The Lead Sled by cschell
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Description
The F4 Phantom was a good aircraft in it's time but early versions had a few peculiarities that needed to be sorted out. Here I've depicted a pair of Navy F4B's rolling out of a holding pattern to go "in country" on a raid. The Navy F4B differed from the Air force version in that it had a significantly shortened nose cone to facilitate lifting on Carrier elevators (The Air Force received the F4C which was effectively identical to the F4B but with a longer nose and different electronics).
The early J-79 engines provided for the Phantom were very powerful, but the re-burners generated large smoke trails at mid-throttle/cruise settings making it easy to spot the aircraft in flight. This was later solved by upgrading the engines with a smokeless combustor which cleanly burned fuel in the exhaust.
The F4 also had an unusual flight controls set-up, instead of Ailerons to control the roll of the A/C the F4 had a combination of Flaperons (Ailerons that had a down only position and could be combined with the flaps for extra lift with heavy loads) and upper wing surface Spoilers. During certain types of ACM the Spoilers would be rendered ineffective due to angle of attack and it became necessary to do a Rudder Roll instead, how-ever this meant that the aircraft suffered from adverse yaw during hard maneuvering. Eventually the F4 was re-fitted with leading edge slats to help improve maneuverability and handling at high angles of attack. The Phantom also had one of the first Boundary Air Layer control systems to aid in low speed flight handling.
Until the F4E, the Phantom also had no internal gun, and instead had to mount an external gun pod (doctrine at the time had held that in supersonic combat a gun would be unnecessary). When the heat-seeking and radar guided missiles of the day were found to be less than stellar in combat, the Phantom began carrying the SUU-16 and then the SUU-23 20mm Gun Pods. Unfortunately these guns were rendered less than accurate on early aircraft due to the lack of a lead-computing gun sight (this was somewhat improved when the SUU-23 was equipped with the needed gun sights).
Despite early teething problems the Phantom was said to have been very responsive and easy to fly even at the edge of its flight envelope. It also held numerous world records including the world speed record and a zoom climb record (amongst others). It could carry 18,000lbs of external stores, double the load of a WW2 B-17, and had numerous upgrades and improvements made during it's service life.
The F4B was accepted by the Navy in 1961, and by the Air Force in 1963. Phantoms remain in service in many countries to this day, but were officially retired from US production in 1979, and from service with US Forces in 1996, after over 30 years of continuous combat service. A number of F4's have remained in service converted to use as remote target drones...
F4B Phantom II and weapons modeled by me
Rendered in DS 2.3
Comments (14)
ironsoul
Excellent model.
cschell
Thanks! :)
CATMANDO
Excellent work with the exhaust....
cschell
Thanks! It took a lot of tweaking and re-rendering to get it set up to my satisfaction...
Kratoonz
Wow this is great.
cschell
Thanks!
thomllama
nice, what program modeled in? really nice!
cschell
All the modelling was done in Hexagon along with assigning material zones. Uv maps and texture templates were created in UVMapper Pro, with the actual textures painted in PhotoImpressions 4. The model was rigged using DAZ's Figure Set-up Tools in Daz Studio to create Poser-compatible rigging and Cr2's.
bebopdlx
I used to crew one for a time, we called them "trucks". Nice work.
cschell
Thanks! I know they had a number of nick-names, I'm guessing "Trucks" because they were effectively flying dump-trucks?
bob4artist
Excellent. I remember these taking off and landing on a carrier. Really good modeling. - Bob
cschell
Thank-you!
steelrazer
Excellent looking render! Great modeling too.
cschell
Thanks Steelrazor... I'm glad you like it! :)
AliceFromLake
I am not the opinion with the shorter nose of F-4B compared to F-4C, but the picture and the modeling are very fine. Good job. ;-)
cschell
Thanks! As for the differences.... The wing profile was thicker on the F4C to accommodate the thicker soft tires required by the Air Force. The F4C Cockpit had a different layout than the F4B with dual controls for both seats. The Radar set in the F4C was a different version as well which required a somewhat larger Radome to house. Under the nose Radome, the C variant had an extended blister to house the I/R equipment needed for the intended Ground Attack roll the F4C was expected to fill. And the C had the Chute Receiver in the spine rear of the cockpits for the Boom-and-Chute refueling system used by the Air Force, rather than the right side extendable Refueling Probe for the Navy's Drogue-and-Probe refueling system. Initially the Air Force "borrowed" several F4B's to use for trials before deciding to adopt the Phantom for its service. The Navy Officially received the F4B, while the Air Force received the F4C (the F4B needed enough modification for Air Force duty that it received it's own variant designation).
CarWash-the-Cat
Very cool model, very cool render
cschell
Thank-you!
giulband
Great render work !
cschell
Thanks!
JC_744
Beautiful render (right down to the black smoke on those J-79s!) and great job on the description. Thank you. Now I want to go home and fly one on FSX!..
cschell
I'm glad you like it! :)
cvrad
Excellent work my friend i remember them being refereed to as "Flying Bricks" and proof of the theory if you put big enough engines on anything it can fly! But I still think they had a very ominous front profile especially when fully loader they just looked like something you didn't want to ses heading your way if you were the enemy. As always excellent work on the details.
cschell
Thanks Cvrad! The Phantom was a beast of an A/C and I sure as heck wouldn't wanna have one sent at me in anger!
Greywolf44
Butt-ugly, smoke-belching barn door!!! But when they are fully loaded like these two puppies, they make for one "MEAN" lookin' airplane (LOL). Great job with the presentation and with the render, Chris.
cschell
Lol definitely... and despite that butt-ugly they're still a beautiful aircraft to those who love them :)