F4 Dayton USAF Museum

The F4 was equipped with a whole host of radar packages over the years. The APQ-99, APQ-120, APQ-102, APG-65, APG-76, etc. That's just a few of them. The big snout on the plane could house just about any radar package they could dream up.

None of them "cooked" other pilots. That's an old wives tale.

DOH! didnt see the E in F-4E!

Guys, everyone is correct here. I'm an old F4 backseater. The early models (B,C, and D) had no internal gun, but could carry gunpods on the centerline and/or the inboard pylons. This one appears to be a C model. The E model was provided an internal gun because, for among other reasons, the rules of engagement in 'nam sometimes made it difficult to employ the beyond-visual-range missles and even the short-range missles, so you needed a suitable weapon for an inside-a-phonebooth "knife fight." The radar could indeed burn a ground crew but not an airborne opponent. Our checklist showed a danger range for the radar out to (I think) about 200 feet, so we were not allowed to turn it on until on the runway. Thanks for the great picture of the old bird made under difficult conditions. The colors are right-on and the mkii made it super sharp. BTW, this one is loaded for bear - two 1000lb bombs on the centerline, heat seekers (AIM-9) on the wing launchers and radar missles (AIM-7) in the fuselage missle wells. Thanks again, Chris.

Welcome to POTN!

Thanks for the back(seat) story and thanks for your service!

Got any F4 images you'd care to share? Post 'em up...

I asked my brother about this last weekend and he confirmed that the radar was "very" dangerous on the flight deck and not turned on until after launch and turned off before landing.

Thanks for the comments. The only F4 images I have were taken with a Canon A-1 back in the early '80s (Ektachrome, I believe). The interesting ones are of my jet sitting air defense alert in Germany, but I'm not too pleased with the quality - especially after seeing your and others' posts here. If I can figure out how to do it I'll post some of them and let you guys rip 'em.

mhm2526 wrote in post #8744565
Thanks for the comments. The only F4 images I have were taken with a Canon A-1 back in the early '80s (Ektachrome, I believe). The interesting ones are of my jet sitting air defense alert in Germany, but I'm not too pleased with the quality - especially after seeing your and others' posts here. If I can figure out how to do it I'll post some of them and let you guys rip 'em.

Ah but first we DROOL...!

cool picture. love the reflection off the floor too.

Try this link. It explains the gun-equipped F-4E and its radar.

http://home.att.net/~j​baugher1/f4_11.html