J and S...maintainer in VF-171 lo so long ago, in 1980.
The F4 was an impressive plane. I think the Marines used them until just a few years ago.
It was a pretty plane too. I had a unique opportunity 2 years ago. At A NATO school in Oberammergau Germany I met a German Major who was a former F4 pilot who before that was in the East German Air Force flying MIG21s. So this guy actually flew both platforms. According to him, the F4 was by far a superior platform. Although under certain conditions that MIG did have an advantage, over all the MIG was most of the time the under dog in air to air battle. That's something a friend of my dads’ and my dad also stated, both retired USAF and the friend of my dad was an F4 pilot. According to them, many of the F4 losses over Vietnam, (Where the F4 still had a huge kill ratio in its favor) were not due to the MIGs, but ADA (Flak and missiles). Vietnam at the time apparently had one of the largest amassed air defense networks world wide. In Linebacker II alone, over 2,000 missiles were fired. The MIGS would lure the Phantoms into the engagement envelope of the ADA. But that is just hearsay from people I know.