Any one have any insight on why an F4 painted navy/airforce gray with red wingtips and rudder would be flying with F15's and f22's out of Tyndall Air Force base down in Florida?

The color scheme is what interests me. I assume the plane were doing some sort of training missions like air interdiction.

It was very cool to see f4's, f15's, f22's what looked like p3 orions and a few A10's coming in for landings at the base as we laid on the beach just off the airbase.

Thank you,
Wilson

 

That would be a remotely operated F-4 that they use for target practice.
Factsheets : QF-4 Drone



YouTube - QF4 Drone

 

Hernando, That is awesome. I had no idea.

Funny thing about them is that they were flying alone and at one time when lined up for landing we then saw a propeller plane readjust it's course to avoid the F4 when it came back into view going the opposite direction. I think it had to "go around" and retry the landing. The F15s and F22s were all flying in pairs.

Thank you again for the info.

As the Florida ambassador for Teamspeed, I must thank you for the quiet little town feel of Mexico Beach. We had no oil and the beaches to ourselves.

Wilson

 

Spent some of the best years of my life maintaining F-4s! Then moved over to the F/A-18, which was a great plane, but the Phantom will always have my heart!

 

It was cool to hear the f22's turbine sucking in air as it approached, a real whooshing sound. The f15's roared, boy they where loud going by, but no neat intake sound like the f22. Then when the f4 came thru, it made the roar of the f15 sound like a kitten.

It is neat to see/hear the difference in engine note (turbine note?)

Wilson

 

Great post Wilson.

 

We have an ANG Air Defense Squadron near where I live that we are all
very proud of. They fly F-15s. They pass over my house in 2-ship elements, coming back from early morning training sorties and they are not loud. But in
burner they can be very loud. They light their burners when in airshows
usually, which is very cool! I can always tell it is them from inside my house
because the F100 turbofans in the F-15s, has a very distinctive whine or
whistle.

Next time you are so fortunate to see these birds flying, when they fly
buy check out the jet nozzles. If they are loud, I'll bet the burners
(afterburners) are lit, that is why they are loud. You will notice when the burners aren't lit, they are fairly quiet. You can definitely tell when the burners are lit because the jet ehaust is glowing yellow or orange, and
you can see the fuel being jetted into the nozzle and instantly igniting and
releasing heat from the fuel which causes the added thrust as the nozzles
expand the hot flow into momentum causing thrust. When the burners
aren't lit, the nozzles look dark inside.

Another interesting thing is that the F-4 is turbojet powered. They are
somewhat louder as they are all core flow. They don't have to fly in
burner either so you should check their nozzles when they fly over. But
they are just louder. And F-4 engines (the J79) smoke a fair amount.

The F-22 and F-15 are both powered by low bypass turbofans, so when
they are not in burner they can be fairly quiet, as more of that thrust at
that time can be from the fan stages. Turbofans have two flows,
a fan flow and a core flow. The fan flow helps the core flow provide thrust.
Both the fan and core flows are powered by the turbine stages in the
back of the engine.