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F-4 Phantom II variants for modelers


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I've been trying to understand the differences between all the Phantom variants. There are good resources, but I couldn't find anything in a simple, table-form that would be useful for modelers. Perhaps something that would be useful to see what it would take to convert one variant into another. So my question to all the Phantom aficionados out there, would you help build a database of this sort? I started the following public sheet:

 

 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1upgfKyj3061tw8-A5SXztB6rviwg4sAYqSVsk0IypgM/edit#gid=0

 

Anybody with this link can view/edit the file. Please feel free to add new rows and columns, make corrections to existing (or upcoming) entries, and save your edits. If there are many special cases that need to be highlighted, feel free to provide those details in the cells, or as a numbered footnote outside of the table. As the document is publicly editable, there is an implicit trust in the ARC community to provide honest info and not to temper (delete, mislead etc.) with the file. If you edit the file, and need to provide any explanations, you can use this thread to post those details. By the end of this, I hope we will have something useful for all the Phantom fanatics. 

 

Once the table becomes reasonably detailed, I will take a snapshot of it and post it here. Also, I will add the table to the thread Jay Chladek started a while ago here on ARC:

 

This is where we start, I'm curious to see where we end up:

f4database00.jpg

 

Alright, please go ahead and start populating the table!

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Already the file is being edited by others. That's great! 

 

I just left two comments in the file. You can see the commented cells with a yellow tag on the top right of the cells. Feel free to add your own comments, respond to the comments, delete them etc. 

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Thank you, very useful links. A few more questions:

 

- What does "clean wing" mean? Does it have to do with the inner wings? I saw USN leading slats are not flush while AF is. What would be the corresponding row(s) to capture these features? 

 

- What are the probes on the outer upper edge of the intakes some of the Navy Phantoms? Like this one above the star and bars? 

F-4S+with+slats.jpg

 

- Shall we distinguish between Navy and AF only, or do we need Marine F-4s also? I assumed all Marine stuff  can be under Navy Phantoms.

 

 

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I once did something like this on paper.

 

I found out that you need multiple entries for each aircraft type. in other words, you need more than one F-4C, more than one F-4E, many, many F-4B, and many RF-4B. this follows on for almost every type on the chart.

 

even something simple like the F-4J, F-4S and F-4N need two entries each

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1 hour ago, Janissary said:

- What are the probes on the outer upper edge of the intakes some of the Navy Phantoms? Like this one above the star and bars? 

F-4S+with+slats.jpg

 

Those are fairings for an ECM fitment. Your picture shows an F-4N with the short ECM fairing if I read Mr. Thomason's article correctly. His first link above.

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That photo with the short DECM is a late F-4J, or an early F-4S (before receiving slats)

 

The F-4N has an ECM bulge on the bottom of the radome, and a LONG DECM fairing on the shoulders of the intakes.

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Janissary, I have a suggestion for a format change in your table, it would allow multiple versions of each aircraft type in one line.

 

If you list all of the different features in the left column, and then use an "X" in the box for each aircraft type, a modeler could see that a version might have one of the many variations, depending on what year he is building.

 

like this

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,F-4B,,,,,,,,,,,,F-4C,,,,,,,,,,,F-4E,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,F-4J

Navy inner pylon,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X

USAF inner pylon,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Israeli extended pylon,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

Thin wheels,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

thick wheels USN,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X

thick wheels USAF,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

Shoulder DECM yes,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X

Shoulder DECM no,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X

 

Chaff behind the RAT yes,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,X

Chaff behind the RAT no,,,X,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

 

That way, a modeler could see that some F-4B had chaff/flare buckets added during Shoehorn, and that F-4C had two different pylons attached, etc.

Edited by Rex
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I will get him to fix it, then.

 

Finding something like a "no bump" , thick winged F-4N would be a really cool find, though.

 

Since 153915 was the last F-4B built, there is no way 157267 could be an N.

 

He'll fix that right away when he sees this thread again.

Edited by Rex
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7 minutes ago, Slartibartfast said:

Those are fairings for an ECM fitment. Your picture shows an F-4N with the short ECM fairing if I read Mr. Thomason's article correctly. His first link above.

 

Great, thank you. Would something like "Intake ECM fairing possible [Yes / No]" capture this feature? That is are these fairings optional for the N lets say, or would all Ns have it? 

 

1 hour ago, Rex said:

I once did something like this on paper.

 

I found out that you need multiple entries for each aircraft type. in other words, you need more than one F-4C, more than one F-4E, many, many F-4B, and many RF-4B. this follows on for almost every type on the chart.

 

even something simple like the F-4J, F-4S and F-4N need two entries each

 

Well, I'm totally OK expanding the sheet for all these variants. If two variants share a lot in common except for a few details,  it is ok to copy paste from column over the other. Yes it can look dense, but at least the info will be there. If the number of variants is much larger than the features we are comparing, we could transpose the sheet for readability. 

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The DECM fairings weren't on the early F-4N conversions, but, they were retrofitted later on.

 

The same thing happened with the F-4S slats, they weren't on the early conversions, but, were retrofitted later on.

 

There were also underfuselage and underwing fairings, they were mounted in 0, 2, or 4,,,,,,if mounted in 2 places only, they were different than the front 2 when they mounted 4.

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This is an idea whose time is long overdue. Thank you ALL who are contributing to this effort! I'll leave this to all you F-4 Experten, and I think I'll launch out on something for the F-111 series. Any chance of getting these pinned or archived separately?

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2 hours ago, Janissary said:

Thank you, very useful links. A few more questions:

 

- What does "clean wing" mean? Does it have to do with the inner wings? I saw USN leading slats are not flush while AF is. What would be the corresponding row(s) to capture these features? 

 

 

 

 

I can't find where I wrote "clean wing" and it doesn't ring a bell. What was the full sentence? Note that the original Phantom had leading-edge flaps so the different configuration is leading-edge slats, either USN or USAF.

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I forgot that I did a preliminary post on F-4S DECM antennas: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2013/01/f-4s-ecm-antennas.html

 

This is a comprehensive post by Kim Simmelink on earlier ECM suites: http://phantomphacts.blogspot.com/2014/03/us-navy-f-4-ew-development-revisited.html

 

One more time: When the ECM fairing was present on the top of the engine inlet, the N had long ones and the J/S had short ones.

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Thanks all, I made some more changes. Can you take a look to see if the feature categories are correct, and what else needs to be added? 

 

But if you have additions you would like to make, feel free to edit the file directly. You don't need a gmail account to do that. You can move rows around, add new ones, correct mistakes etc.

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I've added some details, and some aircraft types.

 

I can't come up with a good way to describe the 3 short radomes,,,,,,or the many "bumps" to go on the bottom of the F-4B,C,D and N radomes.

 

would this work?

 

Short radome, F-4K type

short radome, F-4J type

short radome, F-4B type

and then later we can add the different "bumps" to the F-4B type

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5 hours ago, Janissary said:

- What does "clean wing" mean?

 

"Clean wing" or "clean airplane" usually referred to the absence of stores and tanks, but not necessarily pylons. For example, with exceptions like Functional Check Flights or demonstration flights, the F-4 was usually flown with inboard pylons, the reason being they were not heavy, had little drag, and in fact contributed "a bit" to lateral stability ... so leaving them on saved the labor of uploading and downloading. 

 

Having said that, if you could provide the sentence or context that cited "clean wing', you'd get a better answer.

 

Gene K

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Gene, this is *sort of* Phantom variant related.

 

How's this for a project? Navy Phantoms at top, USMC and "Navy ringers" follow, then USAF and non-US after that

 

http://z15.invisionfree.com/Hangar_Deck_Resource/index.php?showtopic=38

 

1/72 only, but, thought you might get a smile out of a "simple project"

later on, after the raw decals are all listed, I will add reference verified "Phantom variant specific parts" to each decal entry

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3 hours ago, Janissary said:

Thanks all, I made some more changes. Can you take a look to see if the feature categories are correct, and what else needs to be added? 

 

But if you have additions you would like to make, feel free to edit the file directly. You don't need a gmail account to do that. You can move rows around, add new ones, correct mistakes etc.

-2/8 is short burner, -10 is long. No real need to list both features. I suggest short versus long. You should also consider linking to posts that best describe a particular feature.

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Good idea, Tommy.

 

A "link to page" for each type would help a lot,,,,,,,,for example, the RF-4B gets Yes and No in a lot of the boxes. That is because  at first they were thin winged with small cans, then 7 were thick winged with Angular noses, and 3 were thick winged with Rounded noses. Then the Sure and Slep started,,and the thin winged ones got long cans, DECM (F-4N type) started showing up on the intake shoulders,,,,,,,etc, etc. (there were even "ringers" such as a long canned, angular nose, thick wing with no DECM, ala that red film patterned 157346)

 

with a link column, we could type out the variations for each sub-type of Phantom

 

I've also moved the RF-4B in between the RF-4C and RF-4E, that is because the RF-4C was the first reconn version.

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All, I added a few links in the table as well as at the bottom. Feel free to add links like this to other elements of the table. Rex, by an example RF-4B page, did you mean a page we create or a webpage that already exists? If the former, I created an empty new sheet in the document (see tabs at the bottom) and linked to it from the master table. Please feel free to expand it as needed.

 

Also, are the entries under "Flight Surfaces" enough to describe the differences with the inner / outer slats? I have the most confusion with this aspect of the phantoms. Some random questions:

 

- What are the wing fences? 

- I remember reading recently USAF inner wing slats sit flush with the surface while USN don't. Is this true and if so are we capturing stuff like this in the table? 

 

Any links to additional pages about these features would be great.

Edited by Janissary
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