Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

[quote="discofishing"]

Quote:

kind of makes me wonder about the Luftwaffe and Marineflieger Tornados mixing it up with the Luftwaffe F-4Fs as well

In 2004 I talked to some 20th FS F-4F pilots at Holloman AFB who said the Luftwaffe Tornado had little chance tangling with F-4F ICE. To my surprise the Tornado pilots agreed, saying their Tornado was a bomber, pure and simple. That model of the Tornado is simply not equiped for air combat.

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Well the IDS is the fighter bomber variant and those F-4F have slats in contrast to the F-4M/K.

That's true. I just think the RAF wasted a lot of time and effort on the Tornado ADV. It's a world class strike platform, but I wouldn't call it a top notch fighter. They could have just put the avionics in the Phantom and been just as well off. I'm thinking strictly in the 80's era though. The Tornado ADV has come a long way. I wonder how the F-4F ICE would compare to a ADV.

I read the book Phantom from the Cockpit again and in my opinion it sounds like the FGR. 2 was not actually a great match for the RAF. They were stuck with a hard wing and had to drag around a gun pod which further hurt performance that was already degraded by the Spey engine mods. They would have been much better off with a stock F-4E. The only advantage of the FGR.2 over the E or J was longer range. In the book the pilots who got to fly the J make it clear they prefered the J.

It appears to me the ADV was a much better performer against an FGR.2 but its a much closer contest against an F-4F ICE because of the F-4F slats, internal gun, and APG-65 digital multimode radar - AMRAAM combination. FGR.2 and F-4F ICE are very different aircraft.

Does anyone know if the F-4EJ Kai has been modified to take AMRAAMs? The F-4EJ Kai certainly has the most advance Phantom cockpit configuration with double MFDs and a HUD.

Ian Black did a couple of great books about RAF fighters. He served as a NAV[WSO/RIO] on the FGR-2 [F-4M]. He then went on the fly the Lightning,+ Tornado F3, as a pilot.
The Books were called "Last of the Lightning', and 'Last of the Phantoms'. As I recall, he stated that the F-4M with the RAF was great, with a very powerful AWG-10 radar.
He said the F-4M was much more of a fighter than the Tornado F3. If you have a chance to read any of his books, they are very good, he is also a great photographer. He also did an exchange tour flying Mirage 2000s, and some time on F-16s also. Very interresting look at the late cold war tiimeframe in European military aviation.

Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

RAF Tornado ADV vs. F-4K/M Phantom II