/k/, I'm drawing a blank here. Was the F-4 the only fighter to serve the Air Force, Navy, and Marines all at once?
>>29703077
bump for intrest
Probably not what you envisaged but:
Vought VE-7
Grumman F3F
Brewster F2A
All either WW2 planes or immediate WW2 precursors.
>>29703163
Air Force did not exist then.
>>29703163
I kind of figured we'd have to go back a ways to find anything that actually bridged all three branches, but it just occured to me today that the F-4 served for what, twenty years? And bridged all three branches at the same time. Pretty damn sure the Japanese still run their Phantoms.
>>29703077
Pretty much. Unless you count the F-35, but that's really three different planes. The F-4 is the only real universal fighter they've ever had.
Gonna dump my F-4's since we're all here.
>>29703214
We can split hairs about that all day. It's just interesting to note that going all the way back to pre-WW2, the requirments of the different branches of the military were still worlds apart. And somehow... the F-4 is the only one that did what everyone wanted at the same time, with little to no modification between branches.
>>29703217
Yeah, both as the F-4JKai (modified) and as a recon plane as RF-4J.
>>29703077
Not for long.
>>29703252
To be fair:
>>29703222
>>29703077
>>29703242
What made them do this back then? It seems especially odd since everyone has their panties in a twist about it nowadays.
>>29703274
Sometimes, you just hit a home run. Afaik, it was developed from a Navy requirement, and the AF realized that it filled a gap in their inventory at the time. Marines got them because, well, Navy, and then everyone we weren't currently having a global staring contest with wanted to get their hands on one too.
>>29703217
More like 30. The Air Force retired their F-4Gs in the mid 90s. I'm sure the Navy retired theirs sooner, due to harsher use and more exposure to the elements.
>>29703301
I keep forgetting the 90's were 20 years ago.
>>29703242
>We can split hairs about that all day.
Eh no, there's no splitting hairs about the obvious fact that the air force as a branch was created after WW2.
>>29703602
Since the USAAC is retroactively considered to be the USAF, it is splitting hairs.
>>29703628
No, that's called making up shit to force an argument where no argument exists.
>>29703653
Except the Air Force and Army agree that USAAC history is also the history of the USAF, since the former was broken off of the Army to create the latter.
Just read about Wild Weasel and SEAD.
>You gotta be shitting me
Sounds about right
>>29703673
They also agree that the Air Force did not exist before 1947.
>>29703077
Well, there's the A-7, but it's debatable over whether or not that's actually a fighter.
>>29703742
Only in name.
>>29703742
You're splitting hairs about this. If I had a corporation that was part of a larger company, but eventually got to go solo, and thus changed my name, there would be no debate about whether the previous entity and this one were the same thing.
>>29703245
Name please
Iran has a cool Air Force.
>F-4s
>F-14s
>cool looking F-5 knockoffs
>Su-24s
>MiG-29s
>>29703602
>>29703653
>>29703847
>>29703873
>>29703274
>>29703297
It was a push by McNamara to get a unified fighter across the branches because at the time, all three branches were running dozens of different types of aircraft.
>>29703847
And Mirage F1s
>>29704012
so was this. but the fighter version for the Navy was a dud.
>>29704043
I always though that was just Iraq. Iranians did shoot some F1s in the Iran-Iraq War.
I guess Iran captured some Iraqi F1s and rotated them into their own air force?
>>29704142
Iraq's Mirage F1s all fled to Iran during Desert Storm. They were taken into the Iranian Air Force and have been flying with them ever since.
>>29703783
Goes by one name, Megumi.
>>29703749
Marines rejected the A-7, instead jumping to AV-8s from their Skyhawks.
>>29703749
I'm not sure the Marines were flying A-7s at that same time.
There's also the A-1 Skyraider. Navy Spads and USAF Sandies operated at the same time, but didn't the Marines get rid of them after Korea ?
>>29704789
Are Skyraiders considered fighters? I assumed they were CAS/Ground Attack aircraft.
>>29704929
They were scaled up WWII fighters and had guns and Sidewinders and a few AA kills against MiGs, so it's kind of fuzzy, but that's what they were primarily.
>>29704929
I would honestly say any aircraft that is used across all the branches is worth noting, because all three branches want their own (fill in the blank).
>>29705155
Do choppers count?
>Hueys and Cobras (same platform)
>UH-60 *hawk platform
>V-22
>>29705262
This anon has a good point. Lots of rotor-wing aircraft have been used by all branches, in one form or another.
>>29704077
Yeah but the failure of naval F-111s gave us the Tomcat. Total win.
>>29704077
RIP in peace pig.
>>29703217
First flight of the prototype was 1958. The last Phantom withdrawn from active service with the U.S. was the F-4G Wild Weasel in 1996. Israel retired their last Phantom in 2004, Germany retired the type in 2013.
On an interesting note, most British Phantoms had Rolls Royce Spey engines and British avionics with the exception of 15 ungraded ex U.S. Navy F-4Js that were turned over to the Royal Navy after the Falklands conflict to cover for a Royal Navy squadron redeployed there.
![usmc_ov10a_vmo2_morrow_acree-hunter1[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Hg7ePuN.jpg "usmc_ov10a_vmo2_morrow_acree-hunter1[1].jpg")
>>29705155
OV-10
if only the Army had some instead of the OV-1 we'd have a quadfecta
>>29703274
when the first F4 prototype flew in 1958, it was light years ahead of anything else flying except it's direct competitor, the F8U-3 Super Crusader. And even then it was a twin engine design that could skunk almost everything else flying in climb rate and speed and had a ridiculous payload capability on top of that. The Navy had asked for a fleet defense fighter and McDonald Douglas delivered a super fighter that was capable of doing everything and doing it well as compared to any thing else flying or on the drawing board. The Marines were happy to adopt it as a fighter and strike aircraft and the Air Force looked at the test data, swallowed their pride and decided to buy it. Thought they initially wanted to name it the F-110 Specter.
It is hard to over state how much better the Phantom was than anything else at the time the first variants were introduced.
![adp_101711_guardrail_mg_6399-3[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/VNHr12r.jpg "adp_101711_guardrail_mg_6399-3[1].jpg")
>>29705478
aaand not as cool as a fighter or attack aircraft but all branches do operate their own C-12s
>>29704222
>Iraq's Mirage F1s all fled to Iran during Desert Storm
Was this an ordered/approved thing, or just an ad-hoc decision by scared fighter crew?
>>29703301
The last Navy variant, the F-4S, was retired in 1992.
>>29705553
From what I've read it was somewhat coordinated. An Iraqi Air Force general or something to that effect went to Iran and arranged for the air force to flee.
>>29705553
Scared Iraqi fighter crews. They had just fought a ten year war with Iran and had learned when a Tomcat lit you up with his radar, you were going to die. It pissed Navy F-14 crews off no end that the moment they painted Iraqi aircraft, thay turned an hauled ass for Iran. It meant that while they removed a few hundred Iraqi aircraft form the conflict permanently, they didn't get a single air to air kill.
>>29705699
This is why stat queens are gay.
>>29705382
How did the Spey powered models compare to their American counterparts? About the same, or was there a noticible difference?
>>29703584
Are these real?
>>29705323
Well, I didn't say the F-111B failure was a bad thing.
It's just true.
>>29706502
Pretty sure, yeah.
>>29706581
>>29706502
Turkish F4-2020 Terminator
>>29703077
IIRC the F-111 was supposed to, but they couldn't get it to do what the Navy wanted which is why the F-4 ended up being used
>>29703602
USAAC = USAF, calm down sperg
>>29706609
The F-111 was an amazing Air Force asset. It blew as a Navy fighter, because in every naval iteration it was too heavy, too big, and too complicated for the canoe club's taste.
>>29703214
>>29703602
>>29703653
>>29703742
Why would you do this you fucking faggot. What a fucking nigger.
>>29705262
>tfw burgerland will never use the navalized Apache like the brits have
>>29706233
Speys had more raw power and better low altitude performance. The Air intakes had to be increased to feed the bigger engines creating additional drag and the Speys didn't like the higher altitudes as much as the GE engines. loaded with ordinance, the difference in drag didn't matter, but for varios reasons, the Royal Air Force strike Phantoms found themselves pressed into the air combat role. In a relitively clean configuration with conformal missiles, the GE powered F-4J had a noticiable advantage at high altitude and GE powered aircraft had a higher top speed. The fifteen F-4Js adopted by the Royal Navy were refitted with some British equipment, but the British Spey powered Phantoms had been a special run and rather than tool up to refit just fifteen fighters, the Brits accepted them with GE engines. British piliots who flew both Spety and GE powered Phantoms said the GE powered planes were superior. At the time, one British fighter piliot opined that the F-4Js were the best fighters the Royal Navy had ever fielded.
>>29703297
>Phantom invented in 1958
>service until the 2010s in some countries
>some people are predicting that we'll move entirely to unmanned fighters for AA by 2040
It's possible that the Phantom will have been in active military service for half of the entire lifetime of manned jet fighter planes.
>>29706233
>>29707380
The reason why going to a more powerful engine ruined the F4 is that the Spey was a bit larger, and the alterations to support it fucked up the area ruling of the aircraft, which harmed its high speed performance.
>>29703267
I guess you could say this guy's enemies really get SKULD good.
>>29707829
That was terrible, Carlos. Observe.
>Boy, that nose art sure is dandy!
>I Urd those Japs had a Hell of a time finding something to replace the Phantoms.
>>29707849
Watch out, their pilots are highly skuld in aerial combat!
>F-4 Phantom II thread
I'm in heaven
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUkPDwyfuV8
Greece is still operating (lol) F4s, upgraded with the peace icarus 2000 program. Rumors have it that they will be replaced with used american F-15s.
>>29710046
Greece has a surprisingly based military.
Shame we'll never see it alongside NATO deciding to invade Turkey.
