Around the Web - Chico The Gunfighter

While researching some history related to the Gunfighter callsign (some of which might show up here eventually), my favorite search engine served up this fascinating story.

Chico The Gunfighter

Chico The Gunfighter by Wade Meyers

 The F-4E was the first Phantom variant to carry an internal 20mm cannon. The mental picture of a Phantom rolling out and laying into a target with Three! 20mm cannons like a jet-age successor to the P-47 flips my cool meter all the way to 11.

It doesn’t hurt that while I missed the golden age of the F-4 in U.S. military service, there were still plenty of them flying around during my impressionable youth.

I remember seeing a few flights of F-4G Wild Weasels flying out of (now long-closed) March Air Force Base back in the early ‘90s, and while I definitely love watching teen series fighters in flight, to say nothing of the pure witchcraft that is the F-22 Raptor flight demo, the Rhino will always be my definition of “Bad-ass American Jet Fighter.”

I had this poster on my bedroom wall. Try to convince me that F-15s, F-16s,
F-22s, or F-35s would look better.