speaking of old airframes sitting and rotting........

[venom 66]

Back in August 2003, I attended a reunion of the 374th TAW in St.Louis,and sitting right next to the fence next to the highway at the airport was the fuselage of an F-4.Does anybody that lives in St.Louie know about that? Just curious,as the F-4 was my first love as a kid growing up next to MacDill AFB here in Tampa.

[tinyclark]

Can't help you there, but I still think they were the best Thunderbirds.

[DC10FE]

My favorite Thunderbirds were the Huns -- the F-100 Super Sabers. The first time I saw them was at an open house at Langley back in the 60's. The worst, in my opinion, were the F-5/T-38's.

I can see another hijacked thread evolving.

Don R.

[airnav]

Does anyone have any additional information of the T-Bird's crash in 1982? It involved 4 or 5 team members that flew their T-38's onto the desert floor near Nellis. I have always pondered as to what other info. there is.

Kurt

[Dutch]

I was working for Lockheed at Fort Worth when that happened, We were told that some kind of FOD had blocked the Lead ships stick and the others followed him in just like they ere trained to. Right after that the T-birds went to F-16A's

[Skip Davenport]

Does anyone have any additional information of the T-Bird's crash in 1982? It involved 4 or 5 team members that flew their T-38's onto the desert floor near Nellis. I have always pondered as to what other info. there is.

Kurt

it was a four ship in diamond formation they didn't make it out of a loop -- lead didn't start the loop at the right speed and couldn't pull enough G's to pull out -- there is a picture of the accident site out on the net somewhere

[Dutch]

We are both right check out this URL.

http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Thunderbirds-Diamond_Crash.htm

[tinyclark]

"The investigation found that there was insufficient back pressure on the control stick of Thunderbird #1 during the loop."

That sounds like the joystick actuator to me.

Edited August 24, 2009 by tinyclark

[Guest]

Back in August 2003, I attended a reunion of the 374th TAW in St.Louis,and sitting right next to the fence next to the highway at the airport was the fuselage of an F-4.Does anybody that lives in St.Louie know about that? Just curious,as the F-4 was my first love as a kid growing up next to MacDill AFB here in Tampa.

I spent some time as a radar tech rep at the McDonnel-Douglas facility there at Lambert Field back in the late 1960s, when the F-4s were in production there. Don't know for sure about the old fuselage that you refer to, but it could be their first article stress airframe, or possibly one that returned to the factory for repair and was determined to be beyond economical repair.

When I was there in 1969, I was associated with the RF-4C, both the AF and Marine (Navy) reconnaissance versions. They were also delivering D models, E's, J's, K's, and M's (the K's and M's were for the Brits), and they were flight testing one specially modified for boundry layer control.

[Skip Davenport]

"The investigation found that there was insufficient back pressure on the control stick of Thunderbird #1 during the loop."

That sounds like the joystick actuator to me.

Pilot error on TB #1 -- OH NO!! that can't be something must have jammed the stab!

[CTII Raven]

I spent some time as a radar tech rep at the McDonnel-Douglas facility there at Lambert Field back in the late 1960s, when the F-4s were in production there. Don't know for sure about the old fuselage that you refer to, but it could be their first article stress airframe, or possibly one that returned to the factory for repair and was determined to be beyond economical repair.

When I was there in 1969, I was associated with the RF-4C, both the AF and Marine (Navy) reconnaissance versions. They were also delivering D models, E's, J's, K's, and M's (the K's and M's were for the Brits), and they were flight testing one specially modified for boundry layer control.

that had F-4s before they converted to F-15s

[RZHill]

That's a Guard unit at St Louis

RZ

[wysongj]

Are you referring to the F-4E on the pedestal? If so, it's a double Mig killer that was flown by the 131st TFW in the '80s and early '90's before that unit switched to the F-15. Unfortunately, the 131st FW is now the 131st BW. BRAC got 'em, they lost their fighters, and are now an associate unit with the 509th BW at Whiteman AFB. I will try and locate the tain number for you if you are interested.

The 131st FW was my first unit, where I first became a crew chief. MY old F-15 75-0075 is now rotting away in the Arizona desert :(

[EClark]

Wysongj I feel your pain it is terrible to see good airplanes rot,I think my acrf. is still flying in Puerto Rico C-130E 64-0510 it was a great plane very hard worker.

[wysongj]

I think it's not all bad sometimes. I worked phase dock on the KC-135 after I got out of the 131st FW and the last Strato-tanker I worked on is not sitting in an air power park out front of Scott.

Also, I think the F-4 being referred to might have been an old F-4D fuselage that the 131st was going to turn into a cockpit recruitment tool. I think they did, but not sure where it is. Basically they cut off the back end, put two dummy seats in, painted it up and put it on a trailer to impress the crowds.

[TSgtRet]

When I was stationed at Wright-Patt 89-92 and shortly after I retired it was always neat to drive down to the far end of the old Wright Field hangar line and look at what was in the "junk pile". This was museum stuff that was awaiting restoration/parting out/waiting to be traded to another museum. I remember an HB-17 whaleboat, used German V2 engines, remains of a crashed B-1 and an RF-84 just to mention the stuff that sticks in my mind. I remember that some of things they used to get were ex "planes on a stick" that some town or other didn't want anymore....those were always pretty sad.