In this short U.S. Air Force Aerospace Defense Command News Digest, No. 94 “Fours For Defense,” viewers see how the 57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (the “Black Knights”) based in Keflavik, Iceland. The year 1975 saw the Black Knights convert from using Convair F-102 Delta Daggers to McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs for running scramble sorties when Soviet aircraft enter the NATO airspace. The digest opens with a shot of two Air Force men playing pool. A siren sounds and they quickly put on their flight suits. Two Delta Daggers taxi to the runway and take off (00:55). A man draws coordinates and trajectories on a glass board. The two planes approach a Soviet Tupolev Tu-95 long-range bomber (01:48). Lt. Col. Thompson, commander of the squadron, speaks to the camera about using F-4s during scramble sorties and the reason for the switch from the F-102s (02:24). The digest shows men working on the new F-4s in hangers and loading munitions on one of the planes. An F-4 taxis on a runway. A pilot fishes near Reykjavik (04:00). Footage shows a city street in Reykjavik and a scenic waterfall out in the wilderness. An F-4 taxis on a runway at the base (04:54). Pilots put on their flight suits to run another scramble (05:20). They climb into the cockpits of the F-4s and move out onto the runway. Two of the fighter jets take off, and then they are shown flying over Iceland (or possibly Greenland), concluding the short video report.
The 57th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, also known as “The Black Knights of Keflavik”, is an inactive United States Air Force unit. The 57 FIS was last stationed at Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland. It was inactivated on 1 March 1995. In 1962 ADC replaced the squadron’s F-89s with newer Convair F-102 Delta Dagger supersonic interceptors, the F-89s generally being worn-out after nearly a decade of continual interceptions. Challenges by the 57th FIS to Soviet aircraft on flights over the North Atlantic and along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States to bases in Cuba continued throughout the 1960s. The first McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II aircraft was assigned to the squadron on 16 April 1973, as TAC was replacing its F-4C’s with F-4E models at the end of the Vietnam War. By 30 June, the squadron. had six F-4Cs and additional F-4s were received in the third quarter of 1974. The last of the F-102s were replaced in early 1975 when additional F-4Cs were received from TAC squadrons at Luke AFB and George AFB; the last F-4C arriving in March 1976.
The Convair F-102 Delta Dagger was an American interceptor aircraft that was built as part of the backbone of the United States Air Force’s air defenses in the late 1950s. Entering service in 1956, its main purpose was to intercept invading Soviet strategic bomber fleets (primarily the Tupolev Tu-95) during the Cold War. Designed and manufactured by Convair, 1,000 F-102s were built.
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonnell Aircraft. It first entered service in 1960 with the U.S. Navy. Proving highly adaptable, it was also adopted by the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force, and by the mid-1960s had become a major part of their air arms.
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