David Gledhill, who was a navigator on the Phantom at RAF Wildenrath during the Cold War, recalls the type’s operations – and how it would have been used had things turned hot.
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II served at RAF Wildenrath in West Germany in the air defence role and was a massive increase in capability over the English Electric Lightning it eventually replaced.
Equipped with an impressive war load of eight air-to-air missiles and a gun, the airframe was less agile than some of its opponents, particularly when carrying external fuel tanks, but its weapon system and armament proved vastly superior, albeit temperamental, and its endurance a quantum leap over its predecessor.
When introduced into RAF Germany in the mid-1970s as an air defence fighter, the twoman crew and improved navigation system made operating in the crowded airspace far easier, particularly given the predominance of poor weather over the North German Plain.
Its pulse-Doppler radar was the key, demanding a total revision of tactics to make best use of the beyond-visual-range, look-down, shoot-down capability of the Sparrow missile whose introduction would revolutionise NATO air defence operations.
In the low-level environm…
