US Navy F-4J
The F-4J was the top of the line US Navy fighter in the late stages of the Vietnam war. We have all seen pictures of Randy Cunningham’s “Showtime 100” Phantom and read the stories about MiG kills over the Hanoi/Haiphong area.
We are all awaiting Eduard’s release of the Phantom Series in quarter scale some time in the next year. I have some thoughts on what I would like to see in the kit if I was king for a day at Eduard. The F-4J was still being used just a couple of years ago at Pt Mugu Naval Test Center. There is plenty of information at aircraftresourcecenter.com and Hyperscale.com.
I have seen some tremendous Hasegawa and even Monogram F-4J builds… Cyrus Tan built a Monogram F-4J for his award winning entry in 2005 IPMS nationals. Hasegawa’s later model F-4J had recessed panel lines and one release even had photo-etched parts. I still have one of those “Vandy One” kits in my collection. I have 6 Hasegawa F-4J kits as they were inexpensive in Okinawa… I could buy them for 20 dollars in Shima-San’s model store! Cannot do that now can we.
There is a lot of detail in the cockpit of the F-4J. Some big changes from the F-4B with its trashy radar to the F-4J’s APG-59 and later much better AWG-10A radar. There are some great websites for F-4 cockpits. I like uscockpits.com if you have not been there. Jef at Black Box made the best F-4 resin cockpits. Aires new F-4J resin cockpit is fantastic if you have not seen one. I’m sure Eduard’s will be up to the same standards.
During the Linebacker campaign period, the F-4J’s were carrying some pretty interesting loads. Randy Cunningham was carrying 6 Mk 20 Rockeyes the day he and Willie Driscoll got their three kills. They were also carrying 2 AIM-7 Sparrows and 4 AIM-9 Sidewinders with a centerline tank. The Navy jets did not have that far to go on their missions so the centerline tank gave them the range they needed. Some missions they did carry wing tanks.
The triple ejector racks seemed to stay on the jets through the Linbacker campaign from pictures I have seen. That is a statement open to a lot of comment I know because many of you reading this may have been flying these missions. We welcome your comments. The TERs could carry Mk 82 500 pound bombs and I have seen a lot of photos with Navy Phantoms carrying such a load.
The Marine Corps carried some real asymmetric loads. You would see everything from Mk 82s to Napalm on a Marine Phantom. The Mk 20 Rockeyes were also being carried. If I was going to put weapons in the F-4J kit, I would have 4 AIM-7 Sparrows, 4 AIM-9G Sidewinders, 6 Mk-82 500 pound bombs, 6 Mk 20 Rockeye cluster bombs and the three external tanks they could carry for missions over North and South Vietnam.
There are some great markings you could include in the kit. Mark Waki has a great digital painting of Randy Cunningham and Willie Driscoll’s “Showtime 100” which he painted after interviewing Congressman Cunningham. Jim Laurier did the artwork for the Osprey book on Navy MiG Killers. If you actually take the time to get a magnifying glass out, you can see the detail these paintings have even from the pages of the MiG Killer book.
I would like to see VF-96, VF-92, and VF-31 MiG killer jets. There were many colorful Marine F-4Js such as Lee Lassiter’s “Trip Trey” Shamrock jet or the Deathrattlers from VFMA-323 or The Warlords of VFMA-451 would be great markings for the F-4J.
We all hope to see these quarter scale Phantom series jets from Eduard soon.
I’m a dot!
One Comment
Sluggo
The USN-USMC F-4 legacy walks through several models of “A’s” and “J’s” all of which explored many variations of improved EW systems, radars, weapons, racks, aero-enhancements, a slew of engines, and several significant cockpit mods. The most notable differences from the USAF models (C/D/E/F) was that the Navy - Marine jets all used the refuel drogue-probe system, higher pressure tires for shipboard ops, no internal gun, intergrated & internal EW suite, and no control stick in the back-seat as well as no gun-camera in the system. The USN was determined after the “Doughnut” and “Drill” exploitation programs that conincided with the creation of TOPGUN that they would beat the MiG-17 and MiG-21 in a close in fight even without a gun onboard. The gun was just too hard to get into the carrier Phantoms and Navy gun-pods (made by Hughes) were a joke as compared to the USAF GE pods.
That pushed the Navy to deal with improved Sidewinders and this saw the creation of the cooling bottles in the AERO-7 rails and the beginning of off-boresight acquisition heads in the AIM-9G/H and eventually the great L while the USAF still worked with the P/N versions that were mechanized ass-backwards.
And now the most important factor - the introduction of the VTAS helmet sighting system for the Block 56 F-4J models and the upgraded F-4N variant from the F-4B. VTAS was heavy and difficult but had features that are still not in the helmets we have today at the state-of-the-art.
The F-4 with off-boresight and vastly enhanced envelope of the AIM-9’s (G/H/L) together with the improved AIM-7E-II so called dogfight Sparrow and merged with the VTAS - WOW - that may have been the supreme fighter of the Vietnam war short of the introduction of the F-14A, F-15A, and prototype F-16’s. There is a myth about the effcetiveness of the Pulse only APQ systems and the Pulse Doppler APG systems - and in fact the un-reliable nature of the PD systems and the versatility and hard-reliability of the Pulse systems may have made the opposite the truth - pluse the PVI-factors of seraching in Velocity versus range really became a problem in ops under 20 mile separation.
In the “Have Idea” program the Marine F-4N’s from VMFA-323 won out after a competition that spanned the entire inventory of Navy and USMC fighter squadrons. We were to take on the MiG-21’s for the first time and the rules were all based on survival with no ACMI to verify and no gun cameras, the Bogey pilots had to confirm the kill and we had to have a definate “tone” inside of 60 degrees angles off carying a mix of off-boresight G and development L missiles, all other shots were informational only. And the full deck was 500 feet AGL with only a TOT to set up the engagements.
The F-4N had a fascinating integration with the APG-79 and VTAS. My pilot, “Shadow”, liked to be the “lead” in a section that included “Jumper” who liked to be the first to engage after we would seek to set up a very high speed “hot-side” dust off of the lead Bogey (we had to establish visual ID) forcing or coaxing him to turn on us hence “Jumper” trailing” would get a clear tail-on shot if all went well, if not we were in a good position to bug out. These intercepts went at 600 knots plus so fuel was critical and the section that got first sight usually got the first clear shot and KILL. 323 Squadron was a master a high speed “Hook” tactics that enabled the VID - and hence in the Vietnam war, the USAF excelled in the electrical ID program and lagged a lot in better missiles, but Olds, Steve Richie and a few others got their kills with better “heads up” calls. The Navy tried but most kills were a result of being jumped.
At medium altitude a “Hook” could consume 15,000 ft of vertical separation in the closing seconds of the first VID pass, at low altitude the vertical separation moves more and more to trail setups and the loss of mutual support is made up for by the enormous speed of 600 to 700 knots. The F-4N was lighter and hotter then any B or J and clean with just missiles could spark to 600 knots very quickly.
What I would do for Greg and the section was to use the Ground Map 120NM scale and mode that threw the radar into High PRF. As we came up the ridge lines from Tonopoh towards the site there were great flat rocky valleys amd high ridge lines. The Have vehicles ususally came down the ridge lines knowing that the Pulse radars in basic track mode (med PRF) could not “see” through the clutter. They stay right in the lowest part of the ridge lines just on the crack with the flat terrain. For the MiG pilots they could stay low and also look out - hoping to see a smoking Phantom - which we did not and did not even less in A/B. They had minimal help from range control flight following but no direct GCI.
I knew they would be at 40 to 60 miles coming out of the sight, Shadow and Jumper were organizing the dash with Jumper dropping back and Greg full into A/B going for brok holding about 500 ft above the ground so Jumper could be masked behind and Jumper could correlate my calls from our aircraft. We had Air-to-air tacan ion 64 channels toget interflight DME, the aux radio up for an ADF cut anytime it would be needed, and the N would allow me to be in a quiet mode with Greg in hot-mike so I would always know what he was doing and saying and the N had the backseat cut out remarkably clear on both sides of the front seat so i could see the instruments and most importantly the fuel gauge - or pop Greg on the helmet. In the back I had much of the Block 46 J controls and display upgrades.
By lowering the altitude line in 120NM scale to around 40 to 50 miles I could start to massage the ground return down in range until I picked up something right in the altitude line, a spark blip of the aluminum MiG I could not lock up but I was getting a hit and I always had range and asimuth. Now the VTAS had a reverse mode and the F-4 had a manual Sparrow mode that was an ECCM fix but it really helped here. I would make a synthethetic manual lock and position the range strobe right over the MiG blip as if I had a full system lock.
Now Greg would switch to VTAS, radar (sparrow), and start looking down the aziulth on the Gunsight (no HUD in the F-4) and on the front radar display until the VTAS lock light went on in his combining glass over his right eye. Guess what - right behind that dot was the MiG-21 in question and the bogies usually were flying in trail also.
Well Greg would maneuver to get the MiG passing left to left, stabilize drift then pull his nose in front for a hot side pass across the MiG’s nose so he would react - but we were usually at 700 knots. Later on the MiG’s realized that if we aree at 700 knots the get back around time was a lot, so they would simply press for the shooter in trail. We then slowed to 550 knots and then they bit the trap not seeing Jumper very low shielded by us.
Since we actually saw the MiG’s regularly before they ever saw the Phantoms we skewed the Have data and actually were the first crews to ever get kills on the first sortie against the vehicles.
So you can see there was some innovation and remarkable efforts being made.
Ski