I think I learned more about operating around the ship in the Phantom than in all the others because we were always sweating gas on a 1 + 45 cycle (launch to land). We normally launched with 18,500 lbs of fuel and max landing weight was 3000-3500 lbs depending on our ordnance load which was usually 2 Sparrows and 2 ‘Winders. Max endurance fuel flow with that load was 6000 lbs per hour or 100 lbs/minute. At night if we were working blue water ops (meaning no divert available) we were “trick or treat on the ball” so if we boltered we went right up to the recovery tanker to take a little more gas and try again. If you didn’t learn all the little tricks to manage and save your gas you could get in trouble really quickly and have some rather unpleasant conversations with the captain of the ship and/or the CAG.
I flew as a Huey crew chief for almost 13 years. If we used 600 lbs an hour we had a hungry bird. It was usually closer to 550 lbs an hour and we could get 2.6 hours out of a 211 gallon bag of JP8. Our top gross weight was 9500 lbs. I have been as high as 10,000 feet MSL but we typically flew at 1000 fee AGL.
kwg
Last edited by kwg020; 02/17/21.
