F-4J (UK) Phantom ZE360 Heads for the Manston Fire Pits

(Image: Britmodeller; forlorn Phantom F-4J (UK) ZE360 at Manston)

Gutted of useful parts and parked within the confines of the Fire Service Central Training Establishment at the former RAF Manston (now Kent International Airport), F-4 Phantom ZE360 has clearly seen better days, despite managing to avoid complete destruction. But unfortunately, the fire pits now appear to beckon.

(Image: Britmodeller)

The ex-74 Squadron aircraft, which began life with the US Navy in the 1960s, is the last remaining F-4J (UK) model Phantom still wearing RAF colours. One other example survives at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, which flew 88 combat hours during the Vietnam War and has since been restored in its early American markings.

(Image: Britmodeller)

That makes Phantom ZE360, numbered 155574 during its US Navy service, a rarer breed than most. The aircraft was one of a number of F-4Js procured by the UK MoD to fill a gap in the nation’s air defenses at the end of the Falklands War, which saw a squadron of Phantom FGR.2 interceptors dispatched to the South Atlantic.

(Image: Britmodeller; canopies long gone)

ZE360, which had been in long-term storage at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona until entering RAF service in 1984, was one of 15 second-hand F-4J variants purchased from the US government to meet that demand.

(Images: Britmodeller; stripped out cockpits with a few switches still fitted)

After the Phantom’s last flight in 1991, it was retired to the Manston firefighting school and left out in the cold amid the harsh sea air of coastal Kent. Heavily corroded and thoroughly stripped, despite a handful of switches surviving in its tandem cockpits, the aircraft had at least been parked outside the Manston Fire Museum, while a less fortunate Phantom FGR.2, serial numberXV411, had borne the brunt of the student firefighters’ attention and was steadily torched in the process.

(Images: Britmodeller; heaving corroded undercarriage)

Photographs suggested that the end was near for XV411, and the closure of the museum last year may have provided the catalyst. After years standing fallow, ZE360 was finally wheeled into the fire pits, where it now awaits its fate.

(Image: Bing; Phantom F-4J (UK) ZE360 with Buccaneer & Jaguar)

(Image: Simon Moores; burnt-out hulk of Phantom XV411)

Though Bing Maps shows the aircraft sitting alongside a Blackburn Buccaneer and Sepecat Jaguar on the museum’s ‘flight line’, a more recent satellite image via Google reveals the mortal remains of XV411 relocated to an adjacent field, presumably for scrapping, while the F-4J (UK) takes its position on the dump.

(Image; Google; mortal remains of Phantom XV411 after removal from the fire pits)

Other differences between the satellite offerings include the removal of a Canberra bomber (which may account for the pile of scrap opposite the hulk of XV411), the addition of a Nimrod (XV229) and several Tornado F3s. One Tornado is curiously positioned beneath a tree some distance from the main fire school inmates.

(Images: Google; top: Tornado and Nimrod; bottom: Phantom ZE360 and Jaguar XX116)

Only the Buccaneer remains where it stood previously. Both Google and Bing Maps reveal the charred carcasses of several early model Harrier jump jets, while the Google image shows the Jaguar (s/n XX116) has joined ZE360 in the burning zone.

(Image: Google Earth; why is this Panavia Tornado parked under a tree?)

Last year an unfortunate Tornado GR4, which had suffered a bird strike and made an emergency landing at Manston, joined the retired aircraft on base. Because the jet, serial number ZA398, was a high-hours airframe soon to be withdrawn from service, the decision was made not to repair it.

(Image: Colin Cooke; abandoned Tornado GR4 ZA398, ‘Shiny Two’)

Its fate all but sealed, Tornado ZA398 with its specially painted tail to commemorate 100 years since the founding of No. 2 Squadron RAF, known as Shiny Two, sits on the edge of the airfield at Manston, surely not far from its fire school debut.