SgtPappy

Did you fly in AF F-4's as well? I agree with you there - I really want mission designers to use those kinds of missiles that actually were used and were available during the 70s: R-3 Atolls, rear-aspect only AIM-9J/P's etc. I think the most popular servers that will only become busier when the Phantom comes out will stick to that mindset too. Usually they also allow the R-60 as well which is technically more of an 80's missile and personally I'd prefer for them to restrict to only Atolls but at least they're making the all-aspect R-60M unavailable. I'm sure if the AIM-9L/M is available for the F-4, it will see a lot more usage in more modern servers the same way the MiG-21bis with all-aspect missiles is used quite often in, say, Blue Flag 80's or even modern. I believe designers prefer to have all weapons available and then restrict at the mission-designer level which might be the better choice for a gaming community.

Do you know if those AWG-10 reliability issues were addressed early enough to have helped during the time the US was in the Vietnam War? Also I found that in the F-4J 1973 SAC pdf, the AN/ASW-25A datalink is listed as one of the systems equipping the F-4Js with BuNos 153071, 153851 and 155529 and up. Hopefully that helps.

This is great to hear. In a pinch it's what I'll do since I only have a single throttle. Did you ever deploy the speed brake in these instances to keep from overspeeding or maybe that wasn't really a problem? Thank you for this great info, makes me feel a lot better about facing the more advanced MiGs in the future. Which aircraft/pilot combinations give you the toughest time?

Some pilots have mentioned that they would put one engine to idle and the other to min burner to minimize the smoke. I would assume if one of the F-4's we're getting smokes, it will be the earlier block Phantom and we'll have to remember to do the same thing if we really want to avoid being detected. Because I'm insane, a part of me hopes they both smoke but it would make sense to have the later one smokeless since that modification came around ~1975 or so.

Interesting. I'm going to see what I can dig up on F-4J mods. I heard the Vietnam War ones had lots of those issues with the radar even though it was more capable when it worked. That said, the argument wasn't whether the F-4J needed features or not - the statement put forth was that the F-4E was apparently a featured-clipped F-4 compared to the J and my question is how? It can't be launched off carriers and has no PD radar. It's a little slower due to the slats. That's all I can think of as a trade-off to all the other stuff the USAF and customers wanted.

Indeed, raw numbers are not enough, but there are also the things I mentioned earlier service records, kills, aircrew who flew them etc. I can't wait for the F-4J as well because that would complete the Vietnam-era Phantom set and heck - landing on carriers is so much fun in DCS. The F-4S sounds cool but I'm not as excited since the J is the Vietnam-era variant and has a PD radar. Just curious, what features were clipped when going to the F-4E? The F-4E added a lot of functionality but I see the J as a complement, not overall superior in features and capability.

Ah of course, the ol' Peanut Butter and Jelly Mitchell! It's still a B-25 variant though, is it not? I'll be sure to check out that book. Most of mine have been technical so far and I think I want to see a bit more memoirs and research on air crew. Apologies, I did not mean to downplay the contribution, but was simply implying from a numbers perspective, the PBJ is less numerous than the B-25 which spanned multiple theatres. The F-4E saw many more operators and was made in larger numbers so the parallelism didn't really apply. But it's neither here nor there, just a minor thing.

The Navy variants are hands-down the prettiest ones! With the big radar noses and smoother lines. That said, the F-4E's we're getting have always been my favourite. I don't think it's the same as starting with a Navy variant B-25 which in comparison was obscure and rare. The F-4E is the most-produced, most ubiquitous version that saw the most combat and produced the most kills and aces. But that's me being nit picky!

I have noticed that the effect of drag of the sidewinders or falcons in the USAF manuals tends to not be a huge driver for the peak STR more so than weight. That said, I did not expect for a light, hard wing F-4J to even compete with a loaded, slatted F-4E but here we see the F-4J has a tiny advantage. Chances are with the 4500 lbs more weight to match the fuel load %, the advantage would go back to the slatted E but by not as much as I had once thought. Do you have a link to these plots? Or do you have more plots to share at a different weight for the F-4J? I've been looking everywhere for the F-4J's performance info. EDIT: Upon further inspection, it appears the F-4J manual shows a higher max. G structural limit (ignoring the AIM-9's) at 8.5 G until Mach = 0.7, linearly decreasing to 6.5 G at Mach = 1.05. The F-4E plot at 42,777 lbs with four sparrows has a 7.5 G limit until Mach 0.7, linearly decreasing to 5.8 G at Mach =1.05. However the relative subsonic performance between the two planes' graphs is nearly identical at SL. Taking some points on the mostly linear sustained acceleration plots, both the slatted F-4E and this F-4J sustain 7 G at a minimum Mach ~=0.77 and 4.2 G at Mach ~=0.5. At higher altitudes and Mach number, the light F-4J starts to come out ahead especially supersonic where the slats are dead weight/drag. It will sustain 6.2 G max at 10 kft at Mach ~=0.94 where the F-4E with more fuel load will sustain 5.8 G at the same altitude at a slightly lower Mach resulting in a very, very small turn rate advantage for the light J here. Said another way, the slats do have quite the effect since the F-4J with 4x4 full missiles needs to be very light with next to no fuel (~25%) to match a slatted F-4E at 60% fuel with four sparrows in sustained turn performance.

Don't think of it as ugly think of it as.. double-ugly! Bad joke, I'll see myself out. But really, your team is going above and beyond to have all this versatility and variety.

This is great to hear. I understand things could change but your feedback is well-received. I remember in the Belsimtek days when this was canceled I was really disappointed for a while. Now bringing back two F-4E's with the exact configurations that I happened to be dreaming of is incredible - with the teaser released on my birthday no less. Should I be concerned that someone from HB might be stalking me?? Back to the discussion now: Does DSCG necessarily mean that TISEO is equipped? I'm reading my copies of the -34-1-1 and -34-1-1-2 and I haven't got too far, but they say that the DSCG equips all TISEO planes and allows the use of TV video (from say the AGM-65's or Pave Knife) but I guess that doesn't necessarily mean that all DSCG birds have TISEO installed.

Yes, the hard wing F-4E data is in 1F-4C-1 which you can find here: http://aviationarchives.blogspot.com/2016/01/f-4cd-and-e-flight-manual-update.html

Awesome stuff. My mom used to tell me about the typhoons and how sometimes she'd play in the small flooded parks with her siblings. Wild weather, and by the sound of it, even wilder flying! I would love to hear more about your DACT experiences there. This is going to be a brand new experience to the DCS community. Can't wait to the GBU-15 for myself.

This is a great story, Vulture. I didn't know you were with the 3rd TFS! Those birds are some of my favourite Phantoms since my parents were born and raised in the Philippines in different parts of Luzon. I think they left for Canada by the time you were dropping those bombs though!

Continuing from the other thread, the F-4J should certainly turn worse than the slatted F-4E. Unfortunately I don't think there are performance charts readily available for it nor the F-4D but I have found a couple of things (hopefully reputable) that should illustrate how much the slats improved things subsonically. The information below comes from a Have Drill summary pdf I found and the F-4D charts below are pretty close to the hard-wing F-4E turn charts in TO 1F-4C-1. The D is a bit better because it's a lot lighter than the F-4E in the TO charts. Because they seem to be pretty close, I'd wager the F-4J (which is aerodynamically similar to the D and weighs similarly to the E) is not far off. See below. F-4D vs MiG-17 at 20,000 ft from Have Drill Summary Hard wing F-4E turn performance Below are turn rate plots (in addition to info from their Vn diagrams for instantaneous turn rates) for the hard wing and slatted F-4E which have been directly taken from the TO manuals and overlaid. The difference in subsonic maneuverability is quite impressive. Note: Based on the weight charts at the top of the TO's, I realized that both hard and slatted wing F-4E charts (with AIM-7's only) have ~60% fuel. Hard vs Slatted wing F-4E overlay

What a wholesome story. Hopefully he won't mind an F-4E for the time being, maybe in Keflavik colours which look a bit more like grey USN jets.

So it appears most of these turn performance graphs do not show the 16 deg. sweep turn rates. Is this because that sweep setting is limited in speed and therefore, 45 deg. is the "normal" maneuver setting? Or is there something I'm missing?

Hey thanks a lot! I think I'll grab these and digest them first. I was most interested in are sustained turn rates at a "combat load" at 16 deg. sweep. What does it say in your 3rd screenshot? I'll try to plug it into google translate in the meantime but I have a feeling you'd be faster than me typing in Cyrillic Also, I looked through my files and turns out I only have 2 screenshots, not the whole manual!

I'm not too sure. It's hard to tell because the MiG-23ML's 16 deg. wing sweep stops abruptly around Mach 0.7. So unless the manual says that is the fastest you can go with 16 deg. sweep, then the MiG-23ML has high potential to be better as speed increases but it's impossible to conclude from just that plot. Do you have an English (or maybe even French) one? I have this manual only in Russian but it's cumbersome to read through and find the right plot so perhaps I have not got there yet. Maybe you can point us in the right direction.

Awesome! Thanks nighthawk! However, something I noticed after cross referencing the above with the source data (I'm pretty sure it's the same data I have) is that the F-4E values are from the SL graphs in the 1F-4E-1 manual while the MiG data is at 1000 m (3028 ft) altitude. The difference between SL and 3 kft performance is pretty small, though, and one can interpolate between plots in the F-4E manual to find the true values which would only drop a little anyway. It doesn't change the conclusion that the MiG-21bis is at a disadvantage against the F-4E in a sustained turn. From the same sources, the F-4E STR data at 10 kft still shows an advantage against the MiG-21bis at 3000 m (9842 ft). And based on the MiG-23ML plot and the accompanying charts, the dashed line really appears to be the Flogger's maximum AoA limit lift line so anything left of that would be unachievable - I suppose then that these values are calculated rather than flight tested, or maybe a combination of both. It sucks that we only get data up to just past Mach 0.7 for the MiG-23's 16 deg. wing sweep configuration because there's a chance that the turn rate drops as speed increases, just like the Tomcat since the wing sweep is starting to run into wave drag issues at low sweep and high subsonic Mach. However, that is speculation and we won't ever know for sure. Another thing I'm not sure of is the F-4E block 35 graphs. The hard wing F-4E plots I have show a significant decrease in STR compared to the slatted F-4E but these ones in your post show a slight advantage. Perhaps it is data extrapolated linearly by simply decreasing the weight from the 1-F4E-1 manual to emulate slatted Block 35 performance? Just to nitpick a bit as well: All F-15C serial numbers are from FY1978 and later so in 1976/77, there would only be F-15A's in actual combat. But that's neither here nor there in the context of this conversation.

Not sure if this is the MiG-23ML graph Gypsy may be getting their conclusion from. But I haven't managed to translate it so I do not fully understand it. It looks like there's a Ps=0 line that crosses what appears to be a CLmax line so I'm not sure how that works. Should I just ignore the Ps=0 line left of the CLmax line since the aircraft should be stalling at that point? If not, then that line shows a non-negligible sustained turn advantage over the circa 1972/73 slatted F-4E. Anyway if anyone can translate or provide context, that would be great. As for the MiG-21bis, yeah it does have a higher T/W and ITR but I personally think the slatted F-4E's sustained turn performance will be a challenge for the MiG. The contemporary for the hard-wing F-4E I think could be the MiG-21MS and the slatted F-4E came out around the same time as the MiG-21bis if we're talking time frame. I'll have to look at the time to climb and acceleration charts in my manual but I don't remember them being massively different over the F-4E. At the end of the day, I guess it depends what mission designers do. Some may prefer time-frames like Vietnam or Yom Kippur Wars with HB's earlier F-4E and rear-aspect only heaters (I'm thinking Alpenwolf or Blue Flag 70s servers) or they might just lump in similar tech level aircraft together in which case the Mirage F1 and MiG-23MLA would be top dogs vs the late F-4E. The MiG-23MLA is I think a 1976/1977 aircraft and the R-60M's are, what, late 70s early 80s however so it's more in line with the F-14A (early) and F-15A in terms of contemporaries. I'd post the slatted F-4E charts but my manual is from the 1980's and it's easy enough to find anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong on my conclusions. The various language barriers for these manuals may have me taking things out of context. MiG-21bis in regular afterburner (left) vs "special" afterburner (right)

I only have this one source after researching as much as I could on the Rivet Haste birds a couple years back. I haven't been able to find the original quoted report in full. I got it from http://www.aviationbanter.com/showthread.php?t=5985 From the summary page of a report titled, "TAC Project 72A-068F: Rivet Haste SEA Intoduction (U) Final Report" dated April 1973 "The introduction team was in place at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, from 12 November 1972 to 12 January 1973. The 20 Rivet Haste aircraft and aircrews were integrated into the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 432d Tactitcal Reconnaissance Wing and consisted of all Block 48 F-4E air superiority aircraft. During this period of introduction, the Rivet Haste aircraft flew 238 combat sorties for a total of 643.6 combat hours..." The 20 jets did NOT show up in one wave. The first increment of 6 Rivet Haste aircraft arrived at Udorn on 20 November...first in-theather flights were flown on 24 November. [note: none of these 6 had APX-81 Combat Tree] Second batch of 6 Rivet haste arrived thusly...5 on 18 December 1972, and number 6 the following day, 19 December (delay was due to radio failure departing George AFB with the others). All 6 jets had Combat Tree. Last batch of 8 arrived at Udorn on 13 January 1973. Only 4 of the 8 had Combat Tree. As stated above, the first combat mission was 24 November 1972. There were ONLY three MiG engagements by Rivet Haste jets. The first was on 22 December by a non-Tree jet, at night , closed to within 4000' but could not get clearance to shoot. Second was a during the day, the MiGs popped in and out of clouds before a shot could be taken. [I infer a VID shot criteria, probably due to numbers/proximity of radar contacts.] The last was also at night, during a tail chase a max range AIM-7 shot was taken...no luck. This was the ONLY missile shot by a Rivet Haste jet.

Korean Phantoms look great. I really like this F-4E grey scheme as its a bit more interesting than other grey planes.

In general, you're right. Most E's did not have them. However, as of November, 1972 under program "Rivet Haste", F-4E's with slats, cockpit ergonomics mods, long gun muzzles and TISEO arrived. Some of them had Combat Tree and these Phantom crews which trained together saw many many sorties, firing the first Mavericks in anger (most sorties were air-to-ground, 600 hrs or 600 sorties or so I forget the number) before the US left in 1973. They encountered MiGs on at least 3 occassions but their Sparrows missed.

I was wondering about this as well. That's a good article that explains exactly what it is too. I've heard F-14's had it at one point as well (maybe they all had it). The F-4E's that arrived in Vietnam in November 1972 were mostly fitted with it in addition to TISEO. HB said they're making an F-4E from that time period but not sure if both those mods I mentioned will make it into the upcoming F-4E's since not all of them from that time period had these systems. If we do get it, I can see the F-4 being pretty powerful since other aircraft of the time period would basically need VID, as far as I'm aware. Do our MiG-21's have one of the transponders that would be vulnerable to this system? I admittedly have not flown it enough to know.