Super Crusader

[PolluxDeltaSeven]

Hello everybody!!

A friend of mine is going to send me a F-8E 1/72 Hasegawa kit. I plan to build it as a what-if, possibly in a modernised variant, probably from the Greek Air Force...

Here are what I thought about how to modernise a Crusader:


F-8H Crusader

Instead of buying the F-104, Greece prefer finally buying the F-8H Crusader...
Indeed, Greece prefered having a plane that its "natural ennemy", the Turkish Air Force, doesn't have, in order to have unknown fighting performances.

The Hellenic Air Force really appreciate the plane and constantly modernised them. In the late 1970's, the F-8H Crusader were modernised in a joint operation with the French Navy: the F-8H and the F-8E(FN) were modernised in a common way with some equipment that came from the Mirage F1E program, including a new FLIR, a Cyrano radar and Super-530D missiles.
24 of the remaining French Crusader were also equiped wih M53-5 engine from the Mirage 2000, that allowed better high altitude and high speed abilities, and a greater range.
Due to financial reasons, the Greek F-8H were not equiped with this engine.


But in the late 1990's, the Hellenic Air Force decided to modernise a large part of its fleet, including the Mirage 2000EG (with Dassault and Thales help), the F-4 Phantom (with Elbit and IAI help) and the F-8H (with Dassault, Thales and SNECMA help)...



F-8S Super Crusader

56 F-8H were refitted in a new standard: the F-8S Super Crusader

Airframe
-The variable incidence wing was delated, because the plane didn't have to operate from carriers. It allows a new internal fuel tank.
-The main and front gears were modified in order to allow shorter landing.
-Two aditionnal pylons were added under the wing, and two others on the lower fuselage, in order to carry air-air missile and LANTIRN pods.
The 2 main underwing pylons are now able to carry 2000l. external tanks.

Engine
The Super Crusader were engined with a SNECMA M53-P10 engine, with a thrust of 10,6 t.
It allowed largely better high altitude high speed performances, and, with the new internal fuel tank, the plane as twice the F-8E range in air-air missions!!

Systems
-The F-8S was equiped with state of the art electronic systems, from the Dassault Carapace system and the Thalès SPECTRA system, in downgraded and miniaturized variant.
-The radar Cyrano was changed for a Thales RC-420 radar (an improved variant of the RC-400, itself derived from the Mirage 2000-5's radar)
It allows the detection of a small fighter at the range of 120km+ and the target designation at 90km+. Real specifications are classified, but those abilities were admitted by Greek authorities...
-After decades with a FLIR system that was very crap, the Greek pilotes were very happy to finally have a decent FLIR system.
Actually, the FLIR that equip the Super Crusader was the right part of the Rafale's OSF (the left part is a TV/laser designator, not included in the Super Crusader)

-The cokpit was also modernised as a full glass cockpit and with a HOTAS system, and provisions for an Helmet Mounted Display was planed.

Weapons

Air-Air weapons:

-It was initially planed to replace the four 20mm guns by two 30mm DEFA guns... Finally it appears that it wasn't an economicaly viable solution.
Instead, the four guns were stay in place, but their ammunition stock reduce from 144 to 92 ammos each.
It was necessary in order to put some of the internal ECM black boxes.

-AMRAAM, MICA-IR and MICA-EM missiles were adapted to the Super Crusader, alongside with the previous integrated Magic II, Super 530, Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles.
The Super Crusader is the only fighter in the Greek inventory able to operate all the air-air missile operationnal in the HAF. And ironically, it is also the older fighter in the inventory.


Air-Ground weapons:

The Super Crusader now have very increased air-to-ground abilities, and not only unguided bombs and rockets:

-AGM-65, AS-30L and GBU-12 became the new standard munitions of the plane.
In order to guide the weapons, the two LANTIRN pods are adapted on the new pylons on the plane's fuselage.

-Exocet anti-ship missiles can also be adapted on the plane, even if it's not part of its primary mission. For that, the planes had to carry two external pods, on the MICA/LANTIRN pylons. But only 10 of those pods systems were bought by the HAF.





Et voilà!!

Do you guys have other ideas??

I think I will imagine a new kind of modernisation for the ex-French Crusader that will probably be sold to Brazil with the Sao Paulo...

But maybe we could imagine other potential export customer for the F-8E (see this thread) and then imagine how they could modernize them!!

When we see the dfferent modernisations for planes like A-4 (Singapor, Argentina, Brazil/Kuwait etc.) or the F-4 Phantom (Greek, Turkey, Germany, Japan etc...), I think we could have the same for the Crusader.

[Archibald]

Wow! Very interesting scenario!
The J-57 is quite bulky and heavy (as many early powerfull turbojets) so it could easily be replaced by more modern turbofans such as the Spey or M53.

I like this idea!    

[rallymodeller]

Wow! Very interesting scenario!
The J-57 is quite bulky and heavy (as many early powerfull turbojets) so it could easily be replaced by more modern turbofans such as the Spey or M53.

I like this idea!  

Do bear in mind though that the J57 was small in comparison to the J79, and when Vought fit a J79 into the XF8U-3 it required a complete redesign of the aft fuselage. The afterburning Spey has a larger diameter than the J79 -- and the F100 is larger than both.

Possibly the best bet for reengining the Crusader would be an F404, but I'd leave it to our resident engine guru elmayerle to confirm that. IIRC the F404 and J57 aren't that far apart size-wise, and if they could put F404s in place of the Intruder's J52's for the proposed A-6F then they could certainly fit into a Crusader...

[Radish]

I like it, I like it!!  

[Archibald]

Wow! Very interesting scenario!
The J-57 is quite bulky and heavy (as many early powerfull turbojets) so it could easily be replaced by more modern turbofans such as the Spey or M53.

I like this idea! 

Do bear in mind though that the J57 was small in comparison to the J79, and when Vought fit a J79 into the XF8U-3 it required a complete redesign of the aft fuselage. The afterburning Spey has a larger diameter than the J79 -- and the F100 is larger than both.

Possibly the best bet for reengining the Crusader would be an F404, but I'd leave it to our resident engine guru elmayerle to confirm that. IIRC the F404 and J57 aren't that far apart size-wise, and if they could put F404s in place of the Intruder's J52's for the proposed A-6F then they could certainly fit into a Crusader...

Sorry but... it was not a J-79, it was a J-75.

The J-79 was the engine fited to the F-104, B-58, Phantom and Vigilante. It had 8000 kgp of thrust.
It a medium thrust engine, in the class of the Atar-9, Avon or Saphire.

The J-75 was a much bigger engine, derivative of the J-57 with 11 tons of thrust. It was fited to the F-105, F-106, F-107 and Crusader III.

The J-57 and J-75 were big engines, the former because it date back from the early 50's, the latter because it was much more powerfull.

First turbofans (early 60's such as Spey of TF-30 ) were a bit bigger than the last turbojets (J-79, Avon).

To say the things simply, the size of the medium thrust engines (7000 kgp) diminished from the J-57 (1952)  to the J-79 (1957), but augmented again with the first turbofans (TF-30  circa 1963).  First turbofans were more or less the size of a J-57... then, second generation  turbofans (M-53, F-404, PW.1120 etc. "shrinked" to the size of a J-79.

[Archibald]

Pollux, something cool would be Vought participate to the upgrade

And I like the idea of modernising the Crusader up to our days, in the same way as the Phantom and Skyhawk
Crusader 2000, Crusader 2020 by Israel aircraft industry ?

I heard that the variable incidence wing had been made because the Crusader rear fuselage was too long. It would have touched the flight deck at the  angle of incidence needed for landing.
So,  they prefered changing the incidence of the wing...
Now, with a shorter and lighter engine, you can cut the rear fuselage, and there's no need for a VI wing   Brilliant idea !!!

[Bryan H.]

IIRC, the proposed A-7F upgrade included a new F100 or F110 engine.  Since, the A-7 & the F-8 are similar in size I think either of these could be considered.  Evan can probably provide more details on the A-7F upgrade & engine.

Bryan  

[Archibald]

Well, already said that various times (alzheimer at 24 ?) but here's how I imagine a lineage of improved Crusaders...
Crusader III would be the J-75 variant, ok.
Maybe sold to the USN for the Essex (too little for the Phantoms) and why not a
F-106 competitor for ADC ?

Crusader IV would be a J-79 improved variant with J-79 and Sparrows

Crusader V would be a two-seat, multirole, spey-powered Crusader circa 1967

And well, the Crusader we imagine here (another upgraded variant after 1970) would be the Crusader VI...

[Archibald]

Never heard before that the A7F was to be named Corsair III. You learn something everyday here...
With Crusader VI and Corsair III, Vought future would be secured up to the 90's... I like this idea!!!  

[PolluxDeltaSeven]

Well, I'm not very good in the jet's engine history and there was a little debate here, but I'm not sure of the conclusion:
Could my M53 fit into a Crusader with little modification or is this modification too heavy??

For my part, I just compare the two engines on the kit, and it appearsthat the M53 fit in the rear fuselage of the kit and it looks good!!


But if you have other ideas, just send them to me

[Archibald]

ooops...
Caracteristics of the J-57 here
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_&_Whitney_J57

If I remember well lessons from Le Fana...

M-53
Diameter 1.05 m
Weight 1500 kg
Length : 5.07 m

J-57
Diamètre 1,00 m
6,20 m  
Poids 2347 kg  

[Bryan H.]

Here you go a little bit about the proposed YA-7F Corsair upgrade program.  

YA-7F info

more about the A-7F

even more about A-7F's

I think you could use much of this upgrade program to improve an F-8 Crusader.  Vought wanted to use the F100 engine but I think that the F110 engine could also be used.  An F-8 & A-7 upgrade program would have a great deal of synergy while allowing each type to remain either 'fighter' or 'attack' specialized.  Along with upgraded/modernized A-4M 'Super' Skyhawks, they'd be great a great team on upgraded Essex class, Charles de Gaulle or Zumwalt's CVV sized carriers.

Bryan

[Shasper]

PW F-100 works, I used a spare nozzle for my revell 1/100 F-8:



Shas B)

[Archibald]

Wow! Changing the J-57 for a modern turbofan would gave an aircraft 800 kg lighter! Nearly a METRIC TON!!!

And 1.10 shorter... (roughly 1.5 cm in 1/72 scale) no need for the VI wing! But CoG would become a problem...

Pollux, I think I'll cut the rear part of my Crusader (even if I have to move the tail, I don't give a damn about that!)

[Archibald]

To complete the previous post : many engines are roughly 5 meters long (instead of 6m+ for the J-57)
The F-404 is only 3.9 m...
In the case of the Crusader (1.72 scale) this would mean 1.5 cm shorter (with majority of turbofans).
with the F-404 (same thrust as the J-57, circa 7500 kgp) length of the engine shrink from 6.2 m to 3.9 m.
The model would be more than 3 cm shorter !!!