VF-84 F-4B weapons load

[11bee]

WRT external tanks, I thought I read somewhere that when you factor in drag, the range of an F-4 with only centerline was close to or maybe even a bit superior to one with the two wing tanks mounted.    

[mawz]

1 minute ago, 11bee said:

WRT external tanks, I thought I read somewhere that when you factor in drag, the range of an F-4 with only centerline was close to or maybe even a bit superior to one with the two wing tanks mounted.    

That's quite believable, although I suspect that when bombed up the drag equation might be the other way around.

I know the F-101B actually had more range on one tank than two due to drag.

[GW8345]

One reason why they may be carrying wing tanks is that once empty, you can go faster.

 

Airspeed carriage limits for empty wing tanks is 750 KCAS / 1.6 IMN, for the centerline tank it's 600 KCAS / 1.8 IMN. For the limits, you always take the most restrictive.

 

The drag depends on what type of wing tanks, for McDonnell wing tanks the drag is 4.8 each, for Sargent Fletcher/Royal Jet tanks, 6.4. The centerline drag is 9.6.

 

Also, we don't know what is on the centerline, there maybe a weapon/store on the centerline that can only be loaded on the centerline, thus forcing wing tanks be installed.

 

Source: NAVAIR 01-245FDD-1

[11bee]

16 hours ago, mawz said:

That's quite believable, although I suspect that when bombed up the drag equation might be the other way around.

I know the F-101B actually had more range on one tank than two due to drag.

On this subject, I thought I read somewhere that Navy SH's are now flying training sorties with no external tanks and no, or at most 2, pylons.  Supposedly a SH gets better range stripped down than it does with 2 external tanks.   Given how draggy the external pylons and stores are on a SH (partially due to the horrible design that has them canted outwards a few degrees) I wonder if this is true?

[mawz]

13 minutes ago, 11bee said:

On this subject, I thought I read somewhere that Navy SH's are now flying training sorties with no external tanks and no, or at most 2, pylons.  Supposedly a SH gets better range stripped down than it does with 2 external tanks.   Given how draggy the external pylons and stores are on a SH (partially due to the horrible design that has them canted outwards a few degrees) I wonder if this is true?

The canted pylons on the SH are brutal for drag, so they try and fly with as few pylons as they can get away with. I'd read that the SH isn't actually supersonic with a full stores load. It's one reason they want CFT's for them.

All because the design team assumed the SH would have the same stores separation behaviour as the Legacy Hornet and had to come up with a quick fix well after they had any ability to significantly change the wing structure after separation testing identified some major issues

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by mawz