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Phantom FG1 auxiliary air doors


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A little help please...

 

I am building the Airfix FG1 as if in the landing pattern (gear & flaps etc. down) but I cannot find a decent image to show whether the auxiliary doors (on the side and belly) would be open or closed. Any advice, please? 

Edited by brianthemodeller
Correction to thread title
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3 hours ago, brianthemodeller said:

obviously an hour spent perusing t'interweb for pictures of Phantoms wasn't enough!

It takes at least three days as one always gets diverted by pictures of Buccaneers,Scimitars,Javelins and Sea Vixens :D

 

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For those who may be interested...

The Aux Air Doors on the FG.1/FGR.2 were always open below 210 KTS to provide additional air to the engines, above 210 KTS they would close but, would blip open when engine bay pressure reached +10 PSI above atmospheric, their scheduling was via the CADC. J79 engined F-4s were slightly different, firstly and most obviously, no upper aux air doors, just those on the belly, secondly, the aux air doors were controlled by gear selection, U/C down = doors open, U/C up = doors closed. Also, on J79 F-4s, when on the ground, if the engines were shut down or there was a sudden loss of electrical power the doors would literally slam shut, many ground crew have received serious injuries because of this and is why hydraulic ground locks were used.

 

-Daz

Edited by Dazza
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Thanks Daz - you managed to answer the question I was just about to ask! I've always wondered what they were for and how/when they worked.

 

Sadly it means my inflight FGR2 is now inaccurate but I think I can live with it! At least the FG1 will be right...

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Great subject brianthemodeller you cant beat a good F-4 especially a EDSG/W one , and nice technical info from Daz.

Just a couple to help you on your way.

e86bcb30-7feb-4e31-b29b-bfa99be37a55.jpg

 

  f5dc249b-40ac-4125-ae5f-d274114a5703.jpg

 

RR

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9 hours ago, brianthemodeller said:

Sadly it means my inflight FGR2 is now inaccurate but I think I can live with it!

Not necessarily, there are pictures of FG.1s/FGR.2s in flight with these doors open, but guessing at either low airspeed or high power.  It might be unusual but not an unknown.

 

I was told by someone who used to work on them that the upper auxiliary doors were spill air outlets.  Is this then wrong and if they are inlets, how did they feed into the engines?

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3 hours ago, 71chally said:

I was told by someone who used to work on them that the upper auxiliary doors were spill air outlets.  Is this then wrong and if they are inlets, how did they feed into the engines?

Probably my incorrect terminology... makes more sense that they were outlets not inlets. I’ll change the thread title to avoid further confusion!

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18 hours ago, 71chally said:

I was told by someone who used to work on them that the upper auxiliary doors were spill air outlets.  Is this then wrong and if they are inlets, how did they feed into the engines?

There is often some confusion over the function of the Aux Air doors, the following is a summary of the info available from the USAF -1/USN NATOPS/RAF AP101 flight manuals. Put simply, the Aux Air on both J79 and Spey engined F-4s serve the same purpose, they provide additional cooling air at low speed and dump excess engine bay pressure when it exceeds engine bay pressure design limits, the main differences are, as I noted in my previous post, that the Spey engined FG.1/FGR.2 have the additional upper Aux Air doors (also called Ejector Doors) and are scheduled by the CADC, whereas J79 engined F-4s relied on the U/C up or down position. The excess pressure dump function was simply the pressure overcoming the hydraulic pressure of the actuator, once pressure is relieved, the actuator pulls the doors closed again, hope this helps clear things up a little...

 

-Daz

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19 hours ago, 71chally said:

Not necessarily, there are pictures of FG.1s/FGR.2s in flight with these doors open, but guessing at either low airspeed or high power.  It might be unusual but not an unknown.

 

I was told by someone who used to work on them that the upper auxiliary doors were spill air outlets.  Is this then wrong and if they are inlets, how did they feed into the engines?

James ( @71chally ) I hope this helps a bit to explain what's going on? 

pNXc9A.png

pNXSnY.png

 

pNXqbG.png

John

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11 minutes ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

John - that's the best illustration of the inlet ramp function I've ever seen, although I will show the shock waves as straight rather than wavy lines. Thanks very much. Do you have one that shows the cooling air flow to the tail cone above the arresting hook?

I'll take a look Tommy, it could take some finding! As you can guess there is a lot of info to waid through.

John

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11 minutes ago, canberra kid said:

I'll take a look Tommy, it could take some finding! As you can guess there is a lot of info to waid through.

John

Thanks - note that this air comes from the inlet at the base of the leading edge of the vertical fin and appears to exhaust out of two vents just above and abaft of the tail hook.

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Another question about the aircraft.

 

When the aircraft has the missiles that are connected to the underside that have no fins, what is the shade of blue on the device and are there any modelling paints in that particular shade ?

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5 hours ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

John - that's the best illustration of the inlet ramp function I've ever seen, although I will show the shock waves as straight rather than wavy lines. Thanks very much. Do you have one that shows the cooling air flow to the tail cone above the arresting hook?

Tommy, Ron Downey just posted an F4H-1F flight manual in his Aviation Archives blog. There is a drawing that sort of shows the cooling air flow from the tail inlet on page 15 and a J-79 version of the air flow drawing John posted above on page 22.

 

Ben

 

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9 hours ago, Mick4350 said:

Another question about the aircraft.

 

When the aircraft has the missiles that are connected to the underside that have no fins, what is the shade of blue on the device and are there any modelling paints in that particular shade ?

Those "missiles" are drill Sparrows, commonly known as ballast Sparrows.

 

As with all drill weapons, they were painted Oxford blue BS 381C 105. Some paint charts refer to this as roundel blue.

 

Just a case of looking for those shades in the paint range available in your area.

 

 

Rob.

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