Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military
From: mcgp1!donn@entropy.ms.washington.edu (Donn F Pedro)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Fighter engine smoke
Message-ID: <8096@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 10 Jul 89 04:20:33 GMT
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Organization: THE WAR ROOM on Elliot Bay.
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From: mcgp1!donn@entropy.ms.washington.edu (Donn F Pedro)

With all the talk about the F-4 and smoke...

I was a member of an Air National Guard Combat Communications unit
stationed at Volk Field in Wisconson a few years ago.  We were providing
air traffic support with out MPN-14 radar unit.

The first squadron to arrive for excercizes was a F-4 recon group.
They had two types of F-4's, regular and "smokeless".
You could easly spot the regular F-4 up to four or five miles away
due to the smoke trails.  However the "smokeless" F-4 was *much* harder
to find.  Side by side it was almost impossible to see the "smokeless" jet.

What was intresting about these F-4's was that they carried no armement
whatsoever.  They were loaded with recon cameras and terrain following
radar.  One of the pilots told me that the standard operating procedure
was to fly in low, pop up vunerable and weaponless for the pictures,
and proceed back to the deck and run like hell.

He indicated that his type of F-4 was the fastest model due to it's
lighter weight.  I don't recall if the engines were more powerful or not.

As a side note, the pilots who flew the unmodified smokey engines went
by the nickname or "Smokey", "Fodder", and "Bait".


	Donn F Pedro ....................a.k.a. mcgp1!donn@Thalatta.COM   
           else:  {the known world}!uunet!nwnexus!thebes!mcgp1!donn 
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