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Blue Angels Phantom queries


rs2man

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When I manage to beat it into submission , my 1/32 Tamiya F-4J is going to be finished as a Blue Angels aircraft using the CAM Pro decals for the 1969 team .  First off , does anyone know if these aircraft wore the usual stencils ?  I've looked at photos online & it seems to me that they did not , but I could do with confirmation .  Second , a photo I found of the number 1 aircraft from 1969 appears only to have the upper pitot on the fin - is this correct ?  Finally , could anyone comment as to whether the Blues aircraft were likely to be seen with the wings folded ?  I'm toying with the idea of folding them because it reduces the amount of room the model takes up & also avoids the need to correct the excessive dihedral on the outer panels .

 

Any assistance would be much appreciated .

 

John Green

Nantwich , Cheshire

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Hello John,

 

as far as I am aware no "usual" stencils were carried. Blue Angels Phantoms were early F-4Js without radar and with earlier series 8 engines (=F-4B jet pipes and Turkey Feathers). Also the cockpit was the earlier style one. Especially the RIO's cokpit is very much different (tamiya kit represents the late style). Can't really tell about the second pitot head; I think the pipe you are referring to is the artificial feel air intake.

"Tailspinturtle" has an excellent page about Blue Angels Phantoms.

 

Cheers,

Antti

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Blue Angels aircraft carry (then or now) basically zero stencil data.  Just the team markings.  The wings certainly could be folded, but there would be no real reason to do so, since they are only land based and are usually at places with plenty of ramp space. I don't recall ever seeing a photo of a Blues airplane with the wings folded.

Edited by NorthBayKid
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1 hour ago, Julien said:

I have never seen one with the wings folded, que someone now producing a pic!

 

Actually I have seen one of their F-4Js with the wings folded, but it was inside their maintenance hangar at NAS Pensacola back in the 1970s.

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Hello all,

 

having corrected the "off the chart" dihedral of the Tamiya Phantom, I can easily understand why John is thinking of the other option (wings folded). Correct dihedral means that one have to scratch build two spars per wing and there will still be much fitting, filling and sanding. Also Door 111 on outer wing panel is out of shape and far too small. In my example the plastic was very thin at places and I had to re-build the outer wings completely. And they still aren't perfect. If I build another big Phantom I would probably use surplus wings from the Revell kit.

 

Cheers,

Antti

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I know very little about the F-4 era of Blue Angels ops personally, as you know, but have you seen this info on aircraft configuration?

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-short-tragic-operation-of-f-4.html

 

meanwhile you've probably seen these, but in case not... (some overlap in the content)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Work In Progress
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  • 1 month later...

You'll need F-4B engine exhausts as the Blue Angels F-4Js were very early production models and didn't have the J79s installed in most the the F-4Js. As I recall, the team got one example that had the standard F-4J engines.

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Off hand, here are the differences between Blue Angels F-4Js and fleet F-4Js:

 

1.  All but two (replacement for crashed) aircraft had the shorter exhausts of the F-4B engine.  That is also paired with a longer exhaust nozzle shroud on the aft fuselage.

 

2.  Major changes in the cockpits (front and back) to accommodate team-specific requirements.

 

3.  A large VHF antenna stuck to the inside of the aft canopy.  It actually takes up about 1/2 of the clear part of the canopy.

 

4.  A large smoke oil mast hanging down at about a 75 degree angle into the exhaust stream of the left hand engine.

 

5.  Smoke oil tanks that sort of resemble an AIM-7 Sparrow, but that are *not* as is almost universally stated, "converted" AIM-7s.  They were custom built oil tanks containing baffles, a fill valve, and a purge valve (both of which are visible in photos hanging down from the bottom side of the tanks).  The aft tanks had Sparrow-like boilerplate "fins" bolted to them on the sides and bottom, but not on top.  Since the inboard "fins" would have covered part of the yellow arrow marking on the belly, they were not fitted on the forward tanks.  The nose of the tanks was more blunt than a Sparrow nose, and the aft end was almost hemispherical.

 

6.  For the 1969 season only, the aft fuselage was kept in the factory bare metal (later the upper non-titanium portion was painted silver).

 

7.  Also for the 1969 season only, the leading edges of the wings (inboard and outboard) had Corogard (silver) paint on them that covered roughly half the chord of the l/e flaps.  In later seasons, the entire l/e flap was polished metal.  The l/e of the vertical fin always had Corogard on it.

 

8.  The pitot tube (the upper of the two tubes on the l/e of the vertical fin) was there, but the lower one (the ram intake for the rudder feel bellows) was removed.  The team didn't want or need the rudder feel system for their purposes.

 

9.  As very early production F-4Js, they lacked the small ECM bulge below the radome seen on most F-4Js in the fleet.  They also had no other ECM fairings (ex: under the intakes or on the vertical fin t/e).

 

10.  Markings-wise, the BA aircraft carried no maintenance, warning, or safety markings whatsoever.  The only markings carried were the team markings.  In the 1969 season the pilot names were painted in a heavy sans-serif font on both sides of the front canopy rail.

 

 

Edited by NorthBayKid
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On 11/29/2019 at 12:50 PM, silverkite211 said:

You are correct about removing the lower pitot tube located at the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer, it powered the control stick bellows and it interfered with how the stick operated for the type of aerobatic flying being performed.

In the early days of the F-4  the auto stab also had a nasty habit of sudden un-commanded pitch changes (UCM) due to that pitot getting blocked by insects etc at low level (which is where the Blue Angels spent their time displaying at). As dramatic as a sudden pitch down would be for the spectators it's a sure way of ruining the day for the aircrew as some front line ones found out.

 

Duncan B

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