A2A F4 phantom preview!!

[tigisfat]

By the time I went to sea on aircraft carriers (1982), Phantoms were gone from the fleet, except for the USS Midway (CV-41) and Coral Sea (CV-43). But, during fire fighting drills, we used old used up F4s for practice. During one of these practice flight deck fire fighting drills, one old timer said they used to pound potatoes from the galley into the fuel lines into the joint between the wing panels that was broken as a necessity of the folding wing system. Seems the potato made a perfect seal that kept the gas from dribbling down onto the flight deck. Can any of you old Navy Phantom gurus confirm this?

huh? Folding the wings used to break fuel lines? They'd shove potatoes into fuel lines?

 

[PRB]

Well, there was something in the "seam" between the wings, where the wing fold joint was. It leaked fuel. So they said. The solution was to pound a potato into it. I guess it absorbed the fuel. Not really sure. The Phantoms were only used to for fighting drills, and at this time there were no F-4 squadons on the ship. So who knows what the heck this guy was talking about? For some reason I never forgot that story.