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Robert Royes
256 articles

Phantasy Phantoms

March 8, 2016 · in Aviation · · 11 · 3.7K

First Phantasy: The Navy was forced to buy the F-111b, it proved totally useless in squadron service, The F-14 was pushed back even further, Mcdonnell Douglas, stepped in with the VS,and the Navy finally gets a gun for their F-4 . it held the line until the F-14 appeared, it also killed the FA-18 program.

Second Phantasy: The Air Forced decided to further develop a canard/fly by wire version of the F-4. It was needed quickly for then growing crisis in [you pick location].what it did to F-15,F16 programs I let you decide that too.

For the VS F-4 I started out with An early hobbycraft kit of an F-4E . I used an early Airfix Tornado kit for the wings. Kit bash decals.

Canard F-4: It's a first generation hasegawa F-4E. Cut down F-4 stabilarors for the canards and grafted a F16B canopy.

Loaded both out for Bears.

Last shot: The donor kit for VS. I think maybe the wings might have been to small for the actual concept.

P.S. I added the last two pics to show that the concepts were real ideas.

Reader reactions:
3  Awesome

9 additional images. Click to enlarge.


11 responses

  1. Interesting cross kitting

  2. Great fun, why have a lot of imagination if not using it.

  3. Interesting what ifs. The canard equipped Phantom looks great! Well done.

  4. Maybe I should consider something like this the next time I "screw the pooch" on a kit. Blasphemy on the Phantom-lovers, though. lol

    • Both were actual concepts, the variable geometry was proposed in 1966 to replace the F-4J,but was never built. Canards were actually installed on AF serial number 62-12200, it also was used to for research into fly by wire, it started out as F-4B, was prototype for RF-4C,and then the YF-4E.

  5. Nice "wishful thinking" builds! I agree, swing wings look a little puny on that one! Some creative work there.

  6. Nice builds. Always thought the British idea of a swing wing F-4 looked good. Nice to see the concept fleshed out.

  7. Both of those were actual projects presented by McDD. Good work on the cross-kitting.

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