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

[Thorvic]

I wonder if a UK version of the F4E would have been a good Canberra B(I)/Hawker Hunter/ BAC Lightning replacement?

Should the UK F4K/M phantom fleet been updated instead of buying Tornado F3?

could the F4M have been fitted with a greater variety of weapons/systems like maverick/Shrike/Standard/Paveway/ALQ ecm pods?

Could the Phantom FG1 in naval service been fitted with the suu23 pod and the EMI recce Pod and still been carrier capable?

Well the F-4M was initially used in the Strike/Recon role until the Jaguars came online, so the improved NavAtttack systems of the F4E could have made the RAF Phantom more suitable in the Strike Fighter role.

The RAF FG1 aircraft they got off the Navy were back fitted for the suu23 pod, as the FG1 was mainly a Naval Interceptor with secondary strike roles it was not fitted for the Recce pod as they already had the Recon Pack for the Buccaneer. Operating off HMS Ark Royal and ideally HMS Eagle the RN Phantom would not carry either pod as the safe landing weight restrictions would exclude the use of such hardware. Operating off CVA-01 then the gun pod becomes a possibility although they would likely opt for the belly tank to increase the range and endurance of their primary CAP mission.

It was envisaged that the Phantom would carry the Bullpup ASM and i have seen documentation that Martel would replace it being carried on the inner pylons.

[Weaver]

Should the UK F4K/M phantom fleet been updated instead of buying Tornado F3?

They looked at it, but the problem was that the early usage in the low-level strike role ate up a large slice of the F4Ms' airframe fatigue lives, so a mid-life refit was deemed uneconomic. Another thing they looked at was a top-up buy of more aircraft to spread the hours around more, but the Phantom line was scheduled to close in 1979(?) and there wasn't money in the UK defence budget for fighters until about 1985 when the bulk of Tornado GR.1 expenditure was over, so the only way to do that would have been to buy all the F-4K/M tooling from McDD and make them ourselves, which got to looking very expensive again.

The clever thing about the Tornado ADV was that all the interceptor-specific changes were made to UK-manufactured sections of the aircraft, so we could exploit the economies of scale inherent in the Tornado program yet only impose the tooling cost of a second version on a minority of it.

[DarrenP]

If the F4 K/M had had the Fatigue life what do we think would have been fitted. I'd like to have seen the Blue Vixen radar and AMRAAM

[Daryl J.]

Could a Blue Vixen fit into the radome area of a RF-4?   Options open significantly for the Spey Phantoms if it does.

[DarrenP]

Germans fitted the F4-F with the AGP65, I am speculating on a similar program for the Phantom FG1/FGR2 as an upgrade program instead of the Tornado F3 by creating the Phantom F3 and F4. The Blue Vixen would give AMRAAM capability like the German F's. These would have served till Typhoon eliminating the Tornado F2/3 program.
As has been said they were fatigue life expired which is a shame.

[Weaver]

Well in Whiff World you can always re-write history. For instance:

The RAF goes straight from the TSR.2 to the Buccaneer without wasting a few years on the F-111K debacle, and this means there is budget available to buy a greater number of Buccs and adapt them better to the RAF nuclear and recce roles in Germany. This in turn means that the F-4Ms go straight into the interceptor role and therefore preserve their fatigue lives sufficiently to make a mid-life update feasible. The motivation for that might come from the delays and problems with the Tornado ADV's Foxhunter radar, leading the RAF to turn to Ferranti for an alternative set for the F-4s. The latter radar, "Blue Ghost", is effectively a precursor to the Blue Vixen with a bigger aerial and uses an all-digital architecture which ensures compatibility with AMRAAM or Active Skyflash missile when it enters service.

[PR19_Kit]

Well in Whiff World you can always re-write history. For instance:

The RAF goes straight from the TSR.2 to the Buccaneer without wasting a few years on the F-111K debacle, and this means there is budget available to buy a greater number of Buccs and adapt them better to the RAF nuclear and recce roles in Germany. This in turn means that the F-4Ms go straight into the interceptor role and therefore preserve their fatigue lives sufficiently to make a mid-life update feasible. The motivation for that might come from the delays and problems with the Tornado ADV's Foxhunter radar, leading the RAF to turn to Ferranti for an alternative set for the F-4s. The latter radar, "Blue Ghost", is effectively a precursor to the Blue Vixen with a bigger aerial and uses an all-digital architecture which ensures compatibility with AMRAAM or Active Skyflash missile when it enters service.

That sounds a VERY good idea.

Now where's that time machine.....? 

[DarrenP]

wonder what other kit would have been added.
Pave spike?
AlQ pods

The original order for F4M's was meant to be bigger as well and if all the F4K's had been delivered they could have equipped most of the AD sqns and the Balance of the M's could have been Recce

[Gondor]

Just received a second hand kit of the Hasegawa F-110A Phantom II in 1/72 

Slight problem though as the kit is second hand some of the bags were opened. Only thing that is missing is the decal placement sheet 

Can anyone help? Scale will not matter as long as each marking is easily identifiable.

Gondor

[Weaver]

Here's one to fool the JMNs: paint up an F-4K in this 'zapped' scheme and wait for somebody to object...

After a visit at the NAS Oceana, the Phantoms of the 892 NAS Ark Royal got new livery inluding the VF-171 Aces emblem as well as the inscription Colonial NAVY.

From here: https://www.facebook.com/SIERRA-HOTEL-AERONAUTICS-196749240390199/?fref=nf

[Weaver]

It's been brought to my attention on BTS (cheers Greg!) That Model Alliance actually do a decal sheet with a couple of these whiffs on it (MA-72126 or MA-48126 depending on the scale) If using the sheet leaves you with a spare set of tail markings from the donor kit, you could use one of the spare Omega flashes to make the retaliation bird:



Hmmm: make an F-4K and an F-4J that are both physical whiffs (F-4K with Red Tops on the inners, F-4E for the Marines?), use those markings, then watch everybody assume that the markings are the whiff.....

[tahsin]

There is this "argument" in the F-105 thread that goes on like this:

F-105 after 1955 is just a waste of time, with Phantom on the horizon...

But back in 1955 they didn't know that the F-4 was going to be so good.

And it was, *GASP* a Navy plane! 

And there's the rub: it wouldn't have mattered if they HAD known how good the F-4 was going to be, the USAF still has a HUGE institutional resistance...

How good Phantom would be was clear in 1954... That's why it came back even it was refused as an "F", then as an "A", yet finally turned into an interceptor...

Proved to whom? ...

Proved to those who actually paid attention...

Oi, you two!

A short summary of it... The end of WW II sees the United States as the dominant maritime power, replacing the British Empire. Leading to the conclusion that it's also the strongest power on earth, which can use the methods that provided global supremacy to London with less risk and yet greater return. Though there is also a feeling that the "fall" of England should be carefully examined to prevent its recurrence, this time to US. The inevitable conclusion is that the British were not prepared for the WW II. Primarily due to their smugness in assuming America could be conspired into the fighting whenever it suited London, to bear the burden and pay the price with its inexhaustable potential. Roosevelt was a tough customer, true, and yes Churchill would have wiped the floor with him if the British Empire still had the werewithal; but when the US was conspired into WW II, the Japanese tidal wave was lethal to London while just a temporary setback, a pinprick to Washington. Average politician or strategist would see that as proof of "manhood" while Eisenhower was a consummate politician and certainly a cut above the average strategist... And the committee he was part of consisted of Americans Eisenhower accepted as equals -and a few betters. So they just decided America would be ready for the next war.

When? 1939 had followed 1918 almost in the sense that the soldiers returning home had caused a baby boom replacing "stocks" but it was cooler to follow a convention of 25 years between '14 to '39... Yeah, WW III in 1964. If America kept a quantifiable nuclear superiority, Russians would be tempted to avoid total destruction. As already referenced this would mean conventional warfare to drive back Communist gains. Perhaps in China, where Mao looked like he could win. Perhaps against India if Communists gained more influence after the British departure. Maybe even in Europe to liberate Poland; upto River Bug so that the stigma of defeat would convince Russians to depose their overlords instead risking the Great Patriotic War II with atoms. That committee was aware that they hadn't netted all German rocket scientists or all the schematics of German ICBMs.

Looking back at the British experience of the recent war, one glaring failure was the lack of a "strategic fighter", that beast which had been causing so much mayhem since 1934. A heavyweight that could escort bombers into enemy heartland and could intercept the response, at night or bad weather, could act as a bomber itself and could be responsive in demands of a mobile ground action as a durable weapon of war. Mustang wasn't it  -even if there was a noble attempt with the P or F-82. More in the sense of a Mosquito or a Ju-88. The future belonged to the jets and this unnamed committee took the USN conception of a twin as the basis. As we have or have not seen, American naval experts were not keen on the European designs with midwing engines. Increased the span hence the ever present danger of running into the island. Control problems with one engine out were just a minor issue in the then current reasoning. Size and weight issues seemed to indicate a ground based plane but the USN was also developing large carriers. As for performance 12 years were to pass between the Volta Conference and the breaking of the sound barrier so another 12 years might also see Mach 2. 1959-60,  a good time for a brand new jet to put into mass production for the ordeals ahead. One might have already noticed the winner of the Penetration Fighter contest was the P-88...

Following the very Phantom which "diverged" into Banshee for naval service. And the F-101 which alone kept to a 360 degree hood in the Century series but also suffered from the speed fetish prevalent in the era. Because the committee was following what the US Army would want the USAF to have. USAF would want B-36s so that the USN could be put out to pasture and the US Army would be reduced to patrolling outside the wire fences of USAF bases. There are such stories to be told of the USAF generals bloodlust to nuke the Russians and anyone else but let it suffice that SAC would not want anything about a strategic fighter that would stop nuclear destruction of any targeted country, by offering the prospects of a conventional victory. While the F-101 would have done very well with a Demon type wing it would also be "slow" and not worthy of evermore supersonic USAF. It would rather have arrived as a 300 sq. foot winged plane but for the need to lessen the drag of the intakes. While not an aerodynamist,  Ike followed the development of "his" plane and was informed side inlets was helpful for such concerns. Side inlets were on the P-90, the "itireration" of the initial USN concept. Or the F7U, the likely placeholder as the onboard heavy. The last suffered greatly from poor engines and (considering there were quite a few "SAC Generals" in the USN) was developed into the gross injustice it turned out to be, compared to its sleek originals. Which could still eat an MiG-15 alive, if they managed to be in the same volume of airspace at the same time...
And now that it wasn't US Presidents that decided the well-being of aircraft companies and Ike wasn't even the President at the time, he was given his side inlets in the Demon. Which was a spectacular plane, if you hang external fuel tanks on it it flew even less. So far we seen that the F4H stems from the P-88 which descends from FD/FH-1 and aims "initially" at the USN. To cover up the Demon's sins. With Ike in the Whitehouse and fretting about lack of progress and even ready to accept corners cut. F4H does anything and everything, noses can be changed and when "proper" engines come by it will be capable of carrying "lots of things". USN apparently started ordering J-79s from 1954 and I can't guess any application. If you are going to say A-5, why,  the USN considered the Phantom too small for that job. And no bomb bay for the temperamental nukes of the day... It was always there, a need to "placate" the White House and finding reasonable reasons not to. After spending 7 million manhours on it there's no way McDonnell could be pushed into slowing down.

USAF had seen this coming, just like P-47 had proven that size mattered when it came to bomb carrying for tactical air operations. Not wanting the "Phantom" long before it even existed they had to offer something better. Which was the "Ultimate Interceptor". It was legitimate that there was no way a B-52 could be escorted to Moscow to drop radio guided bombs for surgical strikes. But Nuclear Deterrence would work if Russian bombers could be reliably shot down. It's because of the Phantom that Convair was guided to claim a Mach 2 delta variously by 1952 or 54. Which they could have done, if they had kept to the "Mirage" formula. "Half" the size, the French jet DID achieve Mach 2 at 6 tons of thrust, less than what the J-57 was delivering. Convair got a 1/48 programme with extensive range and many internal weapons with wind tunnel data of a 1/72 plane with limited external carriage. No, this sentence does not imply problems with extrapolating wind tunnel data to full size article; it suggests fraud. Dassault was even limited one single AAM with nothing of the blistering climb of the F-104. A Delta Dagger with Mach 2 capability would have been the size of the Mirage III with no potential for the defence of Continental US. Delta Dart put it right, in 1959, but no one would ever permit Convair to clear its name by making a Mach 5 F-106... Let's just keep out of any Avro Arrow debates and how insulted the Canadians later felt when they were denied a licence to produce Phantoms. With US presidents having some weight in foreign affairs.

As for Congress, they were keenly after saving the taxpayer's money. They banned prototyping so that there would be no way for interested companies to play their hands at Ike's plane. The Cook-Cragie law assured only "worthy" companies would be allowed in business and no money would be saved prototypes of planes that didn't fit in. That it cost immensely is a fact; but Eisenhower termed it Military Industrial Complex -without Congressional. The Lawmakers were not worth mentioning, except with terms of contempt...

While the Navy prepared to accept its potent new fighter, in 1958 McDonnell was already approaching the US Air Force about a potential ground-attack version with a new bombing radar installation. However, it was the F4H-1's multimission potential, demonstrated in tests, that attracted USAF interest. Initially its superior performance compared with the primary USAF interceptor, the Convair F-106A, came into focus. Lt Gen Tom Miller, supervizing the F4H-1 program for the US Marines, recalled:
Air Defense Command (ADC) first became interested in the F4H-1. Col Graham was permitted to fly the F4H-1 very early in the program and he pushed it for ADC versus the F-106. His effort culminated in a fly-off between the two aircraft [Project Highspeed], which showed the F4H-1 to be a far superior fighter. It was during a Pentagon debrief of the results of the competition between the F-106 and F4H-1 that Admiral Pirie [in charge of the air-to-ground aspect of the program] offered to provide USAF tactical air operations with an F4H-1 bombing demonstration. I came away from the meeting with the impression that that the USAF personnel were very impressed with the fighter capabilities of the F4H-1 and that caused Admiral Pirie to bring up its bombing capabilities.
The USN was already planning to show off the Phantom II's conventional weapons delivery using multiple bomb racks that were unavailable to the Air Force at the time. Major General Hal Vincent (a captain at the time) ran the O/V 5 air-to-ground tests supervized by Admiral Pirie within the Navy's VX-5 test squadron. He was using F4H-1 BuNo 143390, the fifth Phantom II, for tests with the Mk 7 nuclear special weapon, but "I hung a multiple bomb rack (MBR) on the centerline of the aircraft and I cut another in half, rewired it and made a triple ejector rack for the other two stations, allowing carriage of 24 500lb bombs." Photographs of the original high-drag MBR configuration were circulated by McDonnell and attracted international interest in the Phantom's attack possibilities. Tom Miller was ordered to make a "Nav Tac" demonstration drop of 22 500lb bombs on the Camp Lejeune range at MCAS Cherry Point on April 25, 1961, but further "performances" were requested, witnessed by several congressmen and one of the USAF's most influential policy-shapers, General Curtis Le May. Tom Miller: "They were so impressed that they stole [the Phantom II] away from Air Defense Command. The F-106 remained in ADC and the Phantom II was bought for Tactical Air Command."

Is what Air Vanguard 007 of Osprey says. 1961 it might be. But Eisenhower would have actively pressed the Phantom into USAF service. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to use the term "shove up" in this site, but it might well have been the case if USAF showed any more signs of stalling.
So, where is the F-105 in all of this? It's a nuclear bomber bought extensively by SAC generals despite their great hate for it. Hated for making TAC still relevant in an nuclear age. Keeping an organization intact inevitably with people with fond memories of blasting Panzer Divisions to scrap instead of burning Japanese cities to cinders. USAF needs almost thousands of the F-105 to full all of their wings with "modern" jets so that there will be no place left for the Phantom. Now that this costs money, to the detriment of their B-52s and ICBMs,  they even ask for the removal of the gun and all sorts of tactical elements. They deny duplication of hydraulics, ECM , training for tactical missions. After years of messing with the development of the jet itself. There are repeated attempts at upgrading by Republic, engines of higher power, even increases of wing area. All refused due to the existance of Phantom... A Catch-22 situation. They actually twice refused a conversion trainer because it would cost them a few airframes out of the 1500 they "needed". When Phantom was on for sure they decided it was really needed and twice refusing a single piece canopy they had to go a different way. The result in F-105F was so imposing that nobody ever actually used it with instructor flying wing to the student as they always did...

[KJ_Lesnick]

I was thinking: Why did the USAF need the fatter tires?  It seemed to require a needless design and while landings might be a bit rough, it's not United Airlines, it's the frakking Air Force

[sandiego89]

I was thinking: Why did the USAF need the fatter tires?  It seemed to require a needless design and while landings might be a bit rough, it's not United Airlines, it's the frakking Air Force

As I understood it the air force wanted a lower pressure tire for improved safety.  The early Navy Phantoms tires had very high pressures, ~450PSI 

-Dave

[Gondor]

Rough field performance is also easier with softer tyres

Gondor