FlyPast 06.2018

FLYING THE PHANTOM 100 YEARS OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE

June 2018 FLYPAST 73

officers and crews who had flown

with the Royal Navy on Ark Royal.

For a 20-year-old fledgling navigator

it was an intimidating place.

Ground school lasted two weeks

and covered all the major systems.

While not complex by today’s

standard, the Phantom did have

some unique features that were hard

to grasp.

Having come from the very basic

Jet Provost, which was essentially an

engine and some electrics, the F-4

had a whole variety of new systems

to grasp. These included: boundary

layer control, folding wings, triple

hydraulics and a RAT – ram air

turbine – that needed to be deployed

in the event of certain generator

failures.

MAKE OR BREAK

If there was any doubt as to

the seriousness of what flying a

Phantom entailed, a quick look

outside the ground school hangar

confirmed everything. The twisted

hulk of FGR.2 XV436 lay on a

trailer. It had suffered an accident

on March 5, 1980 caused by a

combination of bad luck and the

incorrect application of emergency

procedures. The twin ejection seat

rods sticking out of the crew areas

provided proof that both crew had

ejected – and fortunately in this

case, had survived.

The simulator was housed close

to 228 OCU and was ominously

painted black. The instructors were

all ‘seasoned’ and knew the Phantom

front to back and back to front.

Initially the ‘sim’ sorties were

devoted to cockpit familiarisation

and handling. Primarily the front-

seater was the focus of attention

but emphasis was also placed on

assessing how the nav assisted the

pilot in the event of an emergency.

By the seventh sortie, a typical

‘flight’ might involve an aborted

take-off as well as a single-engined

approach with a landing requiring

the use of the arrestor hook. If they

failed, the pairing was given a second

chance, or on the odd occasion a

third. After that it was a one-way

ticket to the multi-engined world.

SUPERSONIC BUS

Having escaped the clutches of

the ground school phase, the

prospect of the OCU was no less

disconcerting.

New generations of pilots were

arriving who had never seen the

Hawker Hunter FGA.9, which was

a good lead into the F-4. The early

1980s saw an influx of pilots who

had only flown the Jet Provost and

Hawk. In terms of stature, the Hawk

was the equivalent of a ‘Dinky’ car

when compared with the sizeable

Phantom, and its equally large

At this stage the Phantom was
fully established in the AD role and
repainting from camouflage to light
grey was running at a fast pace. At
the same time the installation of
radar warning receivers (RWRs) and
two blade aerials for the instrument
landing system (ILS) were added to
the fin.
In July 1970 the OCU adopted the
‘shadow’ identity of 64 Squadron.
It was staffed by a wide range of
crews who had both air-to-air and
strike experience, as well as exchange

Left

Looking sorry

for itself after a

nosewheel steering

failure at Waddington

on March 6, 1988,

FGR.2 XT891 of

64 Squadron. The

crew ejected on the

runway, while the

aircraft survives as

a ‘gate guardian’ at

Coningsby.

VIA ANDY THOMAS

Above

Named ‘Bandit

II’, XV481 was the

personal mount of

the author during his

time on 19 Squadron.

VIA AUTHOR

Below left

Following his

training at OCU, the

author joined 19

Squadron in West

Germany. Note the

rescue instructions

duplicated in German

on the cockpit side.

VIA AUTHOR