For those of us of a certain age and resident in the UK there was a kids TV series about a fictional secondary school (kids aged 11-16 attend), called Grange Hill. I believe our secondary schools/high school age range equates to middle school and part of high school in the USA, but I digress. Mr. Bronson was the "bad, evil" teacher 😄 

Shoestring was a TV detective series, again fictional, about private investigator Eddie Shoestring.

It appears that both men were in the RAF  !!

Mr. Bronson (actor Michael Sheard) it seems was a Chief technician? and Eddie Shoestring (actor Trevor Eve) was the unfortunate F-4 pilot with the unlocked wings...

I'm sure there were some other actors in the safety film too (i.e. not RAF personnel) - familiar faces, but cannot recall the shows they were in or their names.

Actually for a safety training film, that one's pretty good, although the arming discipline portrayal is terrible, with loads of dodgy practices going on, not least the armed F4 coming back to the ramp with its weapons still hot, then being worked on with oxygen bottles no less (which are a fire hazard) without safety-pinning the weapons or safing the bang seats. I know they were inert practice bombs on the racks, but the seats are still armed, as are the cannons.

It'd be a poor walkaround by the pilot to not spot the wing lock indicator pegs, since they are pretty much at eye-level on a walkaround, as well as being painted red and you can see them from the cockpit, they are nowhere near as fragile as the wooden gear peg indicators on a Spitfire which were frequently knocked off operational aeroplanes after a couple of weeks of ops lol, so they're difficult to miss, especially for the backseater. Not to mention not giving the wingtips a bit of a shake on the walkaround to make sure they were not loose, although that would probably be more likely for a Navy pilot since that would normally be where the wing folding capability would be employed, but for moving parts on an aeroplane, it's normally not a bad idea to check them on a walkaround - for example, I normally give the nose gear doors on an airliner a bit of a rattle on a walkaround to make sure they are on securely since they could potentially be clanged by a towbar when that is fitted, which might just possibly loosen them.

Interestingly however, the F4 can actually fly with its wings folded and this has occurred once or twice, with a USN F4 on one occasion departing from a carrier (USS Roosevelt) only for its wingtips to fold up in flight; jettisoning its stores, the Phantom recovered on a normal runway at NAAS Leeward Point, Guantanamo Bay, albeit having to come in at about 180 knots. Here is a pic of another Phantom, this time a US Air Force one in flight with its wingtips folded:

 

I remember Grange Hill well. One of the actors looks like John (Nicholas Young) from the Tomorrow People. 

For anyone interested, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._41_Squadron_RAF 

 

Edited June 28, 20205 yr by Jude Bradley

I was flying at Coningsby when this was made - fortunately not on 41,

Happy days 

 

13 hours ago, Chock said:

Interestingly however, the F4 can actually fly with its wings folded and this has occurred once or twice..

Similar to the F-8 Crusader.. 

A question though: The US F-4s had a wing folding mechanism fitted - the tips would fold at the same time and not flap about. Did the UK Phatoms have that mechaism installed or was it taken out - tips could still be folded, but by hand. Presumably that would be more catastrophic as I would think the tips would just flap about in flight around the hinge?