Phantom FGR.2 reinforcement plates

[Giorgio N]

Quick question regarding the reinforcement plates added to the Phantom FGR.2 through their career and the Fujimi kit.

I am aware of the introduction of such plates under the wings and across the fuselage, however I can't remember if these were also carried over to the folding part of the wings...

I ask this because I'm planning a build of the Fujimi kit as an early FGR.2 in the strike role and noticed these plates on the kit parts:

 

 

 

Now these were sure present on the FGR.2s in the '80s but I wonder if they would have been present from the start or are part of the various updating programs. That in modelling terms means, should I leave them in place for an early FGR.2 or should I replace them ?

[Silverkite]

https://www.flickriver.com/photos/39411748@N06/tags/rafphantom/

 

https://i.imgur.com/EqlLUjB.jpg

 

https://www.seekanddestroy.info/uploads/7/3/2/0/73207069/f-4-phantom-400_orig.jpg

 

I don't know if they are visible as I'm scavenging for 70s pictures

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phantom_FGR2_after_landing_accident_at_Naval_Station_Argentia_in_1969.jpg

 

Also I don't want to open a can of worms but plates are showed on his FG drawings, if anything just pretend he is not bashing any kind of kit

 

http://soyuyo.main.jp/f4/f4e-1.html

 

 

Luigi

Edited February 5, 2020 by Silverkite

[Giorgio N]

Thanks for the pictures, I've seen most of these in books and unfortunately it's hard to tell if these plates are there or not.

In the meantime I've checked a few pictures of other variants and found the same plates on the F-4N. Pictures of the F-4C and hard wing F-4E show the upper plates for sure, can't see the lower ones. The F-4S does not seem to have them but IIRC this variant had internal reinforcements. I'm starting to feel that these plates were common on most Phantoms

[Silverkite]

1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

Thanks for the pictures, I've seen most of these in books and unfortunately it's hard to tell if these plates are there or not.

In the meantime I've checked a few pictures of other variants and found the same plates on the F-4N. Pictures of the F-4C and hard wing F-4E show the upper plates for sure, can't see the lower ones. The F-4S does not seem to have them but IIRC this variant had internal reinforcements. I'm starting to feel that these plates were common on most Phantoms

 

Squadron Signal 1065?

Aeroguide 13 shows different wings with straps on both sides

Also Enciclopedia dell'Aviazione I think had some belly and top pictures of them

 

Luigi

[Billy54]

Not sure if any of this will help but, concerning Fujimi Phantom wings the reinforcement plates on the upper wing seems to appear on the British Phantoms, FG.1 and FGR.2, but not on their other issues of their Phantoms. I had a quick look at a Fujimi F-4E and an RF-4B and could see no upper wing r p. Their family of British Phantoms which were issued in larger boxes all appear to have the r p on the upper wings.  

I took a look at some of my books/magazines and from what I found I was unable to determine what is or isn't on the top of Phantom wings, I have to blame my old eyes for that. About the best example I could find was on page 65 of British Phantoms 1966-1978 by Patrick Martin. There is a black and white picture of XV495, taken on August 24th 1974, on the ground after the nose gear collapsed and it does show the top of the right wing and to my old eyes I can see no reinforcement plate and would defer to younger eyes for confirmation. Incidentally Fujimi did issue a Phantom of XV495 after repairs and the upper r p is on the wings from that kit.

 
Could this be an example of which aircraft you are building and when?

[bar side]

Not sure on RAF fit bit there was a brass reinforcing strap set for 1/32 phantom 

 

 

Can’t  get a good link to it now but it included the wing strap too.  I did borrow this for some 1/48 paper templates for my RAF F-4s

[Patrick Martin]

2 hours ago, Billy54 said:

Not sure if any of this will help but, concerning Fujimi Phantom wings the reinforcement plates on the upper wing seems to appear on the British Phantoms, FG.1 and FGR.2, but not on their other issues of their Phantoms. I had a quick look at a Fujimi F-4E and an RF-4B and could see no upper wing r p. Their family of British Phantoms which were issued in larger boxes all appear to have the r p on the upper wings.  

I took a look at some of my books/magazines and from what I found I was unable to determine what is or isn't on the top of Phantom wings, I have to blame my old eyes for that. About the best example I could find was on page 65 of British Phantoms 1966-1978 by Patrick Martin. There is a black and white picture of XV495, taken on August 24th 1974, on the ground after the nose gear collapsed and it does show the top of the right wing and to my old eyes I can see no reinforcement plate and would defer to younger eyes for confirmation. Incidentally Fujimi did issue a Phantom of XV495 after repairs and the upper r p is on the wings from that kit.

 
Could this be an example of which aircraft you are building and when?

The outer wing thing may be due to .....Phantom FGR.2 XV417 from No.29 Squadron was lost on July 23.  The Canadian exchange pilot was pulling 5G while engaging two KLu F-104G Starfighter aircraft when the starboard wing tip folded.  The resulting crash would have a lasting effect on the Phantom fleet.  The cause was traced to a loose bolt securing the outer wing.  After investigation 75 new outer wing sets were manufactured and installed from 1987 onwards to extend Phantom FGR.2 fatigue lives. 

Patrick Martin

[Giorgio N]

16 hours ago, Silverkite said:

 

Squadron Signal 1065?

Aeroguide 13 shows different wings with straps on both sides

Also Enciclopedia dell'Aviazione I think had some belly and top pictures of them

 

Luigi

 

I had checked Aeroguide 13 and yes, the reinforcement plates are clearly visible there but those pictures are more recent.

I also checked Aeroguide 25, dedicated to the F-4J(UK) and plates are there too... but these Js also had the reinforcements under the belly and inner wing panels

The pictures I checked of the other variants are in the Detail & Scale series of books.ò

 

11 hours ago, bar side said:

Not sure on RAF fit bit there was a brass reinforcing strap set for 1/32 phantom

Can’t  get a good link to it now but it included the wing strap too.  I did borrow this for some 1/48 paper templates for my RAF F-4s

 

Those are the straps that were applied below the fuselage and inner wing structure. Are the wing straps the same shape as the ones visible on my kit ? If so then maybe they are related to the same structural modifications

 

13 hours ago, Billy54 said:

Not sure if any of this will help but, concerning Fujimi Phantom wings the reinforcement plates on the upper wing seems to appear on the British Phantoms, FG.1 and FGR.2, but not on their other issues of their Phantoms. I had a quick look at a Fujimi F-4E and an RF-4B and could see no upper wing r p. Their family of British Phantoms which were issued in larger boxes all appear to have the r p on the upper wings.  

I took a look at some of my books/magazines and from what I found I was unable to determine what is or isn't on the top of Phantom wings, I have to blame my old eyes for that. About the best example I could find was on page 65 of British Phantoms 1966-1978 by Patrick Martin. There is a black and white picture of XV495, taken on August 24th 1974, on the ground after the nose gear collapsed and it does show the top of the right wing and to my old eyes I can see no reinforcement plate and would defer to younger eyes for confirmation. Incidentally Fujimi did issue a Phantom of XV495 after repairs and the upper r p is on the wings from that kit.

 
Could this be an example of which aircraft you are building and when?

 

Thanks for checking ! I'm having your same problem, plenty of pictures but it's hard to understand what is or isn't there as these plates are afterall quite thin. Royal Navy FG.1s are often shown with folded wings, so in theory it could be easy to see the detail but on the overall white finish this becomes impossible unless the picture is taken from very close. And of course, mine is an FGR.2..

[Giorgio N]

Ok, an update based on my latest search... finally found a picture showing the undersides of a '70s FGR.2 with a resolution good enoiugh to show such details.. it's of XV483 of 41 Sqn. and the lower reinforcement plates are visible here. Picture is in Bill Gunston's volume on the Phantom in the series "RAF Aircraft Today".

Then I started looking at some FAA Phantoms, for the simple reason that these were more often photographed with folded wings. A line up of aircraft  in 1977 markings showed that plates may have been there. Other pictures of FAA FG.1s showed the plates but these were all aircraft with RWR on the fin... and they also showed areas where the paint had been removed to check for fatigue problems.

And then i found this picture:

 

https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/8582928

 

The lower plates are clearly visible ! This means that if the plates were not in place from the beginning, they were added sometime before 1976, the year when this picture was taken and when 41 Sqn. left the Phantom for the Jaguar

I'm still searching pictures of earlier Phantoms, I've seen some of 700P aircraft where it's hard to understand what is there or not. As said before, the white undersurfaces don't help and many of these pictures are not of the best quality

[Navy Bird]

Perhaps @Tailspin Turtle might be able to help? I believe he has experience with British Phantoms from McDonnell.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[canberra kid]

I think this is the mod in the photo, but no date, but it's Mod 28 so quite early. 

 

 

John

[Navy Bird]

John has complete documentation for every Western Cold War aircraft. Former Soviet spy perhaps?   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Giorgio N]

1 hour ago, canberra kid said:

I think this is the mod in the photo, but no date, but it's Mod 28 so quite early. 

 

John

 

Yes, these are exactly the same plates, great info, thanks a lot !

So these were retrofitted during major servicing if I read the notes correctly. Now if we don't know the date of the introduction of this modification, I'll have to do some guesswork to understand if an aircraft in around 1974 (that would be the timeframe with the kind of markings I'd like to add to the model) would have these or not. Should I not find any hard evidence, I may just leave them in place.

[canberra kid]

21 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

John has complete documentation for every Western Cold War aircraft. Former Soviet spy perhaps?   

 

Cheers,

Bill

ты нашел меня, Билл

ty nashel menya, Bill

John

[Julien]

52 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

John has complete documentation for every Western Cold War aircraft. Former Soviet spy perhaps?   

 

Cheers,

Bill

GRU Bradford Branch  

[Duncan B]

12 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Yes, these are exactly the same plates, great info, thanks a lot !

So these were retrofitted during major servicing if I read the notes correctly. Now if we don't know the date of the introduction of this modification, I'll have to do some guesswork to understand if an aircraft in around 1974 (that would be the timeframe with the kind of markings I'd like to add to the model) would have these or not. Should I not find any hard evidence, I may just leave them in place.

By 1974 it's a fair bet that most of the fleet would have been through Majors by then so I'd leave them in place. As you have already noted the paint had been stripped back to allow regular Dye Pen NDT to be carried out in that area by that stage (and that continued right to the end of service life) so an issue had been identified very early on.

 

As an aside, was Mod 29 to fit the automatic bleed valves on the hydraulic manifold I wonder? There had been losses of F-4s due to the difficulty in bleeding air from the hydraulics and in the early days of the RAF service the systems had to be overfilled then the engines had to be run up to basically spill the excess out. I believe the Squadrons would have a couple of sooties on nightshift just to run each aircraft up before Ops specifically to bleed the systems. 

 

Duncan B

[sloegin57]

54 minutes ago, Duncan B said:

By 1974 it's a fair bet that most of the fleet would have been through Majors by then so I'd leave them in place. As you have already noted the paint had been stripped back to allow regular Dye Pen NDT to be carried out in that area by that stage (and that continued right to the end of service life) so an issue had been identified very early on.

 

Duncan B

I agree with Duncan regarding the timescale.  I have been going through my Phantom photos in order to sort some out to assist Giorgio and the majority, including USAF, USMC and USN aircraft have the small mods as indicated in his photos of the kit parts.  Most were taken mid 70's/early 80's

 

I have also checked my 48th Haze kits and the 72nd Airfix FG.1 kits in the stash.  The former have the early small mod as per the photos but the Airfix kits have the ultimate plate repairs that only appeared in the late 70's early 80's prior to the new build outer mainplanes which, I believe, had thicker skins.  I also have a photo via my nephew of a very early OCU FGR.2 with nothing on the undersurface, i.e. pre-mod

 

I'll load those shots selected as soon as they are resized, watermarked etc

 

Dennis 

[sloegin57]

A couple of points first.

The Mod list that John put up indicates that the initial mod was a fairly low key mod (C/3) but most importantly that it was to be done by CWP (Civilian Works Party) on Major Servicing.  In this instance, civilian technicians at HOSM.  In many cases that I am aware of, aircraft were flown to Brough for a series of modifications, not just the outer mainplanes, and then flown to either 23MU Aldergrove or 32MU St Athans for Major Servicing.  There were a few cases at Brough where Strike had indicated that it wanted the aircraft back, that refurbished and modified outer mainplanes were fitted in lieu of the originals.  This explains the partial serial block appearing on the outer mainplanes when the aircraft serial had already been moved inboard.  As the contract to modify the outer mainplanes did not include repainting - it was not done.  

 

The requirement to carry out repairs and NDI inspections on the undersurface of the outer mainplane was the main cause of having to move the serial block inboard especially when the NDI inspections were promulgated.  One of the following photos will illustrate this admirably.

 

Right - let me see if I can get these into some sort of order.  FGR.2's first.  Might help if I selected the correct reading glasses :-

 

Mod 28 yet to be done

 

Mod 28 appears not to have been done.  Difficult to date this photo buttTwo colour roundels were introduced in 12/70. applied to most in '71.  Pic dated 75ish but I think its around '71/72

 

Although the Mod 28 has been carried out on the outer mainplane, further problems arose on the lower surface in the area of the spars.  Two technicians from 41Sqdn have already applied and removed the red dye penetrant and are about to apply the white developer.  This will wick any red penetrant out and show up as a series of coloured dots on the developer should there be a problem in that area.

 

Again mod 28 has been done but the serial block not yet moved inboard resulting in part of it having to be removed down to bare metal in order that the NDI inspection is most effective. The red dye will penetrate any small cracks over a ten minute period prior to the excess being cleaned off and the developer applied.

 

 

Tremblers "Echo" back home on the day she returned from HOSM having had the PWR and ILS aerial mod carried out.  Note how the installation of the ILS aerials cuts through the upper arm of the Jerusalem Cross resulting in the Cross having to be lowered, not leaving enough room for the red code and Tremblers having to revise their Unit markings by adopting a smaller Yellow code at the front of the fin and same size codes on the ailerons.  Note Mod 28 underwing lit up by the setting sun.  Unfortunately, a few weeks later "Echo" was damaged at Stavangar in a heavy landing ands returned to HOSM for repair.  We never saw it again. 

 

Navy FG.1's

From the Mod list you will see that Mod 28 for the Navy was a higher priority at B/2.  Their aircraft had the same problems as the RAF FGR.2's and FG.1's with cracks developing in exactly the same areas.

 

I shot this on the last day that 892 were at Leuchars and just prior to them going aboard "The Ark"for the last time.

Mod 28 has been done as you can see but to a very slightly different pattern.  And yes - quite a few of 892's aircraft did go aboard fitted with RAF ailerons and tailplanes complete with LAG undersurfaces.  Leuchars painters attempted to correct a few of them but as there was no EDSG at Leuchars most of the tailplanes were painted DSG.  The LAG undersurfaces were left as they were.  Note the different patterns to the areas requiring NDI inspection on '864 and the aircraft next to it.  All in the same area but all having different requirements dependent of previous inspections.

 

    

Yet another pattern.  Mod 28 can be seen

 

 

RAF FG.1's

I have selected one aircraft to illustrate the changes that went on at Leuchars and no doubt throughout the Phantom fleet.

 

Previously 'X' of the PTF, '569 was one of the first ex-RN operated FG.1's to be returned to Leuchars after having the full RN - RAF transfer carried out at HOSM as a trial to confirm man-hours required etc to carry out the task prior to the work on the remainder being done at St Athans.  She was immediately allocated to Tremblers and after acceptance checks carried out in ASF, was coded 'A'.  Note the code 'A' in black on the uppersurface of the ailerons.  This was an error by the Squadron who had assumed that anything facing up should be of a dark colour This was as far as the new markings got as after a fairly high level "discussion", '569 was rapidly transferred to 43Sqdn and coded 'S'.  As a modeller I noted that the vast majority of the ex RN aircraft that were finished in the three colour camo scheme. all bar one had had the pressure roller, masked finish applied as previously applied such as the Vulcan and the SR2 Victors.

Mod 28 had been applied whilst a Navy aircraft but during the transfer servicing the rear portion of the mod had been extended outboard to a position almost at the centre of the roundel.  Not many transfer aircraft had that done

An enlargement of the above showing the extended portion of Mod 28

 

'569 as 'S'/43Sqdn. A position she kept until approximately mid 79. 

 

In mid '79, '569 still as 43Sqdn/S, was transferred to HOSM for upgrade to include PWR and ILS aerials on the fin, internal and external work to carry the SUU gun and also the fitment of one of the massive plate modifications to the undersurface of the outer mainplanes.  In fact, previously-modified outer mainplanes were fitted and the aircrafts original items were so treated in preparation for the next aircraft in.  She was returned to Leuchars still as 43Sqdn'S' in January 1980 but was immediately repainted in 111Sqdn's markings as 'Q'

 

I have attached this shot to illustrate the massive plates that were attached during the strengthening period.  Previously 43Sqdn 'E' '581 had had the modification done at HOSM then flown to St Athans for Major servicing and a respray in the Grey scheme.  I am not sure if any further enlargement the plates occurred as I left the Service the following year.

 

Any Other Service

The following are a selection of photos I have taken over the years and which illustrate the initial modification to various aircraft :-

 

 

 

 

The Squadron did not go to Tyndal - too many Bears in the air

 

And finally - an FY63 F-4C for the "Black Knights from Kef"

also with zilch under the wing

 

HTH and if I have made any typos - let me know tomorrow

 

Dennis

 

•  

 

 

 

 

[iainpeden]

I'm going to have to lie down after that lot - wonderful and I love the AKG51 zap on the roundel of XV414/N.

[canberra kid]

I just wish you'd put a bit more effort in to your replys Dennis. 🙂

 

John

Edited February 8, 2020 by canberra kid
Typo

[Smudge]

@sloegin57 thanks for posting those wonderful photographs, and taking the time to point out and explain the various MOD's

 

Great stuff.

[Giorgio N]

That's great stuff Dennis, thanks for sharing all these pictures and your useful comments !

Pictures that interestingly show. as you mention, slightly different "patterns" of plates used. I compared the Fujimi parts with all the pictures and they look to be the same as seen on XV591. In any case, on my model I will not probably bother changing the shape of the plates. What however I may do is to paint the areas where the crack checks were carried out ! Now would they have been left in natural metal or would they have been repainted after the inspection ?

I should also mention that the kit I'm using is the "old" Fujimi tool, that was later replaced by a modified and improved version. I have the later tool kit in the current Italeri box, will check to see if Fujmi retained the same plates or changed something here.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Giorgio N

[Scimitar F1]

Wow - what a great thread. The true power of Britmodeller

 

I can see a repaint of the stabilator and the ailerons for my soon to be finished RN FG1

[71chally]

Yep, that's what a well thought out and comprehensive post looks like! 

 

Just to be clear in my mind, the top strengthening plates that Giorgio shows were part of the same mod  28 of the underside mods/inspection areas?

Edited February 7, 2020 by 71chally

[sloegin57]

17 minutes ago, 71chally said:

Yep, that's what a well thought out and comprehensive post looks like! 

 

Just to be clear in my mind, the top strengthening plates that Giorgio shows were part of the same mod  28 of the underside mods/inspection areas?

Thank you for the kind comments James.

 

To be absolutely honest I cannot remember any top plates but then it was nearly 40 years ago.  They do not appear on the upper surface on the drawings that John put up BUT I am not going to say that there were none.  I just don't know. Which is why I said nowt.  Leaving them on as they are will not harm the model or its appearance.

 

Sorry

 

Dennis