SgtPappy

I know everyone working with or for ED has their priorities... but this would be super awesome and immersive.

I'm hoping for the F-4J for a Navy variant because a hard-wing Phantom will give us a little different flavour than the slatted E we are getting first. Also, the J saw combat while the superior BFM F-4S did not and only really showed up in the early 80s. As cool as the S is, I think a late J would bring more history and variety than an S. This would make the slatted E the turn fighter and the J the vertical fighter while they'd still be somewhat similar in performance.

I think a lot of people have addressed this already but I'd also like to point out that even if less than half the Israeli and Iranian claims are to be believed, they still scored more kills in the F-4E than the USAF did in Vietnam. They also fired more AGM-65's and possibly destroyed more ground targets with them. I can empathize with Vietnam being the most popular and favourite among the DCS crowd, so I get it. But I think it's important to remember that the Vietnam War was not the only, and arguably not necessarily the most important conflict from several metrics for every history buff on these forums. I think the Marianas could *maybe* work even if you take off and pretend you're in a USAF Thailand base but the immersion sort of breaks down once you see water everywhere. I think we'll have to wait and hope that there will be a practical way of simulating trees that block LoS while also allowing munitions through.

Yeah I think I've read every publication I could find but understandably, none go into detail on what was done after the first few days of that war to get the Phantoms to detect SA-6 signals. I'm still making my way through "Ghosts of Atonement" which outlines every F-4 sortie thus unearthed in the Yom Kippur War and they've implied several times that the SA-6 lock on signal was detectable after a few days but not much is stated on how. I wonder if by the time the US emergency Nickel Grass jets arrived if they had already been modified or if they were modified when arriving in Israel. Lots of questions, but hopefully one day, I'll find more info.

Your ego is writing (virtual) cheques your (virtual) body can't cash!

From what I remember this is more true for the hard-wing F-4. From the plots, the slatted Phantom has a better maximum sustained turn rate even against a MiG-21 using emergency burner. However if the Phantom slows down under, say ~350 KIAS, the MiG has a better sustained rate and the gap increases as the Phantom slows. The top speeds (more specifically the 1G flight envelopes) appear to be close since the slats add some drag. The F-4E has a higher speed limit to 36,000' but the MiG-21 can fly higher. With all 8 missiles, I suspect the Phantom might be a hair slower or just about the same all the way up to 36,000' than a MiG with 4xR-60s or 4xR-3s (the more historically accurate loadout for the early 1970s). I don't know if the MiG-21bis in DCS can fly past that temperature limit line though... if so it would be faster up high where the F-4E with slats can't climb to. Note that the hard-wing F-4E does not have this disadvantage. Instantaneous turn rate is in favour of the MiG by a decent but not crazy amount, IMO. Below is a graph I made a long time ago based on manual data, interpolated where applicable: Maybe I'll eventually make an overlay but here are the plots form the Russian MiG-21bis manual and the 1979 TO 1F-4E-1:

Thanks! Did you have any restrictions on the AIM-9's used on the Phantoms you flew? IIRC the UK used the AIM-9D/G right?

Being the expert that you are in munitions, I noticed that the TO 1F-4E-1 states that the max symmetric G's you can pull while carrying AIM-9E/J is only 6.5 G. But the missiles definitely pull way more than that in flight. Do you know why this is so low? Is it an issue with the pylons or is 6.5 G the max G you can pull while firing the missile (since the max G load to fire does not seem to be stated in the -1)? I'm hoping I didn't miss something in the manual.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Wing and aircraft design are indeed relevant when we engineers determine (at least on paper) how an aircraft will perform. I suppose you are actually saying why we don't need aircraft-specific parameters in the formula? The calculations I provided don't require parameters like CL, CD etc because they are saying that: "given that an aircraft can pull n G's at speed v, what is its turn radius?" That is, the formulas are just basic kinematic formulas that work on anything that is turning. It assumes that the values you plugged in can be achieved by whatever aircraft/car/boat/thing you are calculating it for. Yes, this is correct.

Need more 3rd TFW liveries! My parents' home country never flew Phantoms, but they certainly hosted them... This one without TISEO matches our first DCS F-4E perfectly.

It was an Eagle driver who said during his presentation on YouTube that it wasn't a question of if a single seat was better, it was if a single seat could be good enough. It was understood that a second set of eyes with whom the pilot works well is way better than just 1 person.

There is none yet. Trust me, if there was one, it would be broadcast to the heavens.

Turn rate in radians/s = [g*(n2 - 1)1/2]/v where g = acceleration due to gravity (9.81 m/s2), n = load factor in G's, v is true airspeed (in m/s if you are using g = 9.81 m/s2). Of course you can do other units too but make sure they are consistent. You can convert in deg/s by multiplying your answer by 180/pi (i.e. deg/s = (180/pi)*[g*(n2 - 1)1/2]/v). Turn radius assuming a circular turn (which it would be in a perfectly sustained, constant angular velocity turn) is r = v2/(g*(n2 - 1)1/2). I believe the Phantom graphs actually have the formula on it in Imperial units which you can use for any other graph.

The Ps and T/W advantages clearly help the Lightning here. However, I noticed that the Lightning charts show a climb at Mach = 0.87 past ~15,000 ft, so I subtracted the time to 15,000 ft and checked the time from there to 30,000 ft showing about 42 sec, standard ICAO day. Doing the same thing with the F-4E at full fuel gave me a very rough, spitball check of about 45 sec ± a few seconds since I'm essentially guessing lines from a fuzzy graph. So it appears they have a very similar climb, but maybe I'm missing something because evidence suggests the Lightning should be even better... although I did notice it has a 700 KIAS limit to 36,000 ft so the Phantom has a higher limit up until 36,000 ft where their speed limits intercept. All in all, they seem pretty darn close.

For 1. see here (report from 1972): https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD0904287 For 2. Ok this is going to be a lot of data, so if anyone has any corrections, please let me know. I've seen multiple charts, some of them without much context so I may be missing some things. See the MiG-21bis performance chart here from a German manual that I have (7500 kg, 2x R-3S. Right is special afterburner, left is regular afterburner.). I also have a Russian manual that says the has the same plots but the language barrier has stopped me from delving deep into them. Note that there's another plot which I think is a very light MiG-21bis that's sustaining ~8.4 G at Mach 0.95 or so which seems incredible but I don't know where it's from. Thread is here: Comparing this to the plots in the TO 1F-4E-1, the slatted F-4E appears to have a noticeable advantage at what I believe is 60% fuel and 4xAIM-7E's (42,777 lbs) - see figure A9-97 on digital page 446. The following chart is on page 1 of this thread as well. I recommend you download the manual if you don't have it already: http://aviationarchives.blogspot.com/2015/09/f-4e-flight-manual-complete.html Turn rates for the Mirage III and F-106 is a little tricky. See the plots I have below which I believe are instantaneous G's (I don't think they can be sustained rates, because they'd be way better than the F-15A/C sustained rates per TO 1F-15A-1). Mirage IIIE: https://imgur.com/a/ohoRApq F-106A, 7700 lbs fuel: https://imgur.com/a/xsv32hB The closest analogue I have in my notes for the sustained rates of these jets is this J35 Draken which is of somewhat similar delta configuration (yes I know the intakes are weird) and has a similar T/W and wing loading. See that page below. Again take this with a grain of salt as I don't have the whole manual so I could be missing context, but if it's any indicator of the sustained rates of the Mirage IIIC, E or F-106, the F-4E is also a decent amount better. https://imgur.com/a/pvclj8b Another close analogue could be the clean MiG-21F that was tested by the US which has an almost identical STR to the slatted F-4E at 5000' (you'd have to eye-ball/interpolate the data in the F-4E chart): The F-4E also has a lot of ITR charts but they are all at a very light weight of 37,500 lbs which is drops of fuel. That's why, to get a SL best ITR at a representative weight of 42000 lbs, I used a different chart... see the F-4E max load diagram at SL below. It actually appears to be able to reach 6G at Mach ~0.55 with the F-106A reaching 6G just past Mach ~0.5 at sea level. Very similar ITR! https://imgur.com/a/65ov9WT True for any pilot vs pilot but in a 1v1 BFM fight (like is often the case in DCS), any 4th gen fighter will eat the F-4E for breakfast assuming competent pilots who keep tally on each other. I don't mean to be a downer, but we probably just should be realistic. The F-4E cannot compete with an F-15, let alone a Mirage 2000. So maybe you can clear something up for me. Either I can't read anymore or the plots I have aren't 100% clear but I have some Lightning F6 plots from a manual and my conclusions for time to climb is that the F-4E is quite noticeably superior when I look at the plots, but anecdotes have always said the Lightning was the best on earth: Lightning Mk 6 time to climb: https://imgur.com/a/Hz9dzTH F-4E time to climb with my notes overlaid: https://imgur.com/a/OfF7pmn And below is the Lightning F6 load diagram but I can't tell 100% if it shows sustained or instantaneous loads (like the Mirage III and F-106 charts). On one hand, the 3G line is almost the same Mach at SL compared to the F-106 and any of the lines are only slightly worse than the sustained plots for the F-15. So either the Lightning was very, very good for its time in STR, or it was a little worse than the F-106 in ITR. Both seem possible, but the plot must be one or the other. https://imgur.com/a/JxkkyYM Finally for what it's worth, F-104A pilot Walt Bjorneby's perspective on the F-4 with and without slats: "I was in the 319th FIS flying the F104A; friends of mine were in the 479th TFW flying the C model. I can confirm both outfits did use DACT (loose deuce) and emphasized use of the vertical. 319th was an Air Defense unit and primarily flew in pairs, thus 'loose deuce' was a natural choice. Our A models after mod had the G flap limits; 1.8M or 550KIAS. Thus we could actually out-turn F4s in level flight, that is, until they got the new slats, in which case we went vertical and ran them out of fuel because of the extra drag when their slats extended and they had to use lots of AB to keep their energy up. They got a lower corner velocity; we got the J79-19 engine and a LOT more Ps."

I was exactly the same way. I thought it was awesome but I didn't follow it, and now the F-14A is my favourite module. Now all I can think of is Phantom - day and night!

Yes, I believe the USAF got the idea and started doing this. The Rivet Haste crews were also all "fixed crews".

Don't talk to my girl TISEO like that

Two heads is better than one if they work together well. One of the biggest shortcomings of USAF doctrine in Vietnam was that they used to put different pairs in the cockpit between missions and often the two didn't know how to communicate well. To make matters worse, the guy in back (GIB) was often a pilot waiting to be promoted to the front seat so was unhappy and would often back seat fly. The USN on the other hand, caught this early and at least by the time of Top Gun, if not earlier, paired one guy with another for most if not all missions so they would work together. The RIO was also a dedicated NFO, not a pilot.

The only pictures I've seen of the IFF on the F-4 are the antennas shown on the APQ parabolic dish. I'm sure there's a bunch of hardware hidden elsewhere in the jet. APQ-120 on the F-4E with 4 IFF antennas: APQ-109 on F-4D without antennas for comparison: APQ-109 with 8 antennas:

If you're asking if F-4E's could carry the AIM-9L the answer is yes! First I thought that they might just be place holders for the sake of the trailer but then it would've made sense to use the AIM-9P model instead so you may be on to something??

I'm humbled but you might be mistaking me for GJS! They flew the Phantom in the UK. The APX-80/81 was standard starting with Block 48, per JNelson's comment.

It would be pretty close to the Rivet Haste birds that showed up right at the end of 1972 though right? Except without TISEO. Not sure about the other internals guts/systems.

Some but not all the Rivet Haste F-4E's did indeed have Combat Tree installed when they were flown in combat during the last months of the US involvement in Vietnam. The F-4 production chart also states that the APX-80 was built into a bunch of F-4E blocks but likely deleted for most export planes.