A Fully Loaded with Bombs US Air Force F-4 Phantom Fighter Rolled Upside Down Underneath a Tanker at Night in a Thunderstorm To Get Separation

A Fully Loaded with Bombs US Air Force F-4 Phantom Fighter Rolled Upside Down Underneath a Tanker at Night in a Thunderstorm To Get Separation

The mission was supposed to launch in daylight. Water was over Graves' ankles on the ramp at Ubon, so Killer flight went at 11pm instead, into a line of storms that ran hundreds of miles. Three tankers and a crowd of fighters were packed into one small patch of sky. When visibility vanished under Cherry, both his wingmen broke the wrong way, and Graves had nowhere to go but down and over.