Additional YF-4E 62-12200 Fly-By-Wire Photos

  Some additional photos that I ran across on this very interesting aircraft. With a better overhead shot of it in flight. The last three candid snapshots were taken by me on 6/28/1975 while the bird was on the St. Louis McAir ramp.

For the full story, read my original post here.

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F-15 75-0030 and 81-0036 Walk Around

 From a McAir open house in the early 1980’s come these walk around photos of F-15A-13MC 75-0030 (128/A110) and F-15C 81-0036 (776/C219). Both from 1st Fighter Wing, 71 FS "Ironmen," based at Langley AFB, Virginia.

F-15A-13MC 75-0030 later came “home” to serve with the Missouri Air National Guard at Lambert Field across from the McDonnell Douglas plant in which it was built!

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F-4E Nose Loft Lines

A composite of several sheets defining the nose contours of the F-4E.

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USAF Museum Calendar - 1989

Another calendar that I kept is this USAF Museum one from 1989, with a dozen nice prints of US aircraft. Of course, there is an F-4! Photo credit: USAF.

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Imperial War Museum - London

In July of 1998, I visited the Imperial War museum in London, England. A wonderful place with a V-1, V-2 and many other goodies. Their web site is here. As exhibits change from time to time, it is nice to see a museum at various times thru the decades.

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Mojave Airport - May 1991

  I visited Mojave airport in May of 1991 and took these photos of the aircraft I found there. The F-4’s were there as the start of Flight Systems contract to convert F-4’s to QF-4’s. 

N403FS (c/n 1023) was the former USAF serial number 64-0741. N104NL  is a Lockheed CF-104D Starfighter Mk1 (c/n 583A-5302) of Northern Lights Aircraft Inc. Originally 57-1296, I believe.

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F-4 Phancy Phantoms

A selection of F-4’s in unusual paint schemes. I have always loved the Bicentennial Phantom Scheme! It was an F-4J-27-MC (153088) from VX-4. Also presented is a great article by Robert Simon and Greg Reynolds on some of these aircraft. Enjoy!

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F/A-18 Hornet Strike Fighter Brochure #2

Another F-18 brochure, this one a fancy 23 page offering with a lot of drawings and a nice 3-view of the aircraft.

click here to view brochure

Click here to download the brochure as a PDF

F/A-18 Hornet Strike Fighter Brochure #1

A nice 18 page brochure touting the greatness of the F-18 Hornet. With armament, cockpit and mission capabilities sketches and graphs.

Click here to view brochure

Click here to download the brochure as a PDF

F-18 Hornet F404 Engine Brochure

A brochure put out by General Electric on the F404 Turbofan engine used in the F-18 aircraft.

A bit of background: “In may 1975 the United States Navy selected the McDonnell Douglas / Northrop corporation to develop its F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft, which was powered by two F404-GE-400 engines. The first F404 engine test took place merely 1.5 years later in December 1976. Preliminary flight rating tests took place in May 1978 and the first flight of a F/A-18 powered by the F404 commenced in November 1978. Then, another year later the first production delivery took place in December 1979.” As detailed at DutchOps.com.

 Click here to access the brochure

F-15 FastPack (CFT) USAF Test Report

Jack Abercrombie recounts a brief history of the FastPacks (Fuel and Sensor Tactical Package), commonly known as the Conformal Fuel tanks (CFT), and the result of the first USAF evaluation of the FASTPACK back in 1975.

Click here to view report

F-15 Conformal Fuel Tank (CFT)-Prototype vs Production

  Another submission by Jack Abercrombie on the subtle differences between the prototype and the production CFT’s. These strap on fuel tanks have been called FastPacks, pallet or CFT’s at various stages of their development. As Jack put it: “These attachments illustrate the small differences between the Prototype and Production fuel pallets for the F-15. The images were part of a briefing I delivered to the F-15 DRF test group at Edwards in Feb 1983.”

Aggressor (Iranian) F-14 Photos

Ange Wang made note (See comments below) that this is really an F-14A Tomcat aircraft from the Navy Fighter Weapons School painted to resemble an Iranian F-14 and not an actual Iranian bird.  I thank him for setting this straight! Unfortunately, I still don’t know where I got these photos.

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Spirit of St Louis Replica at MDC and in St. Louis

The Missouri History Museum FAQ has a good description of this replica: “ This plane is a sister ship that was created by the same manufacturer — Ryan Airlines Corporation—a year later than the original Spirit of St. Louis. This plane was modified to match the Spirit’s exact dimensions for the 1957 movie, The Spirit of St. Louis, starring Jimmy Stewart. Oral histories claim that this plane was flown both by Stewart (a decorated WWII pilot) and by Lindbergh, who served as an advisor for the film. Acquired by the Museum in 1962, the plane was displayed at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport for many years until our 2000 addition created a space for it to be installed at the History Museum.The original plane is in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.”

This replica has been in St. Louis a long time. The first three photos show it on the McAir ramp several times. The middle photos show it hanging in The Lambert St. Louis airport terminal on May 22, 1976. The last three photos show it hanging in it’s permanent home inside the Missouri History Museum.

Additional photos in it's present home here

F-4E-67-MC, 78-0741 Walk Around Photos - Part II

The remainder of the photos taken of the Koran F-4E 78-0741taken on the company flight ramp in October 1979. (Korean E-model #34-company #5065). These show the cockpits.

Click here to view photos

Original post here

More A-4 Skyhawk Aggressor Aircraft

Mark Nankivil sent along a few more A-4 Skyhawk Aggressor photos from the Bill Peake collection at the Greater St. Louis Air and Space Museum. These are some attractive and unusual schemes!

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A-4 Skyhawk Aggressor Aircraft

Harry Gann sent me several photos of the A-4 Skyhawk in Aggressor Colors and Markings. Enjoy!

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F-18 Photo Recon Prototype Update

Jack Abercrombie was going thru his MDC reports and found these two fine sketches of the RF-18A moldline and probe changes.

Original RF-18 post here

A very good article from afwing.com on the F/A-18 reconnaissance aircraft along with great photos is here.

Additional info from Wikipedia states:

“F-18(R)

This was a proposed reconnaissance version of the F/A-18A. It included a sensor package that replaced the 20 mm cannon. The first of two prototypes flew in August 1984. Small numbers were produced.^[71]

RF-18D

Proposed two-seat reconnaissance version for the US Marine Corps in the mid-1980s. It was to carry a radar reconnaissance pod. The system was canceled after it was unfunded in 1988. This ability was later realized on the F/A-18D(RC)”

F-15 Prototype Cut Away Drawing

A recent discussion in Secret Projects by “Motorcar”, published this cut away drawing of the F-15 prototype.

As I hadn’t seen it before, I thought that it should be shared. See Secret Projects page for a large drawing.

F-15 Early Configuration Lithographs Part I

I have shown some of these lithos before; but, I thought that it would be nice to put them all together. These illustrate the early F-15 configuration with the short verticals and the ventral fins the same as in the full size mockup below.

Click here to view lithos

Click here to view post on vertical and ventral tail revisions

F-15 Full Scale Mockup Photos

Several photos of the original full scale  F-15 model that was on display in the Bldg 002 “Blue Room”.

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F-15 AN/APG-63 Radar Photos

Early radar photos as installed in F-15A and F-15B aircraft.

Wikipedia has this to say about this radar. “The APG-63 was developed in the early 1970s and has been operational since 1973, and was installed on all F-15A/Bs. In 1979, it received a major upgrade and became the first airborne radar to incorporate a software programmable signal processor (PSP), and the PSP allowed the system to be modified to accommodate new modes and weapons through software reprogramming rather than by hardware retrofit. The APG-63 with PSP is one of the most important features that distinguishes earlier F-15 A/Bs from the F-15 C/Ds fitted with PSP, and with the exception of the final 43 (which are equipped with APG-70), all F-15 C/Ds are equipped with APG-63 with PSP.”

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F-15 Conformal Fuel Tank Literature and Articles

A selection of McAir and Product Support articles about the F-15 CFT’s. The Modularized Fast Pack article courtesy of the Greater St. Louis Air and Space Museum.

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F-15 Conformal Fuel Tank Loft Lines and Fuselage Cuts

A set of Loft Lines and F.S. cuts from 1978. These drawings defined the outer Moldline of the CFT’s.

Click here to view drawings

More F-15 Conformal Fuel Tank Prototype Photos

A few more prototype F-15 Conformal Fuel Tank (CFT) Photos. These were initially known as FAST packs (Fuel And Sensor Tactical).

Click here to see all the prototype photos

My original post on these tanks is here

Missouri Air National Guard F-4

A few photos of a Missouri Air National Guard McDonnell F-4C-25-MC (64-0911) taken at one of The 131st Tactical Fighter Wing’s open houses. Also a CF-101B shot. I spliced together two photos for a better shot of the aircraft.

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McAir Collision Avoidance System - EROS

After several F-4 collisions and near misses in the 1960’s over the McAir test range, McAir developed a collision avoidance system called EROS for it’s aircraft (Think “Zero” instead of an “O”). The Eliminate Range Zero System was built into a Sparrow type body and carried anywhere the Sparrow would fit. While originally built for F-4 use, early F-15’s also used it until the early 1980’s when the FAA developed the TCAS system (Traffic Alert/Collision Avoidance System) and took over the duties. I don’t know how many EROS bodies were built; but, I have seen up to #47 in photos. In with the photos, I have included a Product support article explaining the system and a Tech Manual installation guide from here. While it did a good job on it’s primary mission (protecting McAir aircraft), it was an expensive system and the main flaw was that each aircraft had to be equipped with the installation. This was O.K. for all the McAir aircraft; but other military and civilian aircraft didn’t have it.

Click here to view photos and articles

YF-4E 62-12200 Fly by Wire

  One of the most interesting aircraft around during my working days was 62-12200. Among other things, it was the aircraft for the  Fly-By-Wire program called Survivable Flight Control System (SFCS). This aircraft flew in two distinct configurations, with and without canards. It was built as an F-4B and modified into to a YRF-4C by configuration report 8995.

As the National Museum of the Air Force puts it:

“This was one of the original YRF-4C prototypes that was converted into the YF-4E. The YF-4E was used in the development of the F-4E fighter as well as in fly-by-wire Precision Aircraft Control Technology (PACT) and Control Configured Vehicle (CCV) test programs. Three conversions.
A "Fly-by-Wire" control system was installed in Number 266, and a distinctive color scheme was applied to the airplane for this flight test program, which commenced on 29 April 1972.
The museum's airframe served as a prototype for the RF-4C reconnaissance version and later the F-4E fighter-bomber variant. It also was the test bed for such advanced ideas as F-4 leading edge slats and the "Fly-By-Wire" concept (electrical rather than mechanical interconnections between pilot and control surfaces). A final modification added distinctive wing-like canard surfaces to examine the Precision Aircraft Control Technology configuration for mission and performance improvements.”

Another nice history is here

Click here to view photos