Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The J-79 Howl of the F104

The small base in Germany I was stationed at in the 70's used to get buzzed by a Luftwaffe 104 on a regular basis, which excited the Bn Redeye section a great deal. I found out later that the pilot was from a nearby farm town and was just saying "Hi" to friends and family.

Which small base? Sembach, Zwei, Hahn?

Herzo Arty Base.

Ah, Army.

The Navy F-4J's and earlier would howl too; very distinctive and I believe, at least in the F-4, it was due to the BLC system which use engine bleed air blown over the leading edge slats and trailing edge flaps to energize the airflow over the airfoil in order to delay stall. I loved that sound. In the late '70's and early '80's around Oceana, Va. you'd hear it all the time.

In the F-4N (the oldest version I flew), you could see the smoke trail 20+ miles away but in ACM what we did to eliminate it was go into "burner" at about 20 miles or so and the smoke went away. If someone was coming pretty much directly at you and you were looking down the smoke trail, you could see them coming for a long way but you could tell when he hit 20 miles 'cause they'd disappear. The J_79-GE-10B of the "J" and "S" versions I flew practically eliminated the smoke problem of earlier A/C.

We were on an ACM det around '80 or '81 in Misawa, Japan and a 4 plane of 104's came into the break ("overhead pattern" for you Air Force guys) and it was pretty cool. Looked like some pencils with wings flying by.

A few years later while on cruise in the eastern Med we "fought" some Turkish 104's over Turkey. They tried their best but with a turn radius of about the size of a county, it wasn't much of a fight against a Tomcat. They spent most of the time recovering from out of control flight.

It's funny how aircraft can have a distinctive sound to them. It still surprises my wife after 40+ years that I can often ID a plane just by its sound. She'll say something like, "Is that a business jet?" and I'll say, "Nope, that's an A-10." And when we go outside to see, it's just what I'd said.

We have both the Ogden civilian airport and Hill AFB right near us, and so we get all kinds of mixed traffic overhead. There's a guy at the Ogden field who has three (THREE!) fully restored British Vampire jets. Now there's a characteristic howl!

The bolts that hold the tanks on have a small charge in them to shear the bolt when you pickle the tanks. The safety pins are removed during the final end of runway check.

I love the sounds of a couple of J-79's in burner. Talk about turning massive amounts of JP into noise and heat!!!

I like USN Phantom's.......to my 64 yr old eyes that is best looking bird.

When they would make the break at the 180 the trail of soot was clearly visible.....the sqd had J's.

�......"The safety pins are removed during the final end of runway check."........and re-inserted before final chocking. We had an ordie or a troubleshooter waiting at the ramp turn in with a bag of streamers.....on tierra firma.

Can't trust them pilots. Flipping switched that don't need to be flipped...

J-79's..... Isn't that what all jet's should sound like?

Couple of our birds.

For TLEE

The F4 on the USS Coral Sea

RF-4's were the sharpest of the Rhino's. They weren't called the "Sports model" for nothing.

Our base housing was off to the side of RAF Lakenheath's runway. Seems like every time my wife put our daughter down for a nap the dmn F-4's would wake her up...

Mutually shared anticipation.......some tweets could read the color code but couldn't distinguish the meaning between CNI SW and NOSE WHL EXT SW

Probably why we had some switch guards safety wired closed with thin copper wire. Prevents accidental activation yet easily accessible if and when needed.

Or that was the general idea anyways...

Careful. Those switches get shear wire, not safety wire! Had a friend who had to blow the gear down on an A-3 Skywarrior with the aux system. Tried to raise the lever to no avail. Yep, safety wired. Broke out ye olde kabar and cut the wire and was able to safely extend the gear.

Maybe "safety wired" was the wrong term...

We'd wire the switch guards closed with fine copper wire which was easily broken if the need arose. We'd use safety wire pliers to accomplish the task at hand.