How much can you say about how these are flown? Stuff like: Are you trying to keep a constant airspeed / ground speed, how does height above ground change (constant, specific profile, etc), who are you talking to while you're flying the route, what about birds? / other planes, what sort of briefing did you do before flying the route, what would be reason to stop, etc.
Anything basically.
Good questions...... Let me try recall some things...
The Phantom is a powerful beast. Like any aircraft, airspeed is crucial not only for lift, but to keep from having engine/compressor failure, for one, due to lack of intake air... Typically a flame out prior to stall. We lost one of our birds in an Airshow at Point Mugu due to this exact thing. The Phantom was low, in a turn and to slow, thus had a flame- out. The plane stalled and even though both pax ejected, unfortunately, they did not survive. Fate has it that our crew was to be back seat that day, but the PIC wanted to have one of his Marine friends fly back seat so we did not support. We often participated in public events...... like flight of 4 (F/A-18, F-14D, and two Phantoms), flyover of Dodger Stadium on opening day. Darn near couldn't find Chavez Ravine due to fog.
Anyway, we flew approaches at ~147 kts, cruised about 425 kts unless we were outrunning the NASA Dryden Research Hornet that we would come upon out in the Mojave desert. Interesting enough, the Phantom can flat out haul ass in a straight line, but when she is turned tight she bleeds off quickly. She would need to unload so to speak, get back up to speed and get back into the fight turning in.... So I've been told. Back when Mugu had YF-86 targets they would engage the Phantoms and would cause fits. The turning radius on the YF-86 was problematic for the Phantom
We talk to the same Centers, Approach etc GA aircraft do until reaching the various military controlling facilities. In the first video I posted you can hear Pt Mugu approach who is the controlling facility for Oxnard, Camarillo airports as well.
You mention birds? You betcha. That was always a concern, especially over the Sea Range. Before every flight we would have a briefing in the squadron ready room where we would discuss the mission, flight profiles and the return break procedure. Safety topics were what is our diversion field and what to do if we 'swap paint'. Relative to birds, some pilots more than others, were very concerned about taking a bird strike up front that could incapacitate the pilot. They would then count on me to eject us from the plane. In the Phantom the Martin Baker seats could be set in dual or single, Regardless, the rear seat has to eject first, then the fwd. If not, say the pilot ejects first, the backseat guy is burnt toast. This always got my attention for a couple reasons. If the pilot says, 'We're going to eject on my command.. eject! eject!'..... at that point I had best been pulling the hood or handle getting the hell out of Dodge, because he wasn't going to wait. In the event of a loss comms associated with an emergency, while already stating we would be armed in 'Single' mode, that he would rap his fist on the side of the canopy 3-times then he would eject and I had best be gone immediately after the second fist strike. Man that still gets me as I recall telling myself don't screw that up. lol
Also, after every mission we would have what we called a 'Hot Wash' where we de-briefed the particulars of the mission and depending on classification, review the video with the pertinent parties
The reason we would stop at other locations was to conduct the pre-mentioned briefs. The Navy talked the same language. My input would be where I wanted the 'Photo Bird' in relation to the IUT (Item Under Test) taking into consideration objective... say... the program was interested in wing deployment of a cruise missile, or boost phase after dropping its shell all the while taking into consideration sun angles and distant to item being filmed
Another thing relative to your question about height, profile etc. The Martin Baker Ejection seat is armed to separate between 14-16K, Meaning, my seat would drop away controlled by barometric pressure. We flew below that altitude frequently. If we ejected low, I would had to have pulled one of those yellow handles with black stripes to initiate the seat separation process. There were all kinds of handles/switches color coded that way. I always acted slowly when touching anything in the back. For instance, the handle to lower and raise the canopy looked similar to the one that ejected the canopy. Speaking of which, seemed every pilot I flew with was anal about closing our canopy's in sync. lol
-MF
