Tag Archives: McDonnell F4H-1 Phantom II

3 April 1962

A McDonnell F4H-1 Phantom II, Bu. No. 148423, climbing during Project High Jump. (U.S. Navy)

3 April 1962: At NAS Point Mugu, Ventura County, California, a future NASA astronaut, United States Navy test pilot Commander John Watts Young, set a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) time-to-altitude world record by flying his McDonnell Aircraft Corporation F4H-1 Phantom II, Bureau of Aeronautics serial number (Bu. No.) 149449,¹ from the surface to 25,000 meters (82,021 feet) in 3 minutes, 50.44 seconds.²

Commander John W. Young, United States Navy, with a McDonnell F4H-1 Phantom II. (U.S. Navy)
Commander John W. Young, United States Navy, with a McDonnell F4H-1 Phantom II. (U.S. Navy)

John Young had set another FAI record on 21 February, reaching a height of 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) in 34.523 seconds with the Phantom II at NAS Brunswick, Maine.³ Young set a total of 21 FAI records. Three remain current.

This was one of a series of time-to-altitude record flights flown at with F4H-1 149449 during February, March and April 1962. Flown by four other pilots, 149449 also set time-to-altitude records for 3,000, 6,000, 9,000, 12,000, 15,000, and 20,000 meters.

A bridle restrained the F4H-1 on the runway while its engines were run up to full afterburner. The pilot fired an explosive bolt to release the airplane for flight.⁴

Point Mugu’s Runway 21 ends on the edge of the Pacific Ocean and the elevation is 9 feet (2.7 meters) above Sea Level. The restricted airspace of the Pacific Missile Test Range assured that these flights could be conducted safely and without interfering with civilian air traffic. The U.S. Air Force had used the same runway when it conducted time-to-altitude record flights with a Lockheed F-104A Starfighter in 1958.

Project High Jump McDonnell F4H-1 Phantom II. (U.S. Navy)

John Young was a test pilot assigned to the Naval Air Test Center, NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, where he was a project officer for F4H and F8U armament systems. He was selected as a NASA astronaut and served as Pilot of Gemini III; backup pilot, Gemini IV; Commander for Gemini 10; Command Module Pilot on Apollo 10; back-up commander for Apollo 13; Commander, Apollo 16; and back-up commander for Apollo 17. Later, he was Commander of the maiden flight of the space shuttle Columbia STS-1 and again for STS-9. He was in line to command STS-61J.

Record-setting McDonnell F-4B-11-MC Phantom II, Bu. No. 149449, VF-151, USS Coral Sea (CV-43). (U.S. Navy)
Record-setting McDonnell F-4B-11-MC Phantom II, Bu. No. 149449, VF-151, USS Coral Sea (CV-43). (U.S. Navy)

McDonnell F4H-1 Phantom II Bu. No. 149449, redesignated F-4B-11-MC, served with VF-96 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-61), VF-151 aboard USS Coral Sea (CV-43) and was later assigned to Marine Air Group 13, VMFA-323, “Death Rattlers,” based at Chu Lai Air Base, Republic of South Vietnam.

On 2 August 1968, 149449 was hit by small arms fire near An Hoa, 17 miles southeast of Da Nang. On returning the damaged airplane to Chu Lai, the Phantom’s landing gear could not be extended. The pilot, Major DanieI I. Carroll, USMC, and Weapons System Officer, First Lieutenant R.C. Brown, USMC, ejected one mile (1.6 kilometers) off the coast. Both were rescued by a U.S. Army helicopter.

The record-setting Phantom II was lost in the South China Sea.

Another F4H-1 Phantom II flown during Project High Jump was Bu. No. 148423, shown in the photograph above (top). In 1971, -423 was withdrawn from service and used as a ground trainer at the Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC) at Millington, Tennessee. It was later converted to the QF-4B drone configuration. It was reported preserved at the Herlong Airport, near Jacksonville, Florida. In 2002, part of the airplane was used as a cockpit display at the USS Hornet (CV-12) Museum, Alameda, California. In 2004, the nose section was transferred to the Pacific Coast Air Museum, Santa Rosa, California.⁵

¹ USN McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, by Peter E. Davies, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2016, Introduction, Page 10

² FAI Record File Number 9092

³ FAI Record File Number 9078

Engineering the F-4 Phantom II: Parts into Systems, by Glenn E. Bugos, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1996, Chapter 5, Page 105

⁵ Warplane Survivors USA: Florida Warplanes, by Harold A. Skaarup, https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/post/warplane-survivors-usa-florida-warplanes-book

© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes

24 January 1962

Sanford N. ("Sandy") McDonnell hands over the keys to the first F-110A Spectre to the United States Air Force, St. Louis, Missouri, 24 January 1962. (McDonnell Aircraft Corporation)
Sanford N. (“Sandy”) McDonnell hands over the keys to the first F-110A Spectre to the United States Air Force, St. Louis, Missouri, 24 January 1962. (McDonnell Aircraft Corporation)

24 January 1962: The McDonnell Aircraft Corporation delivered the first F-110A Spectre to Colonel Gordon Graham and Colonel George Laven, United States Air Force, at the McDonnell plant at St. Louis, Missouri. The F-110A was soon redesignated as the F-4C Phantom II.

Two Phantoms were delivered to the Air Force for evaluation at Langley Field, Virginia. They were U.S. Navy F4H-1 Phantom IIs, Bureau of Aeronautics serial numbers 149405 and 149406. Initially the aircraft retained the Navy serial numbers but eventually were assigned Air Force numbers 62-12168 and 62-12169. The Air Force bailed them back to McDonnell to develop the YF-4C prototypes.

62-12169 (ex-Bu. No. 149406) was converted to a JF-4B (a special test aircraft). Operated by the McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft Center at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, it suffered an engine explosion, 8 March 1967. McDonnell test pilot Charles (“Pete”) Garrison successfully ejected. The airplane crashed and was destroyed.

McDonnell Aircraft Corporation F-110A Spectre 149405. (McDonnell Aircraft Corporation)
McDonnell Aircraft Corporation F-110A Spectre 149405. (McDonnell Aircraft Corporation)
U.S. Air Force F-110A Spectre with bomb load.
U.S. Air Force F-110A Spectre 149405 armed with AIM-101 Sparrow missiles and Mk.82 500-pound bombs. (McDonnell Aircraft Corporation)
U.S. Air Force F-110A Spectre 149405 armed with AIM-101 Sparrow missiles and Mk.82 500-pound bombs. (NARA)

McDonnell built 5,057 Phantom IIs. They served with the United States Navy and Marine Corps, the U.S. Air Force, and many allied nations. The last Phantom II, an F-4E, was completed 25 October 1979. The U.S. Air Force retired its last operational Phantoms from service 20 December 2004, 42 years, 10 months, 27 days after receiving the first F-110A.

McDonnell F-110A Spectre 149405 (F4H-1, F-4B-9i, and F-4C-15-MC 62-12168).
McDonnell F-110A Spectre 149405 (F4H-1, F-4B-9i-MC, and finally, F-4C-15-MC 62-12168). (McDonnell Aircraft Corporation)
McDonnell F-110A 149406 at Nellis Air Force Base, March 1962. (NARA)
McDonnell F-4C-15-MC Phantom IIs 149405 and 149406, circa 1963. (NARA)
McDonnell F-110A 149405 and 149406 in formation near Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri. (NARA)

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes