F-4K/M FVS aka VG Brit toom

[Thorvic]

My current work in progress has involved mixing a Matchbox Phantom with Fujimi details fot cockpit, nose gear bay and engines and converting it to the FVS Phantom by building a wing box and gloves from plastic card and adaping kitech F-14 wings.

[Thorvic]

I used the Matchbox kit as it has separate wings and fuselage belly making the conversion somewhat easier to manage, plus the plastic is somewhat softer and easier to work than the harder more brittle plastic form the Japanese kits. The Matchbox panel lines actually help the build as it easier too as its easier to establish where the cuts should go.

However the down side of the kit is the simpler details in the cockpit and canopy along with engines and wheel wells, here I struck lucky as I had a damaged Fujimi Fg1 kit I got cheap off eBay for spares, so I was able to rob the cockpit, nose gear bay and engines from that kit. However all of these parts are available as aftermarket Resin items, so the conversion could be done using those parts instead. The other flaw with the Matchbox kit is the canopy as they moulded as just the glass parts with the frame moulded onto the fuselage which doesn't give it the right look, therefore as you get the choice of both a one piece and a multipart open canopy in the Fujimi kit I elected to carefully cut out the frame on the matchbox kit and replace with the Fujimi one.

With the VG conversion the fuselage has a similar plug in it as per the HL just aft of the Intakes. Therefore I cut the fuselage in half at this point allowing me to work the front half and fit the Fujimi parts. The rear upper fuselage was assembled and new main undercarriage bays were created on the lower fuselage pan by cutting out the hole and building up a plastic card box around them. The belly pan was then slightly bent upwards for and aft of this bay as its a bit deeper than the normal F-4 and wedges were added to keep this shape when its joined to the upper fuselage sides.

The wing box was created by cutting out the template of the shape in two sheets of plastic card and using strip styrene to build up an internal structure to create the gap for the wings, the gloves were built up from solid plastic and putty so they could then be sanded and filed down to shape. I set mine up with the wings set swept back, but I did create the wing pivot point in case I wanted to do them movable. For ease of use I actually cut out a notch from the wing pivot hole to allow the wings to be swap fitted to test the look and separate painting although I will probably fix these in place when the model is finished.

Once the wing box was finished it was a simple case of cutting out a slot in the upper fuselage and sliding in the wing box and securing it in place. The fuselage plug was than built up and the forward fuselage was slid into place and then blended together with lots of PSR.

Still a bit of PSR to do following a test prime but thought I would show that a VG toom is quite viable   

[Weaver]

Lovely piece of work on a fascinating project - nice one! 

[rickshaw]

Interesting build.  Going to watch this with interest.

[TallEng]

That's good
Still doesn't do anything to a phantoms looks though

Regards
Keith

[JayBee]

Terrific work there. 
To my eye the shoulder wing just does not look right, makes the beast look rather like a Mig-23.
However that is not your fault it is some RW's idiot designer's fault. 

Jim

[sandiego89]

Nice surgery- keep it up

[Thorvic]

Terrific work there. 
To my eye the shoulder wing just does not look right, makes the beast look rather like a Mig-23.
However that is not your fault it is some RW's idiot designer's fault. 

Jim

Its mostly due to the less than ideal wing design on the Phantom, it followed on from the HL to give better lift and slower approach speeds. The structural layout of the phantom with the intakes and engine location meant that only a shoulder mounted wing was viable as it had to sit above the engines. If you look at the McDD design for the Tomcat competition that actually had a low mounted VG wing and a Phantomish style nose and that doesn't look right either !

[Dizzyfugu]

This is cool. I have read about the VG Phantom proposal (yes, the wing postion is correct, and ugly, too!), and it is nice (if not great) to see that it enters the hardware stage.   

[Captain Canada]

Nice one Geoff ! This is going to be awesome.

[NARSES2]

To my eye the shoulder wing just does not look right, makes the beast look rather like a Mig-23.

I knew it reminded me of something 

Very interesting build Geoff, looking forward to the finished product.

[Gondor]

Nice to see this being built Thorvic.

Don't hold your breath waiting for me to build anything similar of F-111 based.

Gondor

[Weaver]

Terrific work there.  
To my eye the shoulder wing just does not look right, makes the beast look rather like a Mig-23.
However that is not your fault it is some RW's idiot designer's fault.  

Jim

Its mostly due to the less than ideal wing design on the Phantom, it followed on from the HL to give better lift and slower approach speeds. The structural layout of the phantom with the intakes and engine location meant that only a shoulder mounted wing was viable as it had to sit above the engines. If you look at the McDD design for the Tomcat competition that actually had a low mounted VG wing and a Phantomish style nose and that doesn't look right either !

By and large, swing wings only really work in the high position since it lets the pivot be as far inboard as possible, thus gaining the maximum amount of swinging wing for the weight penalty, without the wing having to store the undercarriage. The only exception is the Su-17/22, who's wing is mid-set and still holds the u/c, but in that case, much less of the wing moves, thus giving much less advantage. It was probably only considered viable because of how limited the Su-7 it was derived from was, i.e. a modest improvement looks okay when you're starting from a low baseline.

[Thorvic]

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,229.60.html

Have a look at the McDD 225 for VFX requirement, for a low wing VG

[Weaver]

That's an interesting one - cheers. 

Looking at the structural drawing, it seems to have avoided the classic solid wing box associated with VG. Instead, it had a pair of triangular frames inside the gloves, linking the pivots to a pair of heavy but separate frames, which allowed the undercarriage to retract between them.