I was an MOS-6657, which was a Westinghouse AWG10 radar tech. (Marine/Navy F-4J's) That puppy FILLED up that nose cavity, and you would stick a rail in the top, take off the 4 bolts, and slide that big monster out. Back then, the Phantom cost 4.5 million......and the radar was 1 million of that. I had a dual trace oscilliscope, frequency counters, all of that. When we were on the Nimitz, I would sometimes trace the problem down to component level. Normally you would just replace the assembly or module. But we were in the middle of the Atlantic (on a 7 month Med)....and bored. haha That skill I learned in the military set me for life. Thanks, Chesty 🙂

@DieselThunderAviation

10 күн бұрын

That's awesome, thank you for your service! We were still doing component level when I got in, but that was quickly being phased out. I was a shipboard ET, not aviation.

I was a secret squirel in 1970s. That chin dome was stuffed with 2 antenna the hump area had 2 detectors and 2 amps. The system was the aps 107a later upgraded to aps 107d. Wiring was horrible, had to use a tdr to find cold solder joints in canon plugs and bulkhead feedthrus. We called ourselves "your friendly local ecm weinees" Keep up the great work

The reward in maintaining a Phantom, is the satisfaction when you get it done right. Because hardly anything is easy. I never got that satisfaction maintaining an F-16 ! Phantoms require a whole nother level of skill, patiance, technical knowladge & dogged tanacity. Our E's had the Pitot tube on the radome nose. That radar is a thing of beauty, groundbreaking tech. in its day. Nice work there getting everything installed and closed out.

@jeremiahgrogan5963

11 күн бұрын

Awesome to see the radar is still installed!

Blood letting to appease the Phantom gods. Thank you for these videos. Its 1980 for me with VMFA-323 all over again. Love it.

Radome paint... best shoes on parade.

That's awesome she still has the Radar inop or not. Definitely a huge part of the phantom history! Would be so cool to have the radome open at a show.

@DieselThunderAviation

11 күн бұрын

That depends on whether she's a static display or a participant in the show. We're hoping for the latter, but we need to get her airborne again first!

Great to see the Phantom getting so much attention. The lockwiring however could be done better. Some of the bolts are lockwired the wrong way. (Pulling left). Also the one aft of the radar dish is left pulling.

@johnfriggen9106

7 күн бұрын

Sorry ..no clue how to get the message trough in an other way. But please check the lockwiring🎉 Several bolts are lockwired the wrong way. I would ground the aircraft for that. Sry..

Man if the F-100 can fly/is flying again, i'd LOVE to see her flying around a WOH!

@DieselThunderAviation

14 күн бұрын

Too early to know for sure what all is confirmed to fly at WOH this year, other than the Blue Angels. Would be really cool to have the Hun and the Phantom up for the show!

I haven’t commented in a while, but I have been keeping up. Really appreciate these videos. Enjoying seeing the progress and feeling the frustration with you when things don’t move fast enough.

Love the smeared blood from previous phixers...

@DieselThunderAviation

Күн бұрын

Sacrifice to the Phantom gods!

control the offcut as we got taught in the RAAF.

You know, sometimes you have to sweat blood to keep them flying. Superb job, man. And thanks for showing the details of the radar. Really nice stuff.

@DieselThunderAviation

13 күн бұрын

Our pleasure! Was a real treat to see inside the dome!

Looks like a tough knuckle buster job

Amazing it still has the radar and not just a giant weight with as temperamental as these things were.

@DieselThunderAviation

13 күн бұрын

Well that is essentially all it is these days, just weight 🙂

I haven't seen the inside of an F-4 Radome in 43 years! Reminds me of bummer of a night at Edwards AFB. I was working in the Aero/ Repair 6515 FMS removing the panels around the forward windscreen for R/R and the apex In my speed handle feel out.....and I could hear it work its way down Somewhere in the aft part of the radome........the radar folks already Went home for the night.....Red x In the forms , called avionics People had to come back to the Hangar and remove the. radar package for my skinny butt to crawl In there with a flashlight and mirror And FIND that #2 apex........ after most of the night looking...I FOUND The little sob ! Called avionics folks to hook there stuff back up and Had the RED x signed off.....and I got to go home to the wife then. Dang what a night to remember! So much, I remember it damn near 45 years later!😳

@curtisr8179

13 күн бұрын

That's why I enjoy your channel Diesel brings back memories in The Cobb webs of my mind !

@jeremiahgrogan5963

11 күн бұрын

Thanks for sharing this story!

Love watching the work on the F-4! One nitpick though, the safety wire on those bolts is incorrect, it should always be trying to “pull” the bolts tight. Get Crew Chief Al to show you. I’ve had to go back more than once and redo it😆

@DieselThunderAviation

13 күн бұрын

Yeah, looking at that, I am going to redo those. Good for practice 🙂

Let's see some footage of that F-100 flying!!!!

Man, I can feel your pain with the safetywire. I still have scars from my days doing safetywire.

@DieselThunderAviation

14 күн бұрын

Yeah, it’s really easy to catch fingers and hands working with it. Not to mention if someone before you didn’t bend back the ends and you get snagged by those 😬

@trespire

14 күн бұрын

After a while you develope titanium knuckls !

@chrishuber3814

14 күн бұрын

@@DieselThunderAviation one thing I used to do that helped was to wrap the excess handle of the safetywire pliers. That way it wouldn't whip around and get your fingers.

if you need another one of those safety wire fully reversible saafety wire pliers, costaero has a special order coming in

I come here every week just astounded that people kept these things operational under war time conditions.

@DieselThunderAviation

13 күн бұрын

Mind boggling to think about that, and to have it combat ready too!

Hemostat... Brilliant! Congrats on getting the components back where they belong, tightened down, and buttoned up. I understand it but bummer that the radar isn't functional. As always, thanks for sharing.

@DieselThunderAviation

14 күн бұрын

Indeed! I imagine a set of needle nose vise grips would worked too, but the hemostats are smaller and a bit easier to work with. The radar wouldn’t do much for us with how we operate the aircraft, at best it’d be an overpowered weather radar with no spare parts.

@fsj197811

14 күн бұрын

@@DieselThunderAviation Is that a hemostat you used or a forcept? As far as I can tell the difference is forcepts have ridges for gripping and hemostats are smooth. It doesn't seem like they'd grip anything very big, say above #10 or maybe 1/4" ? Regardless, great idea and I'll be picking up a pair of forcepts.

@DieselThunderAviation

14 күн бұрын

Then these are forceps, they had the ridged jaws. I’ve seem them each in a variety of sizes. The ones I used were on the larger side. Great for fishing as well!

for someone that knows cars and nothing about working on aircraft this looks other worldly complicated haha

Every time I go to a hobby show, I buy some hemostats at the booth that sells all sorts of random tools. I've broken a few of them too.

As much as I like the f-4 stuff. I want to see the hun. I wish you had more time to show the hun

@DieselThunderAviation

13 күн бұрын

Got some good stuff from her flight yesterday! Should have that published in the next couple of days 🙂

@Racer1505

13 күн бұрын

@@DieselThunderAviation I hope you got the launch. And what the crew chief is doing.

Diesel, thank you for your videos! Could you tell me the spooling time of the J-79 from IDLE to MIL and from MIL to AB? I don't like immediate reaction of it to the throttle in the DCS and want to ask Heatblure to fix it!

@DieselThunderAviation

10 күн бұрын

Our pleasure! There is a chart in the manuals showing maximum time for spool up, but it does not show minimum times. I believe they adjusted it in the last patch and they may adjust it some more in the future.

@Andrew-13579

5 күн бұрын

How about the spool down time from cutoff to stop? They always seem to ignore that. And the sounds of spool down. Do the real engines make a klickity-klickity sound for 20-30 seconds or more until they coast to a complete stop? I remember watching a raw video from the Gulf War in ‘91 of the J52 engine in an A-4KU Skyhawk (A-4M). I think it was over two minutes from cutoff to coasting to a complete stop, with the clanking sound for a minute or so.

I am not a forrensic scientist, but it looks like blood on the support brace, a tough time indeed!

@DieselThunderAviation

11 күн бұрын

I think you are right!

@rwhunt99

10 күн бұрын

@@DieselThunderAviation Ha,ha,ha, Been there, did that!

That's great. How did you get the washers on the bolts for the TR that you put in?

@DieselThunderAviation

14 күн бұрын

Yes, washers were installed. Certainly don’t want to do this twice

Get your T.O. out! Here comes QA!

All that crap now will weigh 1K so be careful if you decide to pull i t out , put a point on 2 2X4s 4 bolts and have you a crane to catch it , Never worked on one like yours only s models .Good luck

Just from curiosity. Any chances to repair this cut fat cable in the radar compartment?

@DieselThunderAviation

13 күн бұрын

Unfortunately not. Between the cabling, missing parts, and lack of any documentation, we have no chance to repair the radar. It would also be a massive amount of work for little gain with how the jet is operated.

Check your safety wire job. You went the wrong way with a couple of those. Been there done that when I was a young airman back in the day.

@DieselThunderAviation

Күн бұрын

Indeed! I plan on going back to redo those!

I would restore the radar. Just because.

Do you intend to fly the F-4 also?

@DieselThunderAviation

11 күн бұрын

Of course! We were hoping to have her back in the air sooner, just the electrical system and the right main gear had other plans.

You must have someone who knows how to safely remove the Martin baker ejection seat😊

@joeds3775

Күн бұрын

pull the handle usually works to remove it.

16:17 is that handwriting on the plane at the bottom left of the screen? Does it say something?

@DieselThunderAviation

13 күн бұрын

It does, hard to make out the first word, but the second word is “missing”. Wonder if that is referring to one of the parts that was removed?

Safety wired plenty of the Aim-7 launchers, both bolts and breeches. Barely enough room through the access panels, and Lord help you if they had moved the aircraft while the launcher was out without the spacer block! You would have the slowly tow the aircraft around while trying the get the bolts in.

What did the sticker on the antenna dish say?

@DieselThunderAviation

14 күн бұрын

To put it politely, it says “sh*t happens”. Gave me a good chuckle as I didn’t expect to see that there. 😁

@cyrussumner

5 күн бұрын

Demiled killed it unless you stole it

with all the vibration in that Aircraft shouldn't you use Loctite or safety wire?? just asking?

@DieselThunderAviation

14 күн бұрын

On the left hand TR (lower one), it’s near impossible to get safety wire on those fasteners so that one uses the self locking nuts. Since the upper one only uses bolts in a threaded hole, those get safety wired.

@fsj197811

14 күн бұрын

You can't see good enough in the video but I'd bet good money those nuts are 'crimped' (don't know the right word). They're slightly deformed so they're a friction fit so they can't vibrate loose. Sort of like if you were to 'stake' the nut before you ever installed it. The nuts on top of the plate at 10:52 are also locking nuts.

@DieselThunderAviation

14 күн бұрын

@fsj198711 Same kind of nut that you spotted on that plate are the same ones used on that lower TR. When I removed that lower one a few months ago, none of the bolts/nuts were loose. Have no idea when the last time it was removed, likely it was in place for well over a decade or more.

@trespire

14 күн бұрын

@@fsj197811 Crimp-Lock nuts, should be to NAS spec.

18:04, it looks like the safety wire is going the wrong direction

@flynlr

14 күн бұрын

looks like it

@DieselThunderAviation

13 күн бұрын

Yep, I’m going to redo that!

@Stepclimb

13 күн бұрын

All good except for the bottom bolts.

Well as I don`t know your real name (whitch in fact doen`t concerne me😁)I`ll adress you as D.T. Just out of curiosity is that real blood on that ejection seat base (or rail)? If it is, I was right on my last comment when I told you guys poured blood, sweat and tears on that project. And would it be more complicated if you had disassembled all stuff and took it of the plane to do all that work outside that extremely tight place? 🤙. Good winds and happy landings from Portugal

Now, if you can get a 104 or a 101. That would be megacool. I donate to that fund.