My name is Ed and new to this forum. I use to load the F4C/E/G and worked on the jet for 15 years srtaight. I enlisted June 1976 and retired Oct 1997.
The first time I worked on the F4C/E was at George AFB, CA. Then at Osan AB Korea, Nellis AFB, NV, then back to George AFB. I was pretty good loading the jet, even if I say so. I also worked in LSC when I went back to George the 2nd time. The NCOIC called me at Nellis and ask if I wanted to work in LSC, I said sure. I ended up being on the LSC crew vs the SLC crew. When I got to George, he ask me to watch a crew in the load barn training and to give him some feedback. The two evaluators passed the crew and I would have failed them. My NCOIC asked what I thought of the load crew. I told him straight up that "A bunch of SH*T eating monkeys could load better then them". From that point forward I gave little breaks, I couldn't train load crews and have them fail in war time. Over time I was even kicked off the flightline one time for one section because they thought I was too hard, after a month went by the other evaluators was failing them also, so it just wasn't me. Needless to say we ended up going to war (Gulf) and I saw some of the people I helped trained loading on TV, they did good.
When I went back to the flightline, my crew made load crew of the month a few times, load crew of the qtr and load crew of the year. I was the wpns crew chief and I had some good guys working for me.
I retired as a MSgt and currently its been 17yrs and time is going by faster. I still miss working on the F4.
Ed, I remember you from George AFB. If you're the same Ed I'm thinking about. Wish I had signed up here earlier. I'm former MSgt Adams. I remember you, Leanord Lee, Sean Gallahger, Tom Collier and others. The F-4 was my favorite jet. If you're still around here let me know. I'd like to reminisce and swap ole stories. I remember you being banned from the flightline. You were one of the best we had.
Hey Adam
Yeah I remember you. You took over the late shift from me. I remember screwing around with you, ha ha. I told you that we screwed with you car, but you never went out to look at it. Thing was we didn't do anything to your car, I was playing head games with you, ha ha. What I did was write a note on my hand saying "Ask about his car" and when day shift would come into the office I would show them my note on my hand. After the 2nd guy came in and asked about your car, to said to me " Your not leaving till I check out my car". Then the NCOIC (MSgt Jarman) came in and said "Your car is really f**ked up. MSgt Jarman and I were good friends and knew I was screwing around with you.Ha ha. When you got to your car that morning there was nothing wrong with your car. the good times we had playing jokes on everyone.
Hi Ed,
I understand your load crew thoughts "A bunch of SH*T eating monkeys could load better then them". I was a J46250 number 2 man at Cam Rhan Bay, load crew 9G, for 18 months. We set what was to be a SEA load crew record of 223 consecutitve combat sorties without a weapons system malfunction or hung weapon. Happy to send the newspaper clipping. But I will admit Ed that we did "occasionally" set the checklist down and just load as we knew best. And were happy along with the flight crews that we did so when the fan was getting covered. And yes, I saw guys get hurt when in a hurry ( I almost lost my left thumb by opening a WP can for a napalm load in a hurry with a pair of pliers and twisting the tab quickly - and there wasn't a can of water in site . . .). And there were other accidents as well. But we still did good.
Proud of the guys I served with and for.
All the best ED
Hi Ed
Nice to Meet ya currently working A GA now called SCLA doing Comercial.
I worked for Flight Systems/Tracor/BAE Systems sorry we Droned most of Them
But i gotta say I’ve worked on a lot of planes and I really enjoyed The Phantoms the Best !!!
They got one on display out there I’ll post it later
God Bless ya Brother !!!
Tommy aka QF-4 Cronie Dronie