FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1978
1978 - 0867.PDF
illBiiEHI *»• ^M • PHANTOM salesmen have been very successful, but it could be argued that they have had an easy task. This week, just twenty years after the prototype first took off from Lambert Field, St Louis, the 5,000th Phantom was handed over to the customer. On numbers alone, the Phantom is by a wide margin the most successful jet fighter in the western hemisphere and probably in the world, although the MiG-21 is as numerous and production con tinues at a high rate. The Phantom remains a very effective multi-mission machine, and the examples that emerge from the McDonnell Douglas factory this year will be a lot cheaper than newer types. Even so, McDonnell Doug las expects to close the line soon, probably in October this year, although licence production in Japan could continue until 1980. The Phantom II was a private venture. McDonnell engineers, piqued at seeing the Chance Vought Crusader ordered as the US Navy's supersonic fighter in 1953, put together a multi-mission aircraft specification. By mid-1954 they had a full-size mock-up, albeit of a very hypothetical design, which generated much Navy interest. The aircraft was designated F3H-G and its descendancy from the sleek F-101 Voodoo was evident, although it had already acquired some of the bulbous features of today's F-4 Phantom. The design was based on two Wright J65 (licence-built Sapphire) engines and was expected to exceed Mach 1-5 at altitude. Already the company was investigating the possibility of using variable-area intakes to improve this figure. Between November 1954 and July 1955 the McDonnell project team had little time to rest. First, the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) signed a letter of intent for two air craft, specifving the much bigger General Electric J79 engine. Five months later, when development work had already progressed a long way with the BuAer AH-1, the US Navy prepared a fighter specification which brought the McDonnell team back to square one. By July 1955 they had the basic specification of the F4H-1 fighter and McDonnell adopted the name Phantom II. The roman numeral differentiated the aircraft from McDonnell's original jet Phantom, the FH-1, which first flew in 1945. The F-4 has however become such a success that no one but the McDonnell Douglas press office seems inclined to use the official designation any longer. Many of the Phantom's high-risk features were "firsts" that subsequently played a big part in its success. The fat, bulbous fuselage, married to a low wing, looked inefficient compared with the sleek, minimum frontal-area designs of the same era. But the McDonnell team had decided on a variable-area intake—the first ever to be put into pro duction—and they semi-recessed the missile payload into the undersurface. The wing had a broad, flat centre- section, and dihedral was added in the production engin eer's style: by canting the outer wing panels up to 12° on either side, outboard of the folding line which per mitted the aircraft to be lowered on carrier lifts. As if these features were not enough to make the Phantom stand out in a crowd, the one-piece stabiliser was angled down by 23° on each side. This kept it out of the wing wake at high angles of attack, an aerodynamic problem which had produced some severe handling difficulties on many other high-performance aircraft. This layout also provided effective fin area to offset rolling moments caused by the turned-up wingtips at high yaw angles. Even so, the aircraft needed a generous fin area to remain stable at Mach 2-5, its maximum design speed, and the designers chose to increase chord rather than height. Although there were plenty of modifications later, the Heading An RAF Phantom with centreline fuel tank and stores on the inboard pylons
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
