F-4 (F4H-1)(F-110) Phantom

[DarrenP]

Towards the end of the Phantoms life in RAF they also added a periscopic forward looking sight to allow the Navigator/WSo to help with visual recognition of a target the story I was told was the periscopes had been recovered from Chieftan or centurion tanks.

[dy031101]

Since the F-4E seems to be what a gun-armed Phantom really should be, I once contemplated modelling a F-4K with the nose and the cannon fairing of the F-4E grafted onto its forward fuselage...... until I realized that the F-4K has the folding radar radome in order to fit onto the elevators onboard the Ark Royal......

Which got me wondering...... did the elevator size influence the F-4K's configuration, or did the F-4K's configuration influence the elevator size?

Either way, is there a way to solve the elevator accommodation problem with the gun-equipped nose (i.e. along where should I make the nose radome fold)?

Here's an option, ditch the Spey Phantom altogether and the everybody, UK included, uses J79 powered machines, not an unlikely scenario as there
were many who questioned the re-engining project.

So...... what about the notion that Spey-powered F-4K was safer to operate from the smaller European fleet carriers (also the angle-deck-equipped Essex class, if the USN wanted to keep the ships in service)?

I did see pictures of USN Phantoms cross-decking with the British, but then again the American jets seemed always to launch without any external stores whatsoever- something that probably won't happen very often during a conflict......

[GTX]

Re Alt Phantom operators (at least of the Spey engined variety), may I point people to the following:

Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan,
New Zealand (bottom of page),
USAF/South Vietnam/North Vietnam/Poland/Russia,
Australia,
Canada,
French/Chilean (Story with single profile further down page), and
Israeli/Argentine, South African, Portuguese/Rhodesian, Swedish and Chinese (stories only)

Regards,

Greg

[dy031101]

I began to wonder: can a GSh-23 cannon fit into the F-4's Vulcan gun fairing?

It's just that I remember hearing someone mentioning before that the Russian twin-barrelled cannon is better suited for bomber interception (shells being more powerful) while the Vulcan is a better fighter combat weapon (higher muzzle velocity)......

[Sauragnmon]

I would imagine that it could, in theory, owing to the fact of the massive size of the vulcan's chamber/motor/barrel assembly vs the volumetrically smaller gast gun design.  Alternatively, you could probably fit the GSh-30-1 in there for some Mega Punch.

[pyro-manic]

Which got me wondering...... did the elevator size influence the F-4K's configuration, or did the F-4K's configuration influence the elevator size?

Either way, is there a way to solve the elevator accommodation problem with the gun-equipped nose (i.e. along where should I make the nose radome fold)?

Ark Royal was built long before any mark of Phantom. The gun would be a problem. An alternative could be a group of ADENs, as mounted on the Hawker Hunter. That aircraft had the cannons and ammunition in a pack that could drop out for quick rearming, and the barrels stayed in the aircraft. You could adapt this to the folding nose, with the barrels folding and the chambers and ammunition staying put.

[Shasper]

I had the idea of sticking a pair of gunpods in the fwd missile wells . . . Modded Harrier pods anyone?

[dy031101]

When reading on about Logan Hartke's Geriatric military thread, I found the Super Phantom to be a favourite among participants.

And then I was thinking...... the centreline hardpoint of the Phantom is known to be capable of carrying serious bomb loads, but the proposed conformal fuel tanks can carry more fuel while offering much less drag compared to the conventional centreline drop tank.

Is that confromal centreline tank of the Boeing Super Phantom removable?

If not...... what I was thinking is a variation of the RF-4X's extra tanks, attached conformally to the intersection joints of the fuselage spine and the engine nacelles......

[Sauragnmon]

Had a rather random thought come past my head at a rather odd altitude - What if the French had done something similar to the Phantom, take the airframe, give it the Mirage style intakes with the souris on them... I think that might look pretty interesting.  Though I don't happen to have any Mirage intakes on hand unfortunately.

[Weaver]

Suppose they decided to solve the Spey/F4 problems instead of eating them, and designed completely new intakes for it? They might have ended up with F-14-style intakes, which would have been a natural mounting point for canards.....

[DarrenP]

A F4E with speys would have made sense for the RAF, RAAF, RCAF and RNZAF. However given the extending front wheel leg of the F4K was to allow an angle of attack to get the Aircraft of the smaller Decks of UK carriers I would say F4K would be only variant with this.
Wonder if the RN would have found operating Phantoms of the Proposed Malta class carriers any easier? Mind you a friend once mentioned that towards the end of Ark Royal every time a Phantom landed on it poped rivets out of the bottom of the ship with the force of impact!

[Sauragnmon]

I have a feeling the RCAF would have wound up with F-4K or similar, for that extending nosewheel - the takeoff roll of the F-5 was too long for taste, so we redesigned it with an extending nosegear to shorten the roll, the Sled's takeoff roll is even more so if I recall, so it would have been quite likely as well in RCAF service, and considering we wanted them for air support at the time, Speys would have been the better choice, for fuel economy and low altitude performance.  Redesigned intakes might well have fixed the problem, though I recall hearing it threw off the plane's area ruling with enlarging the intakes, so shifting more weight aft might have been a better choice.

As to the Ark Royal, one could question if that was a case of the Phantom landing, or the lower grade of maintenance in the fleet - let's remember, that when they went off to war in the Falklands, the carriers had been rusting in peace beforehand.

[pyro-manic]

Ark was knackered even before the Phantom refit. Eagle was in much better condition, and should have got the work done in her place, but the whole thing was a political move to get rid of fixed-wing naval aviation.

The extensive rust seen on Hermes on her return from the Falklands was unique to that ship - due to the lower-grade wartime rust-proofing used on her during construction. See Brown/Moore's "Rebuilding the Royal Navy" for details on that.

RCAF Phantoms in Germany would have been cool.

[Weaver]

Redesigned intakes might well have fixed the problem, though I recall hearing it threw off the plane's area ruling with enlarging the intakes, so shifting more weight aft might have been a better choice.

It wasn't so much the intakes that screwed up the area ruling as the bulged engine bays. The intakes only screwd up the engines by being mismatched to them.

As to the Ark Royal, one could question if that was a case of the Phantom landing, or the lower grade of maintenance in the fleet - let's remember, that when they went off to war in the Falklands, the carriers had been rusting in peace beforehand.

Ark didn't go the Falklands: she'd been paid off for scrap well beforehand (something Maggie didn't appreciate: apparently she had a major wobble when told that we didn't have a conventional carrier to send.... ). Of the carriers that did go, Hermes was old but in full service, and Invincible was brand new. Bulwark (Hermes' sister ship) had been converted into a "reserve ASW carrier" (no ski jump though) but had been laid up for sa couple of years due to a fire - there was talk of reactivating her for the Falklands, but a survey showed she was too far gone.

[norseman]

In the late 60's to early 70's there was an offer to fit the newly uprated Spey/TF41 engines to the Corsair, F14, F111 and Phantom, these were more economical, had better lifespan with reduced service costs but gave 17,500lb dry and 27,000lb reheat (28,000lb version was also offered in the early 70's). I am supposing that tight purse strings was why the RAF/RN Phantoms never had these Spey ugrades fitted but I know a fair bit of flight testing was carried out in Corsairs with the dry version. I can only imagine that the acceleration of a Phantom with these engines would have been spectacular and to get the added bonus of better economy was even better. There were no real competitors in these thrust regimes (for the size) at the end of the 60's and with the problems the TF30 engines had for years then with a bit better marketing and government investment we might have had a very wide customer base for the upgraded Spey, particularly in the F14's, F111's and dare I say it the F15?
I know the Chinese managed to get hold of a couple of these modified engines but didn't seem able to reverse engineer the technology so the JH7's stuck with the older lower thrust version.