detail I want to here. Just incredible.
Hi! Im a new listener and I just want to let you know that these stories deserve to be on the big screen. Make it happen!
My son is entering a film college--will work on it!
I could listen to Fingers for hours, he's got one of those voices that's so soothing, despite the content of what he was saying. Fascinating and compelling interview Jello, thanks for finding these guys. Personally looking forward to Eagle Dynamics doing an F-4 simulator, it was massive over here in the UK too. Love that big ugly aircraft.
😎
"I don't want to extend this discussion for another 30 minutes"
-Exactly what happens. I would say we don't mind but that's not fully honest
Don't mind? We eat this s*** up!!!!!
Hearing these gentlemen tell their incredible stories, and listening to other naval aviators react to the same stories is exactly why I love this podcast!
Thank you! Keep em coming!
You're welcome. 🙏
14:53 "And I said uhh Mugz, 8 'o clock, trackin shootin uhh do some of that pilot stuff" is such a funny line. And then his pilot responding by performing a highly succesful back-flip outside the flight enveloppe haha, I guess that was exactly the kind of pilot stuff Mr. Ensch was talking about.
My great uncle flew F4’s for the air force in Vietnam, crazy times for aviation.. thanks for this!
You're welcome. 🙏
Great gents, true American heros with fantastic stories!
Finger's callsign change at 48:15 is "best seen to date" on this podcast thus far. Cheers, Shamu
Thanks, Shamu!
Awesome Job Guys, keep'em coming! my grandfather flew the Phantom and then the BUFF in Vietnam, Loved learning so much on the machine and the environment he was flying! I still have his POH for the F4. Amazing story from Cpt. Ensch, a true American!
WOW! As a civilian, listening to these guys is humbling, well most military stories makes us civi’s feel a little humbled. Thank you Fingers for sharing!
About the sooty trail from the GE J79 engines --
Later in the career of the Phantom (mid-1970s; halfway through its general US service), they modified the engines to run hotter. The modification as I understand was carried out on most American F-4 models. The Navy F-4N and F-4S definitely got smokeless engines. Supposedly the same smokeless J79s were installed in a few F-4J models, too. I'm presuming at least the F-4E and F-4G in USAF received smokeless engine modifications.
The smokeless mod took care of the soot trail at the expense of shortening the lives of the J79 engines. The US armed forces didn't care because the F-4 was standing down gradually. They'd have spare parts for many years as the F-4 force was whittled down when more Teen Fighters replaced the F-4s in front-line and reserve units. At this point, there was also well over 10,000 J79s in service worldwide!
The smokeless J79 modification was offered to US allies. The Germans, btw, didn't carry this modification out on their F-4s specifically because it reduced engine component life. The Germans operated their Phantoms probably about 15 years longer than they had originally intended (to keep the plane in service) so it was probably for the best for their fleet that they didn't do the engine modification! I noticed in retirement videos that the German F-4s smoked quite a bit.
Japanese and Korean F-4s probably all have the engine modification but they're going to retire their planes fairly soon. The last Japanese F-4s retire next year.
Excellent info, thank you!
@@FighterPilotPodcast I was wrong about the Japanese F-4 retirement!
They had a few F-4s flying into 2021. I think they were all assigned to test duty.
Their last frontline F-4s were retired in 2020.
There are probably fewer than 80 operational F-4s IN THE WORLD now. I believe South Korea is on the verge of retiring their last F-4s if they haven't done that already. Like Japan, South Korea has delayed the F-4 retirement because they can't afford to retire them and want to keep their force numbers up.
Greece and Turkey probably have fewer than 25 operational F-4s.
I think the Iranian F-4s are basket-cases held together with baling wire and are probably only marginally more operational than the Iranian F-14s are in general. They claim 60-80 F-4s are left in the Iranian Air Force inventory but I doubt more than 20 of them can actually fly!
In the US, only the Collings Foundation operates an F-4, a D-model that occasionally doesn't fly for years as it goes through maintenance (re: funding!) cycles.
There's an F-4 A-model another private group is trying to get flying again but the closest it's gotten to that is taxiing. I doubt that A-model will fly again...
Great episode. The most relatable story is the airshows and being able to be near the planes touch them. Growing up in China, this was unthinkable. Even private pilot license is still unthinkable in China these days.
This is the episode that I have so patiently waited for, and I definitely want to hear more. The F-4 was the first aircraft that I crewed, my first assignment (79-83) was at Clark AB in the Philippines in the 90th TFS and I crewed both the "E" model and the "G" model, but mostly the "G" (69-0265 & 69-7208). It would be nice if you could interview pilots that flew all makes of the aircraft, and from all the branches of the service that flew her, alas that would be a podcast show of it's own due to the mountains of information and interesting stories. Tiger and Fingers expressed the feelings that most of us feel for her, but they barely scratched the service, but there are many books written about her and web sites dedicated to her. Phantoms Phorever!
Finding guests is already a challenge. Trying to find someone who flew all makes of the aircraft would be extremely challenging. Sounds great in a perfect world but we believe in "good enough."
"Fingers"'s story was so powerful. No freedom is free. Thank you guy's service so people like me can come live in this wonderful country and experience things otherwise can never be experienced in their own countries.
great guests and another great podcast
Thank you Tiger and Fingers for your service !!!
Simply amazing
Love these podcasts, this one is particularly good, keep up the good work
Great interview. Love hearing from the old guys.
As soon as i finish watching all the episodes over the past 2 months and realise im out. 5 minutes later part 2 is released.
You're welcome! 😉
They revised the combustor cans in the J-79. That was the fix for all that nasty smoke LOL
Great stuff. Loved the stories behind the call signs!
No doubt.
Outstanding interview! Moved by Capt. Ensch's story and wisdom.
Agreed, and his humility.
Love the show! Great content. I would love to see an f-15 episode! (Unless I’ve missed it in the playlist). Please keep up the awesome work!
Spoke with a potential guest earlier today. Working on it!
I could listen to Capt. Ensch all day. What a guy with an incredible story. Him and his main pilot (Mugs) were also featured on an episode of "Dogfights" as well.
As ever gentlemen, highly entertaining. Great to hear the stories from the guests. Keep up the excellent work!
Will do! 😎
Amazing episode! Can’t stop listening.
Glad to hear, thanks!
+ 100 for Chip Berke. Very interesting and unique story with unicorn opportunities in his career.
Thank you gentlemen for sharing with us, and thanks to Jello and Sunshine for all the work you've done for aviation. Keep it up!
You're welcome. 🙏
Great episodes, worked in the F 4E engine shop at Homestead AFB in 69-70 and RF-4C and F 4D at Udorn RTAFB 70-71
That was an awesome podcast!
That was an awesome interview.
Thank you.
Excellent series, Godspeed Cdr Michael Doyle VF-161 02/13/1943-08/25/1972 Some gave all..
Great stuff, as always.
🙏
Jack and Mugs dogfight is covered in detail in The History Channel Dogfights series..if I remember there is cockpit audio as well?
Thank you 🙏🏾
One movie that features the F-4 in action was Forest Gump, the combat scene where Forest carries his wounded buddies out of the ambush, a couple of Phantoms roll in and obliterate the enemy at the end of the scene.
There's also a Phantom lurking on the edges of a scene in Flight of the Intruder.
There's a made for TV movie called Red Flag the Ultimate Game which I thing I mentioned on the F-5 episode. You can watch it here on RUclips. It's not great but worth a watch for the aircraft.
Can't wait for the B-52 ep :)
Coming up during "bomber month" (like Shark Week, only better!)
I would have campaigned for Ensch "worm".....grin. great history lesson Gents !! Grew up with an F-4 poster on my bedroom wall....
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Re: F-14 IRST: The first production build F-14As had a prototype IRST AND the TCS. They realized the IRST didn't work and removed it entirely. The RIO pit has a switch on the radar panel for the IRST that was disabled after the "prototype" IRST was removed.
The IRST on the F-14D was an entirely different IRST unit with far more capability.
Good to know. 👍
The May 23 MiG engagement can be played on Jane's Fighters Anthology with the usnraptor playset installed. It can be found here: myplace.frontier.com/~usnraptor/. I believe the battle was depicted in an episode of Dogfights.
F-4 in Movies: It played the MiG-29 in Iron Eagle 2. It saved Jake & Cole in Flight of the Intruder. Clint Eastwood brushed up on his dogfighting in Firefox. Pretty sure (iirc) it was used in Red Flag with William Devane. Two F-4s tried to catch Airwolf in the episode Moffett's Ghost.
Okay, I'm willing to admit all of those except Iron Eagle 2--that was an abomination that does not deserve mention.
Please, make a Part 3!
Funny you should ask, they answered listener questions that we feature on our Patreon page...
www.patreon.com/posts/28540457
It would be amazing if someone created animated accompaniment to parts of these interviews. Call Mike Judge or someone.
I would have loved to meet either one of those great gentlemen, and great Americans (that goes for the hosts, too), over any of the commonly regarded so-called "celebrities"... x100. 🇺🇲
Gelo I feel like they had WAY more stories to give!!!
Didn’t want to abuse the generosity of their time.
Can we do an F-15 sometime? Would be cool if we can get another Air Force fighter and I'm addicted to all air to air stories.
Working on it, and the F-22.
I was on the Midway in May 2018... I might have met him!
I just made a note on my phone to contact you on the DCS forums then I came here to listen to the second episode and here you are :). I'm an ex serviceman myself. Not Navy though I was a grunt in The British Army. If you'er still OK with crewing up on the Tomcat or any other MP I will give you a shout. I work full time so weekends are my main free time.
There was an ABC Sunday night movie, back in the early 80's, called Red Flag. It featured the F 4 and could best be described as Top Gun meets Knotts Landing.
Nice. 👍
My home town has f4 all over the place painted on the walls in Visalia CA and 1 f4 parked next to a b17 in front of Tulare airport as well
Former neighbors! Lived in Hanford for years.
I probly watch you in a few air shows back in the day at lamore too
It almost sounds like Mugs and Fingers were the real-life Maverick and Goose. Minus the flat spin accident.
Great account of the F4 vs MiG interaction. Really well told and detailed! Amazing.
My only disappointment was the opinions expressed on post-war Vietnam - that the country is held back by communism while benefiting from capitalism. The belief that people don't have choices within the country is misguided.
After a draw in Korea, the US lost the American War in Vietnam, and can't seem to get past it.
Hmm. I'm past it.
I think unlearned and ignorant people who haven’t served in the military might not have gotten over it. But during my years of service none of those I served with seemed to have fixated on it. Or talked about it.
From the military’s point of view, the big take-away was that the politicians have the unique ability to snatch defeat from the mouth of victory.
51:12 True
Was there a chance Ret. Brig. Gen. Steve Ritchie wouldve taken part in the F4 episode?
He also has a good stories about his carrier in the Phanton.
We never considered him. Tiger and Fingers are local which makes recording easier.
@@FighterPilotPodcast Fair game, amazing interview.
Thx for the effort.
@@scarcatch sure thing.
I actually got to see him fly his Phantom at an airshow once, flanked by two F-104 Starfighters. Still, to this day, one of the coolest aviation things I've experienced.
You should get Mike Jones aka Garand Thumb on youtube for SERE stuff.
I would love a sere episode
Interview a Viggen pilot! Idk how you'd find one though lol
We're working on it...
@@FighterPilotPodcast Hehe. Thank you! P.s. I've got a brother who flew both the F-15 and F-22 and I believe taught on both of them. I'll shoot him an email if you'd like but I'm not sure how interested he'd be in any interview anyway. (he's still active duty and I'm sure you guys have better resources than I)
Looking forward to any of your podcasts! and no rush! I've still got content to catch up on anyway!
@@billdewahl7007 We're always on the lookout for great guests, Bill, and many are still active duty. If your brother is interested, send him our way!
@@FighterPilotPodcast Wilco
Hey, Late night upload!
The beauty of a team mate in Australia!
What was that exploitation program they mentioned? Something about the f4 pilot knowing the mig17 weaknesses.
Can you get some Thud pilots on here?
Sure
Air wolf tv show few clips and movie Iron eagle 2 movie as migs.
to this day, there is no jet more repulsive and cursed with nicknames than the F-4
What jackwagon gave this video a thumbs down?
:D , ..
These real life veteran stories make movies like top gun looks fake, hoax, counterfeit, cheap, useless, waste of time, cheesy, idiot, etc.....