Six-Sparrow Phantom loadout

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Madurai

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I know such a thing was possible (I've seen exactly one photograph, in Gunston's Rockets and Missiles), but was it ever actually done operationally? Did the F-4 have trap restrictions on bringing missiles back on the inboard pylons?
 
Madurai said:
I know such a thing was possible (I've seen exactly one photograph, in Gunston's Rockets and Missiles), but was it ever actually done operationally? Did the F-4 have trap restrictions on bringing missiles back on the inboard pylons?
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Just noticed you post, I know it is a bit old but I will answer from my own experience. The answer as far as the Air Force goes is no. I never saw an F-4 loaded with 6 AIM-7s except in pictures of tests being done. First of all the AIM-7 wasn't that good of a missile in the early years. During Vietnam the pilots tended to ripple off two at a time hoping one of them would track and reach the target. Plus rules of engagement required visual confirmation of the target which brought it well within the AIM-9 effective range, which was a somewhat more reliable missile. Of course the Air Force in its pig-headed wisdom tried to ignore the AIM-9 (being a Navy missile) and use the AIM-4 Falcon instead (this being an Air Force missile). The Falcon was absolutely useless in air-to-air combat as it didn't have a proximity fuse. It required the missile to hit the target to explode (its fusing was in the fins). This was fine against large, slow targets like bombers, but against nimble jet fighters it was rather useless. So the Air Force swallowed its pride adopted the AIM-9 as its dog fight missile. So really there never was a cause to carry 6 AIM-7s. And by the time the AIM-7 was improved to be a much more reliable missile, the F-4 was filling more of an strike fighter role than a air defense role.
I doubt there were restrictions about landing on a carrier with missiles on the inboard pylons because they did it all the time with AIM-9s. I don't know however if the F-4 could carry 6 AIM-7s and 4 AIM-9s at the same time. That may have been a limiting factor.
 
Thanks for that datum, ksimmelink. If it was ever attempted, I'm sure it would have been more likely a Navy gambit than an Air Force one, since the USAF had other interceptors.
 

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