J79 Noise, Sonic Booms and Extremely Low Flying: Watch the Greatest F-4 Phantom Footage in History

The footage features USAF F-4 and RF-4 Phantom IIs flying extremely low with J79 noise (along with some spectacular sonic booms) and no background music.

The Noise You Hear is the Sound of Freedom!

The sierra hotel video in this post is possibly the coolest F-4 Phantom footage ever filmed.

The footage in fact features USAF F-4 and RF-4 Phantom IIs flying extremely low with J79 noise (along with some spectacular sonic booms) and no background music.

Thanks to the General Electric J79 turbojet engine which generated a maximum of 17,000 pounds of thrust with the afterburner operating the mighty Phantom was able to fly at more than Mach 2.

The now retired McDonnell two-place, twinjet, all-weather F-4 Phantom II was one of the most versatile fighters ever built. It served in the first line of more Western air forces than any other jet. Just 31 months after its first flight, the F-4 was the U.S. Navy’s fastest, highest flying and longest range fighter. It first flew May 27, 1958, and entered service in 1961.

The aircraft was named Phantom II on July 3, 1959, during a ceremony held at the McDonnell plant in St. Louis, Mo., to celebrate the company’s 20th anniversary. It remained in production until the company’s 40th anniversary. By then, the numeral “II” had been discontinued; it had become the only Phantom.

The F-4 established 16 speed, altitude and time-to-climb records. In 1959, its prototype set the world altitude record at 98,556 feet (30,000 meters). In 1961, an F-4 set the world speed record at 1,604 mph (2581 kph) on a 15-mile circuit. By the end of production in 1985, McDonnell had built 5,068 Phantom IIs, and Mitsubishi, in Japan, had built 127.

Modifications incorporated improvements to weapons, avionics, radar and engines. The RF versions were equipped with cameras and surveillance gear for aerial reconnaissance. Armament ranged from cannons to missiles.

F-4s saw combat in both the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm and served with the air forces of 11 countries in addition to the United States. Both U.S. military flight demonstration teams, the Navy Blue Angels and the Air Force Thunderbirds, flew the Phantom II from 1969 to 1973.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

Video credit: F4Flys F4Flys@gmail.com