Reversed our route and still had a headwind! Flight home was ~13 hours as I recall…
Ever heard of the technique where you sit on your g-suit and hit the “G” button once in a while to stretch your cheeks? It works.
I was in the lead aircraft of our 4 ship home and glad the autopilot worked. Remember that the F-4 autopilot was not supposed to be used to fly formation….ya right.
Our 4 jets worked almost perfectly the whole time. Had an INS dump once on me at night (that’s another story). But otherwise, the whole deployment was a blast and the jets were Code 1.
On the other hand, the 4 F-4D’s from the our sister squadron (23rd TFS) had issues from the git go. One jet flamed out on landing (they tried to make it that first day without enough fuel when we diverted). That jet left the runway and went into a ditch, and sat there for 6 months. I think it was eventually class 26’d. They sent some folks to fix it later, but gave up as it was too damaged. Another aircraft jettisoned his fuel tanks in some town trying to make it. He did, but with no tanks for the exercise. So they were down 2 of 4 jets from the git go.
BTW: One day, the exercise took us to Pakistan and back to be air defense targets. As we approached a large city, were were jumped by a MiG-19. I don’t have pictures of that flight. But we did try to turn with him and all I could think was: “It looks just like the pictures; and damn, that thing can turn!”