Posted on 03/16/2011 6:51:37 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Report: Germany offers Croatia 20 aging F-4 Phantom fighter jets
By: The Associated Press
ZAGREB, Croatia - Croatian state TV is reporting that Germany has offered Croatia 20 aging F-4 Phantom fighter planes to replace its even older MIG-21 jets.
Croatia's HRT television says the twin-engine American-made fighters can fly for another couple of years before they are retired. But the six Soviet-made MIGs in the Croatian air force fleet have an even shorter flight span left.
HRT says the Croatian government has not yet answered to the German free-of-charge offer for the McDonnell Douglas Phantoms, which entered service with the U.S. Air Force in 1960 and have long been retired by the German air force.
HRT says that if the offer
(Excerpt) Read more at winnipegfreepress.com ...
Trading one dinosaur for another
Sweet ...Keep em flying....We make F-4 parts here!
Got to see the modern Luftwaffe fling one of their F-4Fs around at an air show in Ohio (yes, they flew it from Germany to Dayton to show off at an airshow) about 12 years ago. I still maintain, after seeing it perform, that a Phantom II is the loudest airplane ever in terms of decibels-per-ton. B-1s and the Concorde are louder in terms of raw sound, but something about the Phantom (the older engines I guess) seem to make it even louder than an F-15. A pair of J79s on full afterburner 500 feet over your head will damn sure wake you up.
}:-)4
... or a “Rhino”. Isn’t that what some Phantom flyers called their mounts?
You should try having one fly over head at about 50 feet.It’s deafening,Not to forget scary as hell.
In 1977 I was based at Patrick AFB in Cocoa Beach Florida.I was driving south bound on rt.A1A and as I neared the runway approach a Phantom flew over my vehicle and scared the stuffing out of me.That plane was unbelievably loud.
Make that 12 ME-109s and you got a deal. Wonder what they would bring on today’s obsolete plane market?
During 1972 Easter Offensive in Vietnam, F-4 pairs did night afterburner takeoffs from the nearby air base. The ground shook when the burners cut in with a huge flame trail. The noise continued until the pair was a mile after takeoff then all was quiet. Sleep impossible, might as well watch.
We were Huey pilots and grateful for the close air support. I asked a F-4 driver how the aircraft actually flew and he couldn’t answer except there was so much horsepower it didn’t matter how small the wing area was.
“F-4 pairs did night afterburner takeoffs from the nearby air base.”
Used to watch that from the other side of the ramp in Terre Haute, all the time. Fun to watch.
I was in my final week of AOCS at NAS Pensacola in April of 1971 practicing sword drill for graduation parade when the Blue Angels flew over our formation in their formation of Navy Blue and Gold Phantoms at low, low level. Totally awesome, what a sight and sound. SSgt Watkins said we could watch but it would cost us all 100 push-ups. Totally worth it!
F4 Phantom....physical proof that if you put big enough engines in a brick it will fly
Under the terms and conditions of the LOA, before any country can engage in a third-party transfer, that country must have approval from the US and the US has a process to do that, too include congressional notification.
As a child I lived in El Toro, very close to the El Toro Marine Base, in Southern California.
:I do not know how old I was, but I must have been young because I was at my babysitter's house.
An F-4 flew super low over our neighborhood, and we actually dived for cover as if in an old war movie. I had grass stains all over my frontside (and got in trouble with mom), but my friend had grass stains PLUS urine stains!
How old does a plane have to be before it ceases to be ‘ageing’ and becomes ‘aged’?
Greeting from Croatia!
There it was a lot of comments here in various forums about that gentle offer from our big brothers (as Croats and Germans share a “special relationship” similar to the one between UK and you).
To sum all of them in one it was something like: Ahahahahahah!
It is a complete absurdity: 13tons heavy figthers,with two thirsy J-79 engines each and with the necessity of a crew of two?
20 of them? How nice: so we will name each of them after the name of each one of the counties of our 4 and an half million people’s country.
So, let’s summarize: we have to keep them 5-7 years, buy spare part from you and obviously take two years time to teach 20 pilots and and expecially 20 WSO, a role that never existed neither in our air force nor in the one of old Jugoslavija only to fire them after that period and maybe be obliged to buy your eurofighters after this ?
DANKE dear, but there will be another occasion to honour our unending friendship.
Well, maybe you can donate instead some of the Leopard, Marder, FH-70 you are going to retire folloving your army profesionalization, so with money spared we will buy the light fighters (gripen, mirage 2000, fa-50 golden eagle not so much types really) that fit our specifics instead.
The 20 WSO can fly some drones after Croatia can afford 12 modern fighters.
“Got to see the modern Luftwaffe fling one of their F-4Fs around at an air show in Ohio (yes, they flew it from Germany to Dayton to show off at an airshow) about 12 years ago.”
They did not fly’em in from germany they had those based in goosebay canada for training. They got’em relocated to Holloman AFB,NM about 10 years ago.
P.s. The germans have some nice names for the F-4:
- Air Defence Diesel
- Oil oven
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