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Robert Royes
250 articles

This is the end…

February 26, 2016 · in Aviation · · 10 · 1.7K

Inspired by photos in a book about Phantoms, sadly this the fate of many an obsolete aircraft. I think they were located at a Marine air station in Hawaii, being used for parts. It started out as esci/ertl kit 1/72 F-4S.

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3  Awesome

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10 responses

  1. Interesting...I always toyed with the idea of building one depicting the Phantoms stored at Davis-Monthan AFB outside Tucson - you know ...the ones with the spray-lat on 'em.

  2. Reminds me of an F-4S we had aboard the Theodore Roosevelt, not much but fuselage and wings. They used it to train the deck crew towing aircraft.

  3. A different view of this classic aircraft, well thought out.

  4. Now I've got a really good idea for what to do with a build that I get tired of part way through... 😉

  5. Nimitz had an F-4J onboard for drills when I did a Reserve cruise back in 92, the same time the Navy shut down for it's infamous "Tailhook, Shame on You," lectures. You know that you may be haunted when you realize that you'd actually fueled that bird on your first ship. This Phantom was still wearing her VF-31 paint right down to the USS Saratoga on the fuselage. By then she was a shell with holes where the J79's sat and anything of use long gone.

    When I retired in 98 from the Navy I realized that nearly everything I had worked on when I was a young and dumb Airman was mostly long gone and in museums. The only airframes that are still flying in the fleet that I had any connection with now are the E-2, F/A-18 Legacy birds and the P-3. The rest are history, along with the ship that carried them, the Saratoga.

  6. I've actually tracked down what's left the F-4 I was plane captain for by its bu.no. its fwd fuselage sits on a trailer in a museum in Cailfornia. its used for photo ops. The only thing still in service that I was connected with is the Nimitz!

  7. Gentlemen:
    Ogden Nash-
    "The sword of Charlemagne the Just, is ferrous oxide, known as rust.
    Great Caesars bust is on the shelf, and I don't feel so hot myself!"

       Know what you mean, Harold Johnsons black shoe Army (my bunch) is retired.  scrapped, or in a museum. Though some of us are still boring people with our pointless, rambling anecdotes about Ft. Bragg in 1967.
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