Hi Bandit,
Not to quibble because you obviously have experience, but I have seen F-4’s go to burner upon touchdown aboard the Coral Sea.
As we spent a lot of time on station, I did spend some time up on the buzzard’s roost. I recall a night recovery where an F-4 made a hard touchdown and damaged his port main gear. He didn’t have any land base that he could get to and didn’t want to punch out at night so he elected to come aboard. The barrier was rigged and raised. he touched down, caught a wire and hit the barrier. Went to burners when he touched down, and there he was! Port main gear collapsed, down on his port wing, ensnared in the barrier and both burners blasting away. He got the starboard engine shut down but had a bit of trouble with the port engine, still blasting away.
I was highly impressed by the EOD crew, immediately at the aircraft removing, by muscle power, the external missiles while the port burner was still blasting away. After a short while the port engine was shut down and nothing left to do but clean up the mess.
A good landing! Everyone walked away with no injuries.
Regards.
The problem with going into AB on touchdown is that you can damage the arresting gear. In some aircraft, like the Hornet, the afterburner range on the throttle is just a “friction stop” that you push through. Quite a few guys will end up with a flicker of AB in the wires. The Tomcat throttles required moving the throttles outboard and then forward though the AB range. Never flew in an F-4 so I don’t know what it’s throttles were set up like.