Author Topic: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration  (Read 171544 times)

Offline dy031101

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #325 on: July 07, 2018, 07:18:56 AM »
F-4B as featured in the backstory of Japanese anime "Battle Fairy Yukikaze".  The premise is that, after beating back an alien invasion of Earth, an United Nations counter-attack pushed the enemy back to the other side of the alien venue of attack, a planet named "Faery" by the Humans, and used re-activated military surplus (MiG-21, F-4, F-106, etc.) to build up their fleets.

Strange choice- the FAF (Faery/Fairy Air Force) does eventually operate aerial aircraft carriers, but (I think) not during the timeframe where they were still flying their first gen. aircraft.  Wouldn't the F-4E have been more easily-available?
« Last Edit: July 07, 2018, 11:33:12 AM by dy031101 »
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Offline Volkodav

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #326 on: December 01, 2018, 11:57:02 PM »
My understanding is that the origins of the F-4K RR Spey powered Phantom, apart from political requirements to use UK systems, was so they could be operated from the UKs smaller carriers, specifically Victorious and Hermes, through until their planed retirements in the 1970s. 

Does anyone know if this was actually viable?  I recall reading somewhere that it wasn't but could Hermes have been upgraded successfully operate F-4K?

Offline dy031101

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #327 on: December 11, 2018, 06:53:37 AM »
Nothing exciting here
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Offline Kerick

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #328 on: December 11, 2018, 09:50:49 AM »
How about LEX leading edge extensions? You would have to shorten the leading edge slats.

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #329 on: December 12, 2018, 02:11:23 AM »
Nothing exciting here


Interesting.  Maybe do one in similar scheme to their F-104s:

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Offline Volkodav

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #330 on: December 12, 2018, 08:42:06 PM »
Anyone know if the F-4K could have operated from Hermes or Victorious?

Offline tankmodeler

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #331 on: December 12, 2018, 11:29:24 PM »
Anyone know if the F-4K could have operated from Hermes or Victorious?
Parsing the Wiki articles on the F-4K, Hermes, Ark Royal and Victorious, it appears that the Hermes was too small and her cats and arresting gear too low-powered to operate F-4Ks effectively. It might have been strictly possible, but the low-powered gear meant taking off with severely reduced fuel loads which greatly affected (halved) operational range.

It states that Victorious was the smallest of the carriers believed to be capable of operating the F-4Ks properly.

Now, if you posit a refit on Hermes with better cats and wires, then maybe, but she was quite a bit shorter than the Ark and even if the aircraft could be handled by the machinery, the deck and hanger space would have been severely curtailed limiting the numbers of aircraft carried significantly.

Victorious was 50 feet longer than Hermes and only 20 odd feet shorter than the Ark. Notwithstanding, her air wing was significantly smaller than the Ark with Victorious being about 80% of the displacement of the Ark and her air wing suffering accordingly. sea Vixens and Phantoms take up about the same amount of hanger space with the Vixen maybe being a bit bulkier due tot the twin boom arrangement, so the air wing on Victorious would likely have been the same as that with Vixens, so 7 Buccs, 10 Phantoms, 5 Gannets and 8 helos.

HTH

Paul

Offline Volkodav

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #332 on: December 14, 2018, 03:21:51 PM »
Thanks Paul, good analysis.

My suspicion was that the F-4K was always intended as a one for one replacement for the Sea Vixen on all in service RN carriers, bar Centaur, from the mid 60s with or without the introduction of the CVA-01 design and that the reason it didn't happen were political. 

The official line was that the Phantom was too large for any RN carrier but Ark most modernisation and that the original plans were unrealistic.  The fact Eagle cross decked USN Phantoms disproves this, as does the RAN enquiries into operating F-4Js from an Essex (or possibly even a modernised Centaur) and I wondered then if the claims that the F-4K was incapable of doing precisely what it was designed to do (i.e. the extra thrust, extended nose wheel etc.) were nothing more than disinformation to justify a political / financial decision to run down the carrier fleet. 

I imagine the last thing politicians wanted was for a future government to be able to easily reverse their decision on a carrier replacement in a decade or so because Phantoms were successfully operating from modernised Eagle, Ark, Victorious and Hermes.  The UK does seem to employ a scorched earth process upon cancelling defence projects, where the US has large reserve fleets and aircraft bone yards etc. since the 50s the UK has pretty much sold, destroyed or made unusable any platform to ensure it can not be brought back into service following the decision to retire / cancel has been made.

This makes for an interesting wiff, potentially not only could Victorious and Hermes been upgraded to operate Phantom, but so could Centaur.  Ark and Eagle could have been strike carriers with Bucaneers as well as Phantoms while the smaller ships could have been CVS with upgraded Gannets serving along side Phantoms into the 80s.  All of this could possibly have been at a lower overall cost than the acquisition of the Invincibles, conversion of the Tigers, purchase of additional Sea Kings, and increasing the number of Seadart armed air defence ships.  A very different RN could have began intoducing a class of smaller (than Ark/ Eagle, larger than Hermes) CTOL carrier in the 80s, designed specifically to operate Phantom and then convert to a navalised Tornado (or F/A-18 for the cynical) and maybe even a Gannet replacement.  Air defence ships would have been fewer in number but more capable, i.e. additional improved Bristols and the Type 43 and with the air umbrela and strike capability provided by the carriers the Type 23 Frigates could have been smaller, cheaper and less sophisticated.

Offline tankmodeler

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #333 on: December 15, 2018, 12:27:32 AM »
Looking at the various mid-60s Brit carriers, I think that operating the F-4Ks off them really wasn't going to work on the Centaur or Hermes, Centaur is shorter and smaller than even Hermes and, while physically possible, it makes no sense to operate them at 1/2 fuel capacity. No, I would agree with the Brit Navy/govt on this and say that the Ark, Eagle and Victorious would have been the only truly capable Phantom platforms by 1969. Centaur and Hermes are just too small.

Paul

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #334 on: December 15, 2018, 05:47:09 AM »
I wonder about a hybrid Phantom using the standard J79s but with the extended extended nosewheel oleo of the FG.1?  Maybe based upon the F-4J.  This might provide a basis for variants to be used on the smaller USN carriers.
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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #335 on: December 15, 2018, 05:48:29 AM »
BTW, time for just an inspiring photo:

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Offline Volkodav

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #336 on: December 15, 2018, 08:42:15 PM »
The blast on the deck is exactly why the extended nose gear would not have been a good idea in the Essex class, even the rebuilds, with their wooden decks.

Offline tankmodeler

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #337 on: December 18, 2018, 01:14:22 AM »
I wonder about a hybrid Phantom using the standard J79s but with the extended extended nosewheel oleo of the FG.1?  Maybe based upon the F-4J.  This might provide a basis for variants to be used on the smaller USN carriers.
The J-79 versions would have had over 4000 lb less thrust at take-off. Not what I'd want for a smaller ship with less powerful catapults. And, for operating these planes, it was the cat capacity that determined what aircraft could be used. The higher capacity cats required too much steam and would have been very difficult to back-fit to older carriers. This was, I'm pretty sure, the reason that the USN never operated Phantoms off the Essexes. The stated reason was "too heavy" and this is very likely due to the catapult issues more than, say, deck strength as they did operate A-3s, which were, technically heavier, but needed less speed at lift off than the F-4s. The energy required is proportional to the square of the speed attained but only directly proportional to any additional mass, so an extra 30-40 kts lift-off speed was a heck of a lot more energy required from the catapults even if that faster aircraft was a little less all-up weight than the slower plane.

Paul

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #338 on: December 18, 2018, 01:25:58 AM »
My suggestion was not one based upon technical practicality but rather whiffery.  A basic kit/pixel bash to confuse people. ;)

Potential back story being that this was trialed/developed to allow F-4s to operate off smaller carriers but whilst allowing USN to keep commonality of engines.
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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #339 on: December 18, 2018, 01:31:52 AM »
BTW, if one reads the official RAN report looking into the possibility of acquiring an Essex class in the early-mid 1960s, one sees that it also recommended requiring with 28 F-4B Phantoms.
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Offline Volkodav

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #340 on: December 18, 2018, 07:30:43 AM »
BTW, if one reads the official RAN report looking into the possibility of acquiring an Essex class in the early-mid 1960s, one sees that it also recommended requiring with 28 F-4B Phantoms.

Yes, AGRA dug that report out several years ago, its a great read.  The Phantom was apparently intended operate from smaller carriers fitted with appropriate cats and traps, I suppose the issue was the number of aircraft that could be accommodated on said smaller carriers.  I imagine the extended nose gear and higher thrust Speys helped with shorter cats on the steel decked British ships but would have been an issue on the wooden decked Essex.  No problem, the Essex is longer and has more powerful machinery than most British ships so can have longer more powerful cats, therefore doesn't need the higher angle of attack on launch.

Offline tankmodeler

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #341 on: December 18, 2018, 11:47:52 PM »
BTW, if one reads the official RAN report looking into the possibility of acquiring an Essex class in the early-mid 1960s, one sees that it also recommended requiring with 28 F-4B Phantoms.

Yes, AGRA dug that report out several years ago, its a great read.  The Phantom was apparently intended operate from smaller carriers fitted with appropriate cats and traps, I suppose the issue was the number of aircraft that could be accommodated on said smaller carriers.  I imagine the extended nose gear and higher thrust Speys helped with shorter cats on the steel decked British ships but would have been an issue on the wooden decked Essex.  No problem, the Essex is longer and has more powerful machinery than most British ships so can have longer more powerful cats, therefore doesn't need the higher angle of attack on launch.
The Essexes would have needed a major refit to install more powerful cats and a steel deck. Even assuming that the armoured portion was not moved up to the flight deck and stayed at the hangar deck, the extra top weight would probably have meant either hull shape changes to increase buoyancy, increased draft, for the same reason or reduced equipment to retain the old displacement.

Of course, where it might not have been worth undertaking such a large refit for the USN, for the Aussies, as their only  carrier and flagship of the fleet, it might have been worthwhile. The refit would have had to include the cat steam plumbing being completely replaced and enlarged for greater power plus new and significantly more robust trap machinery, plus a new steel deck and water cooled jet blast deflectors, at the very least, but also probably also an updated electronics fit and maybe even the addition of something like the Sea Sparrow box launchers on the stern that many Yank carriers carried or even Sea Cat quad launchers.

Such a carrier model would make a pretty cool WHIF all by itself!

Offline Volkodav

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #342 on: December 19, 2018, 05:06:01 PM »
One of the proposals was for a new build Essex for Australia, now that would have been interesting.

Updated with the latest equipment, armoured flight deck etc. such a ship could have been justified as a co development of a new CVS to operate Vikings and Hawkeyes, in addition to a small number of F-4 (and later F-111B/F-14).

Offline dy031101

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #343 on: January 15, 2019, 11:38:35 PM »
Top & Middle: I have a similar idea in my head except based on a F-4K.

The original page HERE.

==================================================

Bottom: A short-nose EF-4 is likely to look more like this.

Original story HERE.

Question: does the ALQ-99 have capability overlap with the APR-38?
« Last Edit: January 16, 2019, 06:17:16 AM by dy031101 »
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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #344 on: January 16, 2019, 01:51:17 AM »
 :smiley:
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Offline kitnut617

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #345 on: January 16, 2019, 03:37:29 AM »
Something I came across over on the SPF. it has been mentioned here way back at the start of the thread but not this particular breakdown

Offline dy031101

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #346 on: March 12, 2019, 01:33:57 PM »
Interesting.  Maybe do one in similar scheme to their F-104s......

As a matter of fact, from MD's own promotional material:

(The actual colours would more likely be SEA camo, but the introduction of the F-4E would have meant early retirement for the Starfighters, and it wouldn't have been inconceivable that some of the Phantoms would have inherit suitable camouflage from the F-104s......)
« Last Edit: March 12, 2019, 01:44:08 PM by dy031101 »
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Offline elmayerle

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #347 on: March 30, 2019, 10:18:36 AM »
Just a thought for the Phantom FG.1.  The RN contracts with MATRA for a variation of their JL-100 with the front end being the standard RN 2" rocket pod instead of the SNEB pods used on the standard JL-100.  'Twould make for an interesting loadout on the outboard stores stations.

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #348 on: June 20, 2019, 04:52:17 AM »
F-4 gun nose (F-4E/F-4F/F-4EJ etc.) updated to carry the LANTIRN pods in the forward missile wells.
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Offline ChernayaAkula

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Re: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #349 on: June 20, 2019, 08:23:29 PM »
That's a neat idea, Jeff.  :smiley: Sort of a Strike Eagle light.
Would have made sense for a lot of nations flying the Phantom.
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