All -
As regards the F-4’s MLG tires ability to interface with the runway surface…..
The USAF/ Air National Guard / USAF reserve F-4s were outfitted with an “ anti-skid “ system. There was a skid sensor located within the MLG axels, and a 2 wire harness that routed the skid signal to the “ Anti-Skid “ control box.
Crew Chiefs would pressure wash their aircraft, giving little or no concern to the potential of water encroachment into the anti skid “ harnesses “ , especially water driven under pressure into the rubberized materiel inside the “ Canon plug “ back shell of the connector to the anti- skid sensors.
As a result….anti-skid fault lights were frequently encountered, especially before flight.
Having the anti-skid fault light constantly illuminated resulted in the aircraft being grounded; preventing flight. There were way too frequent occupancies of these lights, and something had to be done….
Aircraft Electricians were tasked with all Anti-skid system troubleshooting, and usually also had to provide an enduring “ fix “ for all discrepancies. We found out that the crew chiefs did use wheel covers when power washing their aircraft, however…. these were old covers that had been used on the unit’s former fleet of F-100s. The covers did not fit well, were well worn; and did not cover all areas they needed to.
We pressed to have new wheel covers made by the Parachute Shop. These helped reduce water encroachment into the Anti-skid connector plugs, but fault lights were illumination events were still occurring at an excessive level. Aircraft availability rates were still being negatively impacted.
The Electric Shop on their own initiative, made up new anti-skid harness “ pigtails “, that featured epoxy putty cured in the outer end of the Canon plug “ back shells “.
These pigtails were long enough to replace the defective wiring harness on the jet, and ran from the center of the MLG axels, up the MLG struts, and were the spliced-in new up inside the wheel well Anti-skid wiring harness. THIS was at last, the enduring fix we were asking for !
As an aside, let’s remember…. “ F-4 Anti-skid did not apply the brakes….it interrupted the brake application signal to the Brake Control box / valve when a skid was detected. Thereafter, when the skid danger had been mitigated…. the anti-skid “ system “ allowed the brake application signal to return to the Brake Control system; for re-application of the desired braking.
With regards,
357Mag
