USAFA's F-4D Phantom II

HERITAGE MINUTE

The grassy center of the Academy Cadet Area’s Terrazzo open space features a static display aircraft on each of its four corners. ----more---- The most historically significant is the McDonnell-Douglas F-4D Phantom II located on the southeast corner near Mitchell Hall and the Air Garden. It is the only aircraft since the Korean War to be credited with six MiG kills, all of which took place in 1972. Not only that, but two Air Force Academy Class of 1964 graduates recorded half of those kills. Captain Steve Ritchie, the Academy’s first graduate pilot ace and the Air Force’s only pilot ace of the Vietnam War, recorded his first and fifth kills in this plane. His classmate, Fred Olmsted, also had a kill in it. The Academy took possession of the aircraft on December 2, 1986. Five months later, on May 8, 1987, a dedication ceremony took place during the Noon Meal Formation. Both Steve Ritchie and Fred Olmsted attended the event, as did another pilot with a kill in the aircraft, Ivy McCoy Jr. Incidentally, this F-4 replaced another Phantom on the Terrazzo. On May 29, 1970, an F-4 was unveiled for display. That aircraft was a gift from the Utah Air Force Association and was constructed of pieces of several aircraft at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

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