54 phantom’s last stand

REPORT54

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE AIR POWER YEARBOOK 2017

PHANTOM’S LAST STAND

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FEW AIRCRAFT SHARE a special place in people’s hearts in the same way that the F-4 Phantom II does. ‘When I took this job I had no concept of what fl ying

the F-4 over the last year-and-a-half was going to be like,’ refl ects Lt Col Ronald ‘Elvis’ King, the last US Air Force Phantom unit commander. In fact, King was the last ever USAF F-4 pilot. On June 3, 2015, he fl ew a QF-4 solo for the fi rst time, making him the last pilot in the USAF who will ever learn to fl y the Phantom.

Having fi rst entered USAF service in 1963 in the shape of the F-4C, the Phantom II has seen out its fl ying days with the 82nd Aerial Target Squadron (ATRS) as a full-scale aerial target (FSAT). This essentially involves the aircraft being fl own manned for testing, and unmanned for live-fi re missile exercises. QF-4s that had not

been blown out of the sky during live-fi re testing by the end of 2016 were to be demilitarized and disposed of.

Lt Col King commands Detachment 1 of the 82nd ATRS at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. It was the fi nal USAF Phantom II operator, with a handful of QF-4Es still on charge. The last chapter of the F-4 in USAF service was being written as the Yearbook went to press.

‘I was just in the right place at the right time,’ King enthuses. ‘I’ve fl own the F-16 my whole career and I was based at Osan in Korea before I came here. I had been at Holloman for about a year as an F-16 instructor when my group commander asked me if I’d like to be the F-4 commander. They were looking specifi cally for an F-16 guy because of the transition from the QF-4 to the QF-16.’ King struck lucky and not only continued as an F-16 instructor to maintain currency at the

newly resident F-16 training squadrons at Holloman, but was trained up as the last ever USAF F-4 pilot.

The QF-4s ended their mission in December 2016, the fi rst QF-16s being set to arrive and assume the vacated role as the fi nal F-4 missions are fl own. ‘Tyndall has 16 QF-16s right now,’ says King. He expects to receive two to three jets per month starting in January as Det 1 works up to a fl eet of around 18 QF-16s at Holloman. But in December, it was all about the Phantoms.

‘We have 13 QF-4Es left here now,’ King told the Yearbook during October. ‘We killed seven in the fi rst week of August. The F-15s of the Florida Air National Guard out of Jacksonville came here for their air-to-air WSEP [Weapons System Evaluation Program). They shot AIM-9s and AIM-120 AMRAAMs at them. We actually launched eight QF-4s and the eighth jet was shot

PHANTOM’S LAST STAND

The last remaining US Air Force Phantom II operator is Detachment 1 of the 82nd Aerial Target Squadron at

Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. The unit marked the end of an era in 2016 as it made the fi nal USAF F-4 farewell.

report: Jamie Hunter

Looking every bit the seasoned warriors, QF-4Es 72-0140/AF-335

and 74-0643/AF-351 break for

the camera in golden evening light near their

home base at Holloman.

Jim Haseltine

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REPORT56


at, but they achieved their objectives and didn’t destroy the drone. It had some electronic equipment on board that we wanted to keep, so we recovered the jet back here.’ This particular QF-4E, serial 72-0166/AF-329, seems to have enjoyed a charmed life. ‘We fl ew that same jet a couple of weeks later for an F-35 test out of Edwards [AFB] and they fi red two AMRAAMs at it.’ With the electronic equipment still loaded it was decided again to destroy both missiles just prior to impact, for the jet to live another day.

‘Right now we don’t have any other customers,’ says King. ‘We advertised the

August 17 F-35 test as our last NULLO [Not Under Live Local Operator] fl ight.’ The 13 remaining jets at Holloman should all survive. ‘We could support more NULLO work out to November and I could off er up four more jets. Three of our jets are ‘hard broken’ and will never fl y again, and I need to keep six manned fl yers to the end of the program.’

Phantom flyingKing’s detachment had just four pilots left, including himself, as the jet was retired. King was the only active-duty Phantom pilot, working alongside three

government civilian fl yers. The aircraft maintainers are contractors, who work for PAE (Pacifi c Architects and Engineers Inc). King explains: ‘I actually have four government civilian pilots, but only three of them fl y now. The other is a controller and he fl ew the F-4 on active duty. All four of them can control the aircraft [in NULLO mode], but I do not.’ He adds: ‘It’s a long upgrade, and one that you don’t get to do until you’ve spent a couple of years on the program, so the active-duty guys have not been controllers.’

Explaining how the unit conducts the unmanned NULLO fl ights, King says: ‘A

Above: Most of the QF-4s have worn their fi nal two-tone gray ‘Egypt One’ scheme with dayglo tail, tailplane and wingtips. Keith Meachem

Below: The one that got away — QF-4E 72-0166 recovers to Holloman after surviving the F-35 AMRAAM test. USAF

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typical mission sees three or four of us driving out to the White Sands Missile Range — that’s where we control the drones from. We don’t have any cameras on the airplane, so the controllers fl y it very much like a simulator. We have a TV screen with instruments and gauges, plus a stick and the arrows on the keyboard work the throttles.’ One of the civilian pilots will act as the drone controller, and another as mission coordinator, acting as a co-pilot and being on hand to run the checklists.

‘My job as the drone mission commander’, King continues, means overseeing everything from the project

that is doing the shoot, to talking to the range safety team. The system allows up to eight drones to be controlled, but we are limited by manpower and typically we don’t exceed two NULLO aircraft fl ying at a time. At Holloman we have always chased the NULLOs with a manned Phantom. So, that chase pilot also had the task of pre-fl ighting the NULLO jet and then fl ying the chase in a manned F-4. Most of the drone fl ying is run by the computer, so once the drone is on the runway the controller releases the brakes and then smacks the ATO [automatic take-off ] button. The chase

pilot acts as the controller’s eyes, telling him what the drone is doing. Much like being an instructor in the back seat, the controller can take over from the computer and fl y the jet manually if we need to.

‘Once the jet is out in the range area we typically fl y it manually. We set up in a big racetrack, and hand-fl ying the drone means we can be more precise. Once the test starts and the missile is closing for impact, the customer often wants specifi c maneuvers, so we manually fl y those.

‘If the missile doesn’t impact the drone we will set it up in an orbit and the chase

Above right: The QF-4 fl ightline at Holloman for the ‘Phancon’ enthusiasts’ convention in September. Keith Meachem

Coming up on initials for the pattern at Holloman. The QF-4 back seats are largely redundant, all systems having been disconnected. Therefore, the majority fl y without a rear seat. Jim Haseltine

Below right: Lt Col King after his fi rst F-4 solo, with government civilian pilot Jim Harkins. USAF/A1C Emily A. Kenney

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This image: Over the last decade a series of ‘heritage schemes’ have been applied to represent USAF F-4 colors over the years. Jim Haseltine

Above: The QF-4s were mainly fl own manned, but they were most notable for their unmanned operations for live missile shootdown exercises. The unmanned fl ights are known as NULLO (Not Under Live Local Operator). USAF/A1C Emily A. Kenney

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will move in for a BDA [battle damage assessment] check. If the jet is undamaged we can decide to bring it back. In that case we fl y it manually back to a point about 18 miles away from the base and then put it on a programmed track, then hit a button again and computer takes over. It does everything aside from controlling the airspeed, so the controller handles that based on fuel, weight and fi nal approach speed. The chase follows it all the way in and as we make the fi nal approach we lower the gear, fl aps, and the arrestor hook as well. The technology is such that the brakes are either on or off . So, unmanned, we don’t use the brakes at all on landing. We push a button to deploy the drag

’chute, and then you have to manually steer the drone with the joystick to keep it on the runway. The controller takes verbal corrections from the chase pilot.’

QF-4s and their predecessors used to be controlled in the pattern by line of sight from a control van out by the ‘droneway’. King says: ‘It was scary and served no useful purpose, so they stopped doing that.’

The risks associated with the unmanned FSAT role are mitigated as much as possible. The aircraft fl ies unmanned with an AIM-9 Sidewinder warhead in place of the back seat in case something goes wrong, and the aircraft can be ‘terminated’. King remarks: ‘As you can imagine, there’s a lot of safety concerns for what

is essentially a live bomb fl ying around without anyone in it!’

A lot of eff ort goes into the NULLO operations and will continue with the new QF-16s. Typically, the more complex unmanned fl ights are rehearsed, and controller profi ciency constantly maintained. This was achieved by having one of the pilots fl y in the QF-4 while being controlled from the ground. King called this his least favorite part of the job. ‘I start up the jet, taxi it out, do all the checks and then hand it to the controller who takes off remotely. I sit there in the cockpit with my hand close to the control stick and throttles. We practise landing like this as well. It’s similar to being an

A manned QF-4E chases

a NULLO fl ight at Holloman

at the start of a live-fi re test.

USAF

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When I took this job I had no concept of what flying the F-4

over the last year-and-a-half was going to be like... My eyes were opened to what the F-4

means to the public’ Lt Col Ronald King

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instructor in the back seat and monitoring the student.’

A surprising amount of fl ying on the QF-4 was manned. Much of the squadron’s tasking was geared towards the use of jamming pods and electronic warfare, fl ying manned profi les for Patriot battery controllers, for example. Indeed, the fi nal months of fl ying were unlikely to include any further unmanned work, but plenty of manned missions including a commitment to the Japanese Ministry of Defense. Right to the end of the QF-4’s service, Lt Col King planned to fl y a four-ship one day per week, in order to fulfi l a contract with the Japanese military to support surface-to-air missile (SAM) operational readiness exercises at nearby Fort Bliss.

End of the roadThe advent of the QF-16 signals the end of the QF-4 in USAF service. BAE Systems Flight Systems (formerly Tracor) completed its fi rst target drone in August 1978 with the QF-86, followed by the QF-100D and QF-106 targets, and ultimately the QF-4.

The USAF was expected to operate the QF-4 until around 2010. However, delays in the QF-16 project extended the Phantom’s operational life. BAE Systems switched from converting F-4Es to RF-4Cs in July 2008, and QRF-4C conversion ran to the Lot 17 production phase that included nine aircraft. This provided suffi cient QF-4 capacity until FY2015, based on up to 20 live ‘kills’ per year.

Initial operating capability (IOC) for the QF-16 was planned for 2015, with 18 aircraft, but in reality it was only realized in September 2016. Boeing completed the fi rst six QF-16s under the EMD (engineering, manufacturing and development) eff ort, before starting low-rate initial production. QF-16C serial 84-1260 began operational live-fi re testing in July 2014. The destruction of a QF-16 over the Gulf of Mexico on September 5, 2014 marked the conclusion of operational and range qualifi cation testing, carried out at the Eglin Test Range and at White Sands, and fi nished the development phase of the program.

Despite the fact that so many QF-4s have ended up being destroyed in one last aerial battle, the jets are cherished at Holloman. The fi nal Japanese mission was planned for December 16, with a fi nal fl ight ceremony four days later.

It’s been an emotional journey. ‘My eyes were opened to what the F-4 means to the public’, says King. Indeed, with so many requests from airshow organizers over the past season, he and his colleagues have spent a good deal of time on the road, taking the F-4s out as much as possible to give people one last, longing, look at the slab-sided ‘Rhino’.

For King, the highlights have been numerous, from fl ying in a Hollywood movie, to a tribute fl ypast to Brig Gen Robin Olds. He took a jet to the St Louis birthplace of the F-4 to meet the original McDonnell F4H-1 test pilot Bob Little, who made the type’s maiden fl ight in 1958.

The end of 2016 signaled that the smoke trails at Holloman would fi nally fade, as the mighty Phantom bade farewell to USAF service after a remarkable career.

The 82nd ATRS is headquartered at Tyndall AFB, Florida. Tyndall’s fi nal two QF-4s fl ew away on May 27, 2015, and were destroyed about 30 minutes later in air-to-air engagements over the Gulf of Mexico.

During the last month of QF-4 operations at Tyndall, fi ve Phantoms were downed by live-fi re training. On May 7, QRF-4C serial 68-0589 was ‘splashed’, followed by QF-4E 72-1494/TD and QRF-4C 68-0580 on May 12. The fi nal two Tyndall Phantoms to be shot down on May 27 were QF-4E serials 74-1631/HD and 71-0237/TD, the latter being the last to go down. The unmanned Phantoms were downed by F-15Cs fl own by the Florida Air National Guard’s 125th Fighter Wing and the 53rd Weapons Evaluation

Group (WEG), respectively. QF-4E 71-0237 was brought down by three missiles, comprising a combination of AIM-120s and AIM-9s, during the so-called Operation ‘Quick Draw’.

Assigned to the 53rd WEG, the 82nd ATRS has operated QF-4E/G and QRF-4C variants under the FSAT program since 1997. The Phantoms replaced the QF-106, and the Phantom is now being replaced in turn by the QF-16.

BAE Systems converted a total of 314 Phantoms into full-scale target drones at Mojave, California. Initially the FSAT role favored QF-4Gs, which were last in and fi rst out of storage with the Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona. The program then moved towards the

QF-4E before fi nally transitioning to the QRF-4C from 2008.

The last F-4 to enter the QF-4 conversion program was RF-4C serial 68-0599/AF-416. It was removed from storage at Davis-Monthan AFB and entered the 309th AMARG’s refurbishment line on May 9, 2012. It had been in storage since January 18, 1989, and fl ew out to Mojave in April 2013. It was delivered to the 82nd ATRS on November 19, 2013.

The RF-4C was never a popular choice for the FSAT mission, the QF-4E/G with its slatted wing always being preferred on handling grounds over the ‘hard-winged’ QRF-4C. The QRF-4Cs were therefore favored for the unmanned, live shootdowns in later years.

QF4 PROGRAM

Left: Lt Col Ronald King, Det 1 commander, at

the controls of the ‘boss bird’.

Jim Haseltine

The fi nal two Tyndall Phantoms to be shot down on May 27 were QF-4Es 74-1631/HD and, seen here, 71-0237/TD, which became the last Phantom to be shot down out of Tyndall. USAF

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54 phantom’s last stand

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