Tremendous uncommon footage of the soon-to-be-retired ROKAF F-4E Phantom jets flying at Suwon Air Base.
Suwon Air Base, in South Korea, is without doubt one of the final airfields all around the globe the place you may get an opportunity to observe some F-4 Phantom combat aircraft nonetheless flying. Situated about 20 miles to the south of Seoul, Suwon is the homebase of the tenth Fighter Wing, the dad or mum unit to 2 squadrons geared up with the KF-5E/KF-5F/F-5F (the a hundred and first and 201st Fighter Squadrons) and the 153rd Fighter Squadron, flying the F-4E Phantom.
Solely 13 F-4Es and about 20 F-5s are believed to be nonetheless in service at Suwon AB and our pal Misael Ocasio Hernandez went there to shoot some footage of the Phantoms and Tigers flying their day by day sorties there. In keeping with Misael, throughout the three days he spent close to the airfield, (Feb. 27 – 28 and Mar. 2, 2023) the F-4Es had been fairly busy, flying twice every day. Every mission included 4 to 6 Phantoms.
Phantom operations at Suwon had been halted for about three months final yr, after an F-4E of the 153rd FS crashed into the Yellow Sea throughout a mission on Aug. 12, 2022. Each crew members managed to eject from the plane after experiencing an engine fireplace. The ROKAF Phantom ought to be retired from energetic service later this yr, after a 46-year profession: the primary of 94 Phantoms had been inducted into energetic service in 1977. The service additionally operated the F-4D and RF-4C which have already been retired, respectively in 2010 and 2014. Each the F-4E and the F-5 fleets shall be changed with F-35A Lightning II, FA-50 Golden Eagle and KF-21 Boramae fight plane.
David Cenciotti is a journalist based mostly in Rome, Italy. He’s the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of many world’s most well-known and skim army aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for main worldwide magazines, together with Air Forces Month-to-month, Fight Plane, and lots of others, protecting aviation, protection, conflict, business, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown a number of fight planes with completely different air forces. He’s a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Power, a personal pilot and a graduate in Laptop Engineering. He has written 5 books and contributed to many extra ones.
