Did anyone watch "jet vs jet" on Dog fights tonite. Its a new episode, wow !!! Sabre vs Migs, it was awesome.

V..

It's starting again here on the west coast 12:00 am to 2:00 am, channel 62 for me.

Watched it over a poker game last night. Did you see they showed an F4 with a gattlin gun on the bottom of it at the end of the show? First mistake I've seen them make, unless there was one out there I did not ever find out about.

No mistake Sean. I can't remember the nomemclature, but I remember loading the externally mounted gun on the centerline station of the F-4 back in the early 80's at weapons school.

That's cool, first time I've heard that they took corrective action on that issue. Can't wait for the next episode as they will probably address it since showing "video" of it in action.

Yep, the only mistake was that the gun wasn't built into the F-4s in the first place.
If you ever see some Vietnam footage you'll see the center mounted gun light'n up the jungle.

The gun pod was their "quick fix" for the non gun equipped F-4`s. Later models had a gun in the nose. I was told some years back that the gun pod was hard to aim.

V..

We had a .223 gattling pod for the T-38's here at Holloman. Awsome little gun. Bob

Vince
I can recall that the Zoomies(AF) started with the external pods 20mm gattlen mounted in the centerline tanks, I believe they were bore sited at 500 or 600 yards. Dont forget when the F4's were designed they (washington) it will have sidewinders & sparrow for fleet defence, don't need no stinking gun.Another reason the F8U were call the LAST Gunfighter.had 4 20mm's.

Semper Fi
Joe

I this last episode Hoot Gibson was interviewed. I remeber seeing his name in the mags at jet rallies in the DF days. I did not know he was a Saber driver and Korean war ace.I think one of the up coming episodes has the F-4 (with gun pod) duel in it. Next week looks like WW2 Thunderbolts mixing it up with FW`s.

V..

Hi Joe

You should have seen the 30MM gun pod!

I think the gun was called the GAU-13. It was a 4 barrelled derivative of the GAU-8 on the A-10.

When they fired it out back at work, we could here it down in the basement of the engineering building (the only other thing I heard down there was KC-135s and F-4s taking off!). I think they finally did put it on some close air support versions of the F-16, but the vibration and the recoil was way more than the pylon (and maybe the F-16!) could take. I think the F-4 pods suffered the same kind of poor accuracy. Bullets spraying everywhere

Hoot Gibson's BIO (not old enough to be a Korean war ace)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Gibson

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/gibson.html

Hi Gary,

Different "Hoot" Gibson

Capt. Ralph D. "Hoot" Gibson

BTW more good new, I did not know that season 1 of Dogfights was on DVD, just cleared about 6 hours off my Tivos!

Got it for about 30 bucks at www.deepdiscount.com

Oops.....I didn't know there was another one. Astronaut Hoot Gibson is a local hero and actually flew RC and DFs at one time.

Here is a shot of Hoot given' 'em hell on the program...Taking a pic doesn't do the program's graphics justice---Watching this program on my plasma is out of this world!!!...I have every episode on TiVo...Now I need to record the series to DVD!!!

Kevin

Hey Matt,

My squadron was the first Air Force F-4C unit in action over North Vietnam, the 68TFS. We were equipped the centerline gun, however since the centerline of the gun barrel was twelve feet plus below the pipper on the gun sight any slight deviation on a strafing pass resulted in a real shotgun pattern. Our birds didn't have a lead computing box, that feature didn't show up until the F-4D appeared at Fighter Weapons School at Nellis in 1966!

Skeet

Hi Skeet,

I don't know much about ballistcs algorithms (last time I worked near ballistics equations was the Cobra AH-1Z system and that is head steered turret) but the little I do know says that gun has to be very rigidly mounted. That 30mm almost shook that F-16 apart, it flailed all over the place!

I am not sure if any of these afterthought gunpods worked well at all. Do you know of any air to air kills with one on the F-4s?

The actual F-4 that was featured in one of the episodes is Gen. Dan Cherry's, we have it at the local Bowling Green Airport. It is restored to its veitnam markings and condition and is awating placement in a musem they are supposed to build. Russ

While everyone had an eye in the sky for the arrival of Raptors and their traveling 3-D vectored thrust show at Airventure 2007 Oshkosh, the Ultimate R/C "C" model arrived with a couple of 9G burner circuits at pattern altitude.......nothing, with maybe the Concord departing OSH in the past on burner, comes even close to the sound......Col. Ron Miller on the sticks......