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From: vrdxhq!vrdxhq.verdix.com!bsmart@uunet.UU.NET (Bob Smart)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: F-4 : really an interceptor
Summary: Phantom started as a bomber!
Message-ID: <7904@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 30 Jun 89 20:10:35 GMT
References: <7854@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: vrdxhq!vrdxhq.verdix.com!bsmart@uunet.UU.NET (Bob Smart)

In article <7854@cbnews.ATT.COM>, shafer@drynix (Mary Shafer) writes:
> 
> 
> The Navy's power projection requirements made it imperative that the
> F4H be a bomber as well as an interceptor.
Doesn't anyone remember the original version of the Phantom II?
The original aircraft was the AH-1 an all weather attack aircraft!
But the navy cancelled (or changed priorities) and wanted an supersonic
aircraft to carry the large sparrow 1 missile and it's radar, which had
a very large dish. The AH-1 was big enough and fast enough and already
had two seats ( the early radars kept one guy head down in the cockpit
constantly)

> --
> M F Shafer                                |Ignore the reply-to address

A very good defense of the Phantom. Although I never worked on them 
( I started on the early Eagles) all the senior people I worked with 
did. The only plane that evoked stronger feelings were F-105s. Pilots
on "4's" cussed the heavy  workload but you could tell they trusted
it implicitly. The big test the F-15 had was to prove it could replace
the Phantom as the pilots 1st choice. ( for us maintenance folks it
was no contest every "oldtimer" had his own ( and different) story
about the nightmare of working on F-4s.

Bob Smart (bsmart@verdix.com)