A Double Ugly Phantom Becomes a Supersonic Transcontinental Ambulance!

Posted by BlacksheepF4U@reddit | WeirdWings | View on Reddit | 31 comments

I love this story... It's not about a weird plane but the strange role change of a famed and notorious fighter jet becoming a 911 responder...A Double Ugly Lead Sled Phantom II ended up saving the life of five-month-old Andrew De La Pena!

https://sierrahotel.net/blogs/news/double-ugly-medevac

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fatherdale@reddit

"the triumph of thrust over aerodynamics" made me laugh out loud. Thanks for the great story!

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Aberfrog@reddit

There is a similar story from Germany.

Basically some kid in italy needed some special medicine which was brand new from Munich. They called the head of the pharmaceutical company and the Bavarian premier and transported it down to Italy on a starfighter.

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existensile@reddit

When I was a kid in Alaska, someone in Fairbanks needed an antitoxin of some sort. The only doses were in Anchorage, and they put it on an F-4. The flight took 18 minutes.

If only Nome had been so lucky

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EorEquis@reddit

Not only one of my favorite Phantom stories, buuuuuuuuuut....

I have that poster in my home office! lol

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hussard_de_la_mort@reddit

Where did you get it?

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Specialist_OWO@reddit

https://warfaremedia.net/products/go-hunting-this-weekend-air-national-guard-recruitment-advert they sell reprints here

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TalkingFishh@reddit

I have some including this poster! The scan quality is a little low (of this one specifically, just the nature of this sorta thing), so I'd recommend one of the smaller sizes. The poster quality itself is really good though!

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EorEquis@reddit

Probably 15 years ago, an RC flying buddy was selling off a boatload of stuff. He'd been a prodigious collector of all sorts of things, among them a rather large storage building of aviation-related stuff.

So I scrounged up all sorts of knick knacks and cool airplaney bits, one of which being "here's a box of who knows what all posters and signs and stuff. 20 bucks" and that was in there. :)

Where HE got it? Absolutely no idea.

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pdxnormal@reddit

Great story and deed!

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pdxnormal@reddit

Great story and deed!

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Misophonic4000@reddit

Cool story but absolutely wrong sub for it?

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Kardinal@reddit

Who cares. It's a great story I am glad to have encountered and read.

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FletcherCommaIrwin@reddit

Well put.

It sounds to me like the old Phantom is needed again for a different type of heart problem:

"...It could be, perhaps his shoes were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all, may have been that his heart was two sizes too small...".

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thereal_ninjabill@reddit

Uh I’d say a fighter jet flying ambulance is pretty fackin weird bud

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Misophonic4000@reddit

Read the sub rules, "bud"? It's about pictures of weird/very unusual planes, not about stories of unusual uses for well-known planes

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thereal_ninjabill@reddit

It has wings and …also weird

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Misophonic4000@reddit

Love that I'm getting downvotes for stating the basic rules of this sub... "This sub is for documenting all those strange planes out there from prototype to production", "stories are nice and all, but we're here to look at planes, not read about them". Alright then.

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KerPop42@reddit

I mean, rule 1 is "strange in some form or another," and supersonic ambulance is definitely strange. Also, a major admission by this sub is that there's a limited number of weird planes. I don't think this erodes the purpose of the sub towards just posting cool planes or pretty wings

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SteveusChrist@reddit

Thanks for sharing, really cool seeing the work my dad did in action! (Built Phantoms after getting out of the service)

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EorEquis@reddit

Wonder if our dads ever crossed paths. Mine was an aero eng @ McDonnel (later McDonnel Douglas) and one of several with significant design input on the F4 program.

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SteveusChrist@reddit

Maybe? But I would doubt it, he was on the production line installing and testing radar and radio equipment.

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EorEquis@reddit

If he was on the production line in St Louis, then they almost certainly at least said "hi" a time or two. Back in those days, almost all the engineers (From Sandy on down) spent at least some time walking the lines and communicating with the folks there. 'Twas a different world back then. heh

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SteveusChrist@reddit

Oh in that case I'm sure they probably met then, small world.

And the culture of the industry (and the USAF) was a lot different; the training pipeline and promotion opportunities were a more open as well. He actually dropped out of high school and ran away from home to enlist and got trained on truly bleeding edge technologies. A bit part of his later career was maintaining SAGE stations - and man, there were tons of cross-training opportunities for career service members back then.

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https://www.inforum.com/newsmd/heart-flight-exhibit-celebrating-1986-transplant-lands-permanent-spot-at-fargo-air-museum

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BlacksheepF4U@reddit (OP)

911...what is your emergency?

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