Hanging the Gear Door | F-4 Phantom

Back at it this weekend, and though it was a bit slow, we did clen up the hangar, come up with a plan for lock wiring that one fitting, and getting the right main gear door mounted.
For those of you that are on Instagram, check out Jack's page, as he regularly posts stuff from the hangar. His page is at:
/ jones.aviation
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[@JosephDonovan-zi5kc]

Oh this brings back memories of gear changes and gear swings.

[@JosephDonovan-zi5kc]

I worked A/R shop for 6 years on F-4 and F-105

[@stevea9604]

Ya’ll left unsupervised…and it’s quite…crew Chief Al might not like that 😂🤪🤣

[@charlesc7723]

Take the valve cap off and check that as well. Looks like a new tire, so if it’s not that it’s leaking around the rim. Might also try airing it all the way up and put weight on wheels, see if anything pops up. Slow leaks can be hard.

[@ralphreid7972]

Lots of memories came back while looking at this video.

[@47colton]

Same here..rigging gear doors, changing tires, safety wiring the outer brake plate.

[@bobroyes589]

You might want to take the yellow cap off the valve and leak check the valve core, just to be sure. I remember humping a main mount from the hanger deck to the flight deck to swop out a tire, we could not a deck edge elevator ride.

[@DieselThunderAviation]

Good idea, could be leaking past the stem. 👍

[@stevehelms3192]

Tire probably lost pressure due to temperature change. Don’t know about Houston but here in East Texas we have had much lower overnight temperatures lately.

[@DieselThunderAviation]

Temperature hasn't changed that much recently, and that would affect all 4 tires if that were the root cause. We serviced all tires the last time we had the nitrogen cart out. Nose wheels and the left main are still holding good pressure. The right main lost about half its pressure.

[@stevehelms3192]

@@DieselThunderAviation Half is a lot to lose. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen 1 tire out of 6 affected by temperature change, it just happens. 10 years crewing in the AF and another 27 years at AA I’ve seen plenty that defies explanation.

[@DieselThunderAviation]

Yeah, it's a lot more than the other 3. We usually keep the mains at 250 PSI, and that right side was around 125. We are transitioning into fall here, though still quite warm outside. It's been maybe a 5-10° shift in temperature here. What would you guys normally do for a tire that did this?

[@stevehelms3192]

@@DieselThunderAviation if we found no obvious leak or damage we would air the tire back up and monitor it. Our pressures were (if I remember right) 265 +- 5psi. If it leaked down again R&R. You probably don’t have that option so I guess it’s off to a tire shop.

[@DieselThunderAviation]

Yep, some things we will not do ourselves as none of us have that specialty training or the equipment for it. Sounds like your process is similar to ours. We're going to air this one back up and see what happens. We're already planning to take it off and swap it for another.

[@robertschuler279]

It might be my imagination but it looked like the "B" nut on the right side of the canopy act was not tight. There were more threads showing on the Rt side than the left.

[@flyboy126]

Hey Bob it's Will. I see what you are seeinbg there, but I think it's just the way the light is hitting the camera. The blue fitting has more shadow up top and it's hard to see the threads. I'll be back out there tomorrow and triple check, but that has had at least 1 QC pass already. We still have some more to do in there, so it'll probably get QC'd a few more times before the seats go back in. Thanks for the keen eyes my boss!!

[@robertschuler279]

@@flyboy126 OK. Are you going to be at WOH?

[@flyboy126]

@@robertschuler279 yes sir I will. Are you gonna be out?

[@robertschuler279]

@@flyboy126 Yes, I'm planning on Sat. I haven't seen my buddy buzz in a couple of years. Paying to get into an aie show really sucks.