50 years of the Phantom - Photo Day at Wittmund

Nobody could imagine that this heavy and powerful aircraft that took off on May 27th in 1958 from the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation Company’s airport atSt. Louis would still be in service half a century later. 

The last Fighter Wing to operate the F-4 is now the JG71 „Richthofen” at Wittmund in northern Germany and it was the Wittmund wing that celebrated both anniversaries with outstanding photo opportunities for more than 450 aviation enthusiasts during the photo day on 30^th of July with „phantastic” weather conditions and a mixture of highly interesting aircraft that were presented in a static display like the A-4 Skyhawk target tug of Flight Systems, the F-4F and the preserved F-104, F-86 and Bf 109. The exhibition was nearly perfect to take photos of the aircraft in contrast to the Phly-Out at Neuburg some weeks before where the photographers were standing in an area on the northern part of the base and had to face the sun. 
The stars of this enthusiast day were without a doubt the three special painted F-4s. The first one was the F-4 from JG74 that was transferred to the JG71 in early July. The second one came from Manching where the German Evaluation and Trial unit WTD61 is based. This unit operates three F-4 and one of them, the 37+16 was painted in 2007 to celebrate 50 years of (aerial trials) on 15.09.2007 at Manching. The third Phantom was the local one from Wittmund that was painted in dark blue scheme with a rhino consisting of phantom letters on every side of the fuselage, the 50 years on the right side of the tail and 35 years on the left side. The painting was done with original paint from the German plastic model manufacturer Revell, that will release this Phantom in scale 1:32 in autumn 2008.

Thanks a lot JG71!!

Photos by Jens Schymura and Holger Stueben – www.hat-home.de