A Phantom of a Different Sort

Last week I took a picture of my Navy Phantom. 

This week I took a picture of my Phantom in Air Force Regalia.  I think this particular Phantom is modeled after the one Robin Olds flew when he he became a triple ace (12 Kills in WWII and 4 in Vietnam).  Basically, he disguised his flight of F-4's as a flight of F-105's in order to draw MiGs up.  The ruse worked.

Later Olds would go on to become Commandant of Cadets at the Air Force Academy in order to restore morale after a cheating scandal and then Director of Aerospace Safety for the Air Force.  During his tenure at Aerospace Safety, he oversaw many safety directives.

He wanted to form an Air Force version of the Top Gun school but was turned down.  He felt that the Air Force was losing its edge in air to air combat and he wanted to improve that situation.  One of the factors that led to losing that edge was the fact that many of the fighters of the 60's were not equipped with a gun (even in the missile age, a gun is helpful).  This was sort of corrected with the addition of gun pods but those weren't quite as effective as integrated guns.  One of the results of all this was the addition of the gun to the F-15 Eagle.