Article - Turkish Air Force - F-4E Phantom 2020 – June 2015

Turkish Air Force - F-4E Phantom 2020

Turkish Air Force - F-4E Phantom 2020

Anatolian Eagle, Konya Air Base, Turkey, held it's annual NATO exercise during the month of June 2015 and attending this event were 12 F-4E Phantom 2020s from 111 Filo 'Panterler' based at Eskisehir and 171 Filo 'Pirates' based at Malatya/Erhac Turkey. Many Turkish Air Force F-16 squadron's were also deployed along with aircraft from the USA, Pakistan and the UK, but for this AR article we only feature the F-4E Phantom II.

With the RF-4E being retired earlier in 2015 and the end in site for the F-4E 2020 it was great to the see the dozen Phantoms many times on the ground and in the air at the "Spotters Days" held by the Air Force at Konya. Lucky for everyone attending the commander of 111 Filo brought his specially painted aircraft, with shark teeth nose art and a wonderful 'Panterler' Panther tail art. The 111 Filo commander spoke with the photographers many times over the two days and did some great speeches on the Phantom, he was almost as colourful as his jet when he spoke.

There were so many great aircraft attending this event and many many locations to shoot from, it was hard not to include everything in the is report but these other aircraft mostly F-16s will be around for a few years to come yet, the F-4E Phantom 2020 will not. The F-4 Phantom is now only operated by a handful of countries around the world and is in twilight of it's career with all of them, so photo shoots with any F-4's is a must thing to do.

The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was built between 1958 to 1981, with a total number produced of 5195 aircraft over all variants. 

It was operated by 12 countries across the world, these were;
Australia
Egypt
Germany
Greece
Iran
Israel
Japan
South Korea
Spain
Turkey
United Kingdom
USA (USAF, USN & USMC)

Today the F-4 is only flown by the following countries;
Greece
Iran
Japan (to retire in 2019)
South Korea (to retire in 2019)
Turkey

Aviation Reporting would like to extend its sincere thanks to all the staff at Konya Air Base, The Turkish Air Force Attache London and the Turkish Public Affairs HQ, for making this such a wonderful event to attend.

Author Frank Cooper
Photography Frank Cooper & Mark Forest
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