(Image: Graham F Sparkes, reproduced with permission)
It may not be much to look at, but this battered cockpit section of an F-4 Phantom interceptor once belonged to a machine that sported an unusual paint scheme while in US Navy service. The F-4J aircraft, serial number ZE352 during its latter days with the RAF, had once been designated 153783 on the force of VX-4, Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four at Naval Air Station Point Magu in California.
Known as Black Bunny due to its paint scheme and the Playboy rabbit that appeared on its tail fin during that time, the Phantom was one of several F-4 variants operated by ‘The Evaluators’ from the 1960s until the F-14 took over in the early ’70s. During that period Phantom 153783 helped prove technologies and tactics later employed by operational units.
(Image: US Navy, public domain)
Above, 153783 leads of four ship flight of Phantoms comprised of two F-4Js, one F-4B in traditional USN markings and a QF-4B to the rear.
After the Falklands War in 1982, a squadron of British Phantom FGR.2s was deployed to the South Atlantic islands to guard against further Argentine aggression, which left a gap in the UK’s air defence. As a result, the RAF bought 15 low hours, second-hand Phantoms from the US Navy, which had been extensively refurbished and stored at Davis-Monthan AFB’s famous AMARG ‘boneyard’.
(Image: US Navy, public domain)
Among the 15 airframes was 153783 which gained the RAF serial number ZE352 (above). Known as the F-4J(UK) in UK service, this variant was chosen due to its compatibility with the RAF’s F-4K and F-4M jets (UK designation FG.1 and FGR.2). Operated by 74 Squadron at RAF Wattisham, the ex-US Navy Phantoms were finally withdrawn from service in January 1991.
Today, only two complete examples of the F-4J(UK) survive. One is resplendent in US markings in the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. The other is in a rather different condition, and somewhat endangered, at the Defence Fire Training School at Manston in Kent.
(Image: US Navy, public domain)
Phantom ZE352 was scrapped along with the majority of British F-4s in the early 1990s, but the cockpit survived and is now in private storage at the former RAF Hooton Park on the Wirral Peninsula in northwest England. The photograph (top) was taken in 2001, so hopefully the remains of 153783 have been smartened up since that time, perhaps in Black Bunny attire!
The post Cockpit of F-4J(UK) ZE352: Remains of Former US Navy ‘Evaluators’ Phantom ‘Black Bunny’ appeared first on Urban Ghosts.