Thursday, May 18, 1972
Credits Teamwork With F4 Successes
by Mort Rosenblum
DA NANG, Vietnam (AP) --Flying an F4 Phantom jet in the Vietnam war is "like driving a Cadillac to do a pickup truck job," says a man who flies one.Lt. Col. Walter E. Bjorneby, who commanded a fighter squadron in between logging 280 combat hours here, reflected on his job in an interview before leaving this week."The Phantoms ... have been flying far better than first expected. I'm particularly proud of the young pilots. We have some lieutenants here that are the best pilots in the world."He said the Phantom was, in some respects, too sophisticated for its role in the Vietnam war. Although 14 years old, it still is flown by the Air Force, Navy and Marines as their basic fighter-bomber.The supersonic two-man aircraft is less maneuverable than North Vietnam's MIG 21s, he said, but team discipline, good flying and tactics make it superior in a dogfight."There are certain areas where we can out-perform them," he said. "And one thing is the amount of flying time. The North Vietnamese haven't got the background."The toughest job for a Phantom pilot, Bjorneby said, is a strike in the North."You're keyed and ready to act all the time ... You may or may not get an electronic warning of enemy planes, but it is primarily as it was in World War I: Eyeball."Each man knows his job and does it. Flight discipline is the best defense ... Missiles have increased the engagement range. The speeds are greater but certainly within the limits you can cope with."Bjorneby, 42, with 21 years in the Air Force, has been reassigned to a diplomatic office job in Berlin after a year in Vietnam. He does not appear happy at giving up combat missions."I haven't thought much about going down over the North on my last few missions," he said. "It's like going to the well -if you think about it too much, you drop the bucket."On a recent mission I went in so low I didn't want to miss. Then I came back and shook my head and said, "Why in the world did I do that"?"His 150 missions have brought some close calls. Once he almost hit the ground at night, clearing it on a roll by only 500 yards -three-quarters of a second.Bjorneby is headed for Cocoa Beach, Fla., to join his wife and two daughters for a month's vacation. He doesn't plan to give up flying, an ardent past time and occupation since he was a youth in Ketchikan, Alaska."Now I'd like to do some gliding," he said. "The only gliding I've done so far had been in Air Force planes with the engines off and I didn't enjoy it much at the time.""Credits Teamwork With F4 Successes", by Mort Rosenblum, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Thursday, May 18, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.