F-4 Question

F-4Fs had slatted wings. F-4EJs did not have slatted wings. F-4Es started out with the unslatted wings, but slats were added during production and retrofitted to early ones that didn't have them originally.

Dave

The first batches of F-4Es had the hard wing. Later batches were built with the slatted wing which was retrofitted to the earlier ones. Check photographs to be certain. I believe that all the F-4Es which served in Vietnam had the hard wing.

F-4EJs all had the hard wing. Consideration was given to retrofitting the slatted wing as part of the F-4EJ-Kai programme, but it never came about.

F-4Fs all had the slatted wing. However, it is important to note that they didn't have the slatted tailplane. (Confused? You will be! ;-) )

F-4Gs (the Wild Weasel version) were converted from slatted F-4Es.

The US Navy also had the F-4S which was an upgraded F-4J with a slatted wing fitted.

"Enzo Matrix" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Thanks for that Enzo. I feel so much better now... (c:

RobG

Just be thankful the OP didn't ask about slats and strengthening plates on tailplanes! ;-)

"Enzo Matrix" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Well... now THAT makes me curious.

What´s about them?

That lets later schemes into consideration. :)

Some pretty wild paint schemes there if I can figure a way to modify the wings.

Uh, did F-4Es wear slatted tailplanes?

Oops, forgot that one.

slatted wing fitted.

Thanks, I wasn't too worried about the non-gun nose variants but the info is worth remembering.

So, what is this all about? Revell makes some 1/100 aviation snappers that come pre-painted for the Thunderbirds. Nice, but then they insist on adding fuel tanks and Sidewinders to the underside of the model. I bought one at Michael's with a coupon, stripped the paint and am planning to re-paint it as something attractive but less flashy (and armed). The wing slats are moulded open on the outer segments.

Hmm, that brings up another slats question: Would the plane ever be in the configuration of only the outer slats deployed?

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Modifying a slat wing back to the earlier hard wing shouldn't be too difficult. Where the difficulties arise is in the modification to an F-4EJ-Kai. The Kai has a number of odd ECM bulges on the wingtips (and fin tip) that are completely different from the ECM bulges on later model F-4Es.

Yes, right from the earliest batches..

Why not try something not very flashy, but quite spectacular - even if it is a "what-if" scheme. Suppose that the Swedish Air Force had decided to supplement their Draken air-defence fleet while awaiting delivery of the Jaktviggen. They could have taken advantage of the German order for F-4Fs by adding an order for 30 of their own. It would be enough to equip two units while keeping unit costs down for both themselves and the Germans. And an F-4 in Viggen-style splinter camouflage would look absolutely stunning.

The best person to ask about that would be Scott Wilson. However, I have only ever seen pictures of aircraft with slats deployed on the ground when they were undergoing maintenance. I believe that the inner slats were deployed for take-off and landing, while the outer slats were for maneuvering. However, Soct should be able to provide a definitive answer to that.

There were/are at least six different styles of tailplane used on F-4s.

The original style had a hard leading edge and no strengthening plates. Later on, various models had leading edge slats fitted. Other variants had triangular strengthening plates fitted. Some variants had both. A good rule of thumb is that US Navy jets didn't carry the strengthening plates, while USAF jets did. Slatted tails (with or without strengthening plates) were fitted to aircraft built after 1966 and retrofitted to F-4Bs (but not F-4Cs and F-4Ds). The British versions were essentially anglicised F-4Js, but their tailplanes had a shallower anhedral. The FG.1 (aka F-4K) had a slatted tail while the FGR.2 (aka F-4M) had a hard tail.

As always, it pays to check references before building a model. There were always confusing exceptions - especially where USMC RF-4Bs were concerned. Built with hard, unstrengthened tailplanes, they eventually had slatted, unstrengthened tailplanes fitted. Since then, a number of them have carried F-4E-style slatted, strengthened tailplanes. But the RF-4Bs were always a problem for modellers. Some of them even had F-4J-style thick wings and later RF-4C-style noses...

Now... shall we talk about fin tips? ;-) There were at least seven different styles!

On 26-Oct-2007, "Enzo Matrix" wrote:

Actually the stabilators were slotted, not slatted. A slat is a leading edge device that pops out away from the leading edge of the wing or rotates leading edge down, creating slots in which airflow can be redirected from underneath the wing to flow over the top of the wing and not separate from the upper wing surface at higher angles of attack than a non-slatted wing would be capable of. F-4 inboard slats pop out and rotate leading edge down, while the outboard slats merely rotate leading edge down. The slat's rotation of the leading edge down effectively increases the camber of the wing, further increasing lift. The slots on the stabilators didn't move, and functioned to divert the airflow from the top to under the stabilator so it didn't separate from the undersides of the surfaces of the stab at high negative (nose up) angles of attack. F-4 leading edge slats were set to extend when the flaps were selected down, and with the landing gear and flaps raised would extend at a certain angle of attack (don't recall the numbers, sorry) and retract at a few degrees less AOA. The differences between the extension AOA and retraction AOA were to prevent the slats from "chattering" as they would do if the extension and retraction AOA was the same and the jet was maintaining that AOA. All of the slats moved together, at the same time. As I said, the slat panels outboard the wingfold would just pivot leading edge down, they didn't actually pop out away from the wing like the inboard slats did. The trailing edge of the outboard slat would pop up to even with the top of the wing fence. The slats moved very quickly, in-to-out or out-to-in taking about one second. Many if not almost all F-4Es and Gs I saw had stripes painted at the aft edge of the slat on the wing to show you where not to have your toes if the slats moved. To better answer one of the questions posed here, you would never see a jet parked with just the slats out, but the flaps raised. Nor would you see a jet parked with the flaps down and the slats retracted, though that was technically possible as there was a "slats override" switch in the front cockpit. During pre-taxi control checks the slats override switch was checked, so if you REALLY want to do a model that way, you could pose your jet with the slats in and flaps down, so long as you have a crew chief in front of the jet monitoring the checks and a ground power unit next to the jet (used for starting the engines). In five years of working on F-4Es, I saw the slats override switch used for other than checks only once. We were TDY to Decimommannu and one of our F-4Es broke a slat actuator mount during a dogfight. The jet was ferried back to Ramstein with the slats override switch set to keep the slats from deploying. I suppose you could also claim you were modeling a jet being ferried with a slats problem if you want flaps down and slats retracted, but it was not a normal situation. As far as the wedge-shaped reinforcements found on many USAF-version stabilators, it seemed to me they were scabbed on stabs somewhat randomly. Some jets I worked on didn't have any, while others in the same unit at the same time had them on top, others had them on the bottom, and a few jets had them on both top and bottom of their stabs. Left and right halves always matched though. Stabilators were frequently changed, so if your photo shows a jet without the wedges, it's very possible that within a few weeks or months the jet might have a new stab installed that did have them. Personally, I never lose sleep over whether a model has them or not. By the way, I have no idea why the Navy didn't use those reinforcements. While I'm thinking about it, I should also point out that F-4Ns had slotted stabs too. One other point I think that might be important to some modelers is that the outboard wing panels have quite different access panel lines compared to the non-slatted outer wing. Most model companies get the outboard slatted wing panel lines completely wrong (for example, Hasegawa's 1/48 F-4E, F, G, and S) or partially wrong (Revell's newer 1/32 F-4E or F comes to mind, which Cutting Edge copied mistakes and all for their Tamiya conversion). I've also never yet seen an F-4 model that got the wing fence right either. It sits in a narrow slot at the inboard end of the outboard slat. I keep hoping Tamiya will re-do their 1/32 F-4E or F-4J to a slatted version, because I think they might actually get it right. I've got a bunch of detail photos I shot of the tops of F-4E and F-4F outboard wings that shows this and the panel lines pretty clearly. If anyone wants me to post them let me know. Enzo mentioned variations in fin caps. I thought I'd add that the RHAW American-football-shaped antenna at the back of the fincap on F-4Es was meant for the APS-107 RHAW system that ended up being deleted early in the F-4E program and replaced with a much better system. When I worked on F-4Es from 1982 to 1986 those pods were empty. When we replaced a fincap (which happened often, they were fiberglass and eroded quickly from rain) we would use whatever was in stock, fincaps either with or without the pod. I have two photos of one 526TFS 68-model F-4E that I took within a year of each other that shows the airplane with and without the pod. That's another thing I don't worry about on F-4E models, unless it is an ARN-101 bird. For whatever reason, I never ever saw an Arnie bird with the RHAW pod on the fincap. I never got to work on any Arnie F-4Es so I don't know what was inside the fincap that made the difference. Scott Wilson

149 TFG, Kelly AFB, Texas ANG (F-4C) 1980-1982 35 CRS, George AFB, CA (F-4E) 1982-83 526 TFS/AMU, Ramstein AB, Germany (F-4E) 1983-86

Now, yassee, that's just the sort of gem that forums like rms provide. Thanks, Scott!

It doesn't get any more definitive than that!

Great info Scott, thanks, Curt KVPS

Thank you both. It's this kind of info that attracted me here 10 years ago.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.