SPOTTER MAGAZINE
Black Mike
Moving Home
Possibly the best preserved of the few surviving British Phantoms , Phantom FG . 1 XV582 , affectionately known as ‘ Black Mike ’ has now been saved for posterity , thanks to a dedicated group based at Bruntingthorpe Airfield . Philip Moore reports on the current situation .
It all started from a page on Facebook set up in December 2008 by Phantom fans , just for fun , mainly to encourage other Phantom-minded people to post images of the aircraft in British military service . This page grew very rapidly and attracted the attention of people who have worked on the Phantom when it was still operational , including ground crew and aircrew .
Fast forward to 2013 , and with the page attracting just under 2000 members , the group grew more ambitious , and the administrators decided it was time to make the big step forward . The group would no longer just talk about the Phantom , it should actually own one , to be preserved and enjoyed by future generations . The Group would be known as the ' British F-4 Phantom Aviation Group ', or BPAG for short .
The choice of Phantoms available to the group was unfortunately very small due to the mass scrapping the Phantom fleet had endured post 1992 , due to regulations imposed by the USA . From the limited available stock , the majority were obscenely priced and would probably need a lot of work in order to bring up to decent condition .
This left the group with the last remaining examples that would come up for disposal with the Ministry of Defence . Of these , only XV582 ' Black Mike ', located at the former base of RAF Leuchars would be of interest as this was the only airframe that came complete and had been stored under cover for most of its life . Most importantly , this aircraft still had her mighty Rolls Royce Spey 202 ' s installed , a crucial component should the group consider restoring the aircraft to be capable of consider static ground runs in the future . Thus , this was the airframe to aim for .