52tfw spangdahlem germany home of 81st tfs wild weasel and then we integrated with 23rd and 480th squadrons. All 3 f4E and F4G units. All bad news for USSR. F4G deployed to desert shiel/storm with honor.

I was a crew chief at George, tail number 652. Wow, the memories. It's so nice to hear from the pilots.

@jcost0099

2 жыл бұрын

TFYS (thanks for your service). Man, I feel for ya! I was based at Nellis and would head out to George to visit a buddy stationed there. He was avionics. I just remember thinking, this base sucks! lol... then I went to Edwards. lol

@stevegould5185

2 жыл бұрын

@@jcost0099 Thank you right back! I am proud to have served and would do it all over again. I turned down a slot at both Edwards and based out of Nellis (You know the one....) (extended at Kadena to get married) and got George instead :).

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, Steve. You MX guys are definitely the unsung force of nature that makes the whole shebang possible.

Lucky was my squadron commander and T-Bear was my flight commander in 1978. YGBSM

Hello nice memories. I was a young green crew chief on the F4-G wild weasel 207 George AFB. I remember Col Ekerman ? He would fly my airplane occasionally. His favorite thing was to clean the windshield with his scarf. After I spent an hour cleaning inside and outside. He was always serious. I didn’t realize all his responsibilities as a commander until watching the video.

I spent many nights working the engines for these at Edwards... Tearing down a J-79 is a great way to relieve stress! (Building one is a great way to induce it)

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the comment. Got to love the smokey old J-79!

I just remembered a story I would love to know more about from the book "First In Last Out: Stories from the Wild Weasels". In Vietnam, a mission was scrubbed or sent to a secondary target so the Weasels were free to do whatever. The Weasels, F-105G with F-105D's as wingmen decided to go towards Hanoi. For several minutes these few aircraft were the sole targets of North Vietnam's IAD. During this time, most of the other Bears lost the picture or were so overwhelmed they had their heads out of the cockpit except a man called "Grouchy Bear" because he was an extremely good if not he best EWO. During this the 105D bugged out without telling flight or element lead, as the Weasels were egressing they called to ask were he was, the 105D respose was something like "almost home", you can guess what the Weasels thought of him. I would love to know more about Grouchy Bear that mission and why the other EWO's couldn't make sense of it all and what happened or should have happened to the 105D pilot. I saw Top Gun as a kid but I wanted to be a Wild Weasel more than a fighter pilot, I've listened to this series several time. The Weasels are my all time favorite, thanks.

Y.G.B.S.M. baby!!!

Your channel is headed for greatness

Great video! As a long time F-16 HARM and HTS test engineer I always enjoy hearing about the history of the Weasel and the Weasel mission.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

We'll talk HTS in the next episode. Hope it continues to engage you.

I was EW maintenance on F-4Gs during the gulf war. It was fun hearing about it all from a different point of view.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, Tom. What was the kit like to work on?

@warrenchambers4819

2 жыл бұрын

The F4G in during the gulf war to me was the pinnacle of the phantom and she had the best look of them all. That hill gray scheme really makes that F4 look mean.

@TomBurkeii

2 жыл бұрын

@@10percenttrue It was interesting. Receivers were in the nose and on top of the tail fin. The WASP was Heavy, ~50-ish lbs, and wasn't super easy to pull from the "rack" where it was hung. PAHIC and PPIAC were neat to play with, and we'd use "squirt boxes" (threat simulators) to test them. Each receiver had a mylar 5-hole punch tape that had its calibration files. Any time a receiver or WASP was changed out, we had to reload all those, along with the latest OFP. There were a series of self tests you could run on the system that would tell you what it *thought* was wrong (if anything). There was misinformation spread by the instructors that the aft receiver didn't matter, but they had it all wrong - they took the wrong take-away from a piece of information about it. During the Gulf War, we had some factory techs come out to help us troubleshoot a recurring "Hang fire" problem we had with the HARMs - it was fixed in software. I talked to them for probably a solid 2 or 3 hours about the system, and they said the trainer's take-away was completely wrong (which is kinda what I thought) There were something like 52 antennas, and a *lot* of miles of wiring in there. My unit also worked ALQ-131 ECM pods, and kept the chaff & flares working. We cross-trained on a bunch of other stuff, too. I got out in 92, and went back to school as an Electronics Engineer - I've been working for defense contractors ever since.

Lower right brought his Solo cup, he came to party.

Painted the Ops Group halls Creech Brown at Columbus waiting to go back to Hahn.

Great video. HARM. saved a lot of lives... Thank you .....

Now i gotta watch the previous vid

Thank you for a very informative and entertaining interview, I listen to lots of podcasts with interviews of pilots, but I really haven't found any that come close to yours.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for listening and commenting, Biggles.

Even the EF2000/Typhoon has just in the order of MB as mission memory. It is from the 90's. Both ROM and RAM used to be the big issues, you can wait and cut down on what you do but you can't do with less memory.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

That's a very interesting insight.

I spent four years at George AFB, '75-79. I spent roughly 2/3 of my time at the base itself and 1/3 up at the aerial gunnery range at Cuddeback Dry Lake. Both are now gone but I recently found some good photos I took of the facility at Cuddeback both from the ground and the air in the Huey that flew back & forth from the base to range early AM and late afternoon. Great memories from my favorite base assignment.

@colocopper8464

Жыл бұрын

P. S. Also have a few photos of both the Thuds and F-4's strafing with their 20mm. Also a couple night missions using dropped para-flares. Always loved working up at the Cudd!!!

Good stuff Steve! Looking forward to part 2!

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Cheers, Marco!

magnificent work as always, interesting people and questions :)

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Cheers, Blair. Hope life downunder is opening up a little.

1:07:00 Ah, finally they say what a 'cut' is and why rate servos and altitude are relevant.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

I think that they'd have got there sooner if I was a little more technically minded.

love it

Thanks for the informative podcast.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Thank, Jimmy.

Cool video had to leave a comment

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Great interview, looking forward to Part 2.

Amazing stories, certainly a target rich environment for learning the history of these great pilots, I’ve subbed & liked plus shared. Thank you for ensuring these pilots history is logged👍

Great content, thanks.

love the technology based discussion. the gentlemen were a bit hard to understand though sound clarity wise.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, George. Anyone of the guests in particular?

Fantastic! And am looking very much forward to the additional episode ideas mentioned.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Coming soon!

Great content!

Hi uncle t bear!!! From Jennifer

Fantastic interview as always. Can’t wait for the follow ups.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, Jonathan. Part 2 already recorded. Will be out in two weeks' time (or so).

Feeding the beast comment is nothing else

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

Win!

Do sun flares inhibit detection and control ?. Does predicted activity affect mission planning ?.

Great Americans 🇺🇸🇺🇸

So sad that this 50 year old stuff is "secret". I know how it all works but there are no public sources on the details.

@10percenttrue

2 жыл бұрын

I think the best chance of success would be a FOIA for the classified -34 and 3-1 manuals, but I suspect that they have been long destroyed and that none were preserved for prosperity.

@0MoTheG

2 жыл бұрын

@@10percenttrue That is why these interviews with "old gentle men" are so important, non of this was written down AND stored for public access. Historians don't care about technology.

@0MoTheG

2 жыл бұрын

@@10percenttrue Hard to find anything nowadays because there is so much garbage. www.cia.gov has it's own search function. Much was declassified 2 July 96, but not about US equipment.

@PBAR_B1B

2 жыл бұрын

Some of the tactics and techniques haven't changed a lot and so are still secret. I'm sure the bad guys have a good idea but no need to confirm it for them. Also, after the classified networks came along most of the hard copy stuff got purged quickly as it was extra work to safeguard and track it. I think I remember some digital documents for the F-4G but most of those are probably gone too.

CRS = can't remember shit.