Scott R Wilson

The real jet at March is almost certainly on loan from the NMUSAF, maybe the folks at Roden misunderstood that. Looks like the after-market folks have their work cut out for them, coming up with a cockpit and cargo box interior. I worked on C-141Bs at McChord AFB from 1986 through 1991. At the time I wasn't very interested in Starlifters having just come from working on the much more exciting F-4 Phantom from 1980-86. Now I wish I'd taken more photos of Starlifter details.

Hopefully someone does decals for 67-0166 in CINCMAC paint scheme: http://www.airteamimages.com/lockheed-c-141-starlifter_67-0166_usa---us-air-force_173222.html I photographed this jet at least once but no longer have a working slide scanner. Photos of this aircraft in several iterations of the scheme are available online, and may be sufficient.

I was at Ramstein AB April 1983 through April 1986. We had AIM-7E-2 Sparrows painted white and AIM-7Fs painted gray. I'm sure Spangdahlem had similar.

Early 1980s USAFE Phantoms carried ALQ-131. I saw plenty of them on Ramstein and Spangdahlem jets. Scott Wilson 526 AMU, 86 TFW Ramstein AB, W Germany 1983-1986

Way back in the mid-80s I asked one of our F-4E pilots at Ramstein about the media hype versus reality of ACM with other airplanes. He told me the F-14 was actually rather easy to beat. He said one of the keys to dogfighting was being able to judge your opponent's energy state and adjust your tactics accordingly. With most other fighters it's fairly difficult to do, but when the Tomcat's wings started swinging out, you knew he was low on energy and was therefore more predictable and easier to kill.

The title on YouTube says 1960s but there's a B-36 dropping a line of bombs, Peacemakers last flew in 1959. Sad to see all the B-29s used as targets.

Very good to know, thanks!

Mahalo! I appreciate that!

John is correct, the landing gear handle controls the doors. I believe excessive pressure in the engine bays simply pushes the doors open inflight, I'm pretty sure there is no pressure sensor or somesuch that "tells" the hydraulics to open the doors. The aux air doors will also snap shut with the gear down if electrical power is interrupted. They close during engine shutdown when the generators drop offline. We then pried them back open after shutdown and installed downlocks for engine oil servicing and to install the centerline safety pin if anything was installed on the centerline. S

Obviously I need to check for typos in the title before posting. Can it be changed?

I wish Periscope Films didn't put their countdown timer or whatever that is in the picture, but this video has lots of interesting scenes.

I got a chuckle or ten out of those too. A friend, Stephan Miller, sent them to me. I don't know if he originated them or found them someplace. He's got a good enough sense of humor that I could easily believe he came up with some or even all.

There may be no excuse for laziness, but I'm still looking. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Television may insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like a computer. I changed my password to "incorrect" so whenever I forget it the computer will say, "Your password is incorrect." My computer beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. I'm great at multi-tasking--I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once. I bought a vacuum cleaner six months ago and so far all it's been doing is gathering dust. Money is the root of

"No music. No flashy effects. Just pure brrrt for your Hump Day motivation." I wish all videos were like this. To me there's not a lot more annoying than cool jet videos with music track added. I'd so much rather hear the original sounds.

Not sure how to post this as a non-Facebook link, but hope you folks can watch this.

I couldn't agree more. It looks like a real FRED!

At least one WSO in the 526 TFS at Ramstein in the mid1980s used the front of the rear cockpit sill as his ashtray on cross countries. I saw ashes there on at least a few of our Phantoms during my three years there.

That is amazing!

I was comm-nav avionics. In the USAF back 30 years ago (can it really have been that long ago? Damn I'm getting old!) the term "spark chaser" most often referred to electricians but was sometimes used for anyone that worked on electrical equipment of any type. I have only heard "tweaker" used by Navy folks. The WCS (Weapons Control Systems) guys proudly called themselves "knuckle draggers" but I never understood why. I guess it was ignorance, but we called all weapons people BB Stackers. I frankly didn't know there was a separate career field for folks working on the gun and ammunition

I stand corrected. I was a mere spark chaser, fwiw.

Actually he had the proper altimeter setting, just messed up by not properly doing the math converting msl to agl at Mountain Home for the proper altitude at which to begin his reversal. As I recall he said he started his reversal at the indicated msl altitude they had used at a much lower field elevation airport. There was some discussion about why for displays they don't just set their altimeters to show "zero" on the ground to eliminate this possibility at future airports with high field elevations.

KTesh, interesting idea posting this. I hope you get some good response from any other BB Stackers who might be in this group. Just out of curiosity, back in the day did you ever hear or use the term "loadout"? Several of us ex-military folks on this group had never heard that term during our time in service. As I recall it was simply the "weapons load" which was "uploaded" onto the jet or "downloaded" back off.

While you don't see the impact you do see the takeoff, climb, aileron rolls, reversal and descent. It seems strangely like the Thunderbird crash at Mountain Home AFB some years ago in which that pilot didn't climb high enough before his reversal and descent so he was unable to pull out (though he successfully ejected at the last possible second).

I had never heard the term "loadout" before joining online modeler forums either. Same with "splitter plate" on F-4s, "slime lights" and a few other terms used by modelers but not by people actually involved with the real jets.