JackL

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Has anyone added Slatted wings or slotted stabilators to their Skymaster or BVM F-4s? The Skymaster F-4's and all of the BVM F-4's I have seen are all "Hard Wing" and except for some early F-4Es and the current F-4EJ/EJ kai, all of the later F-4 variants had the Slatted wing (and most of the earlier F-4E's were retrofitted with the slatted wing), which makes it slim pickings on a paint scheme if you really want to make it scale.Thinking about giving it a shot with my Skymaster 1/7 F-4E. Just looking to make a fixed outer slatted wing, not a functioning one.

mr_matt

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I am pretty sure John Redman was doing a BVM with a slotted tail, I can't remember if it was an F-4J (short nose). David Gladwin's BVM F-4J model has a slotted tail

Don't remember anyone doing the wing slats of an E model.

yeahbaby

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Lavi Rider was working on a set of slotted wings some time ago for Joe Grice but not sure if they were ever finished. I think the F4 build thread that John Redman was doing showed the slotted tail he completed.

JackL

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I saw a photo of David Gladwins BVM F-4 with the slotted stabilator when I was Googling the subject. It did look nice and compared to the wing slats, shouldn't be too hard to accomplish (famous last words). The slatted wings are what have me a bit apprehensive....

John Redman

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The slotted leading edge on the stab is not too bad and works well in the air.

I have never tried the "soft wing" by adding the slats. A lot of work on a model today that is unfortunately a bit small compared to all others out there. The good thing is at least it is accurate in outline. Everything out of china is ridiculously wrong from all manufacturers, but most don't seem to mind.

HarryC

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The real ones were fixed too, not moveable, so your fixed ones will be scale.

John Redman

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Incorrect HarryC. The slats were fully operational on the soft wing.

HarryC

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The outer panel, which is what he is showing in his pic in the op, had fixed slats.

JackL

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The outer slats aren't fixed. They are hinged at the leading edge and rotate around the hinge line, with the effect that the leading edge of the flap moves up and down. They do not slide front to back as other slats, but rather rotate around the axis of the hinge line.Here is a better shot showing the hinges at the front.

ozief16

My Feedback: (13)

Harry,

John is right on this one. I got to fly a soft wing E a few years back and as part of ground ops you drive the slats to the out position to check them. I may have a pic somewhere. Additionally it made it hard to pull to a known G of five or so because just as you'd get to 5 G, the slats would deploy and slap another G on quick.

Dave

pilot tw

a builder of Taiwan has modify the slat for the Skymaster F-4E on two years ago, here are some pictures..

HarryC

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Interesting stuff. The plan view doesn't really change because the slats are always extended and always open which is why I believed them to be fixed. But although they can rotate a little around that hinge point they are always open, the fence at the inboard part shows shows the minimum position. The max position will be just a bit more open by rotating the leading edge down a bit thus raising the gap at the slat's trailing edge. This diagram which is of the F-4S is probably much the same as the E and shows how little the change is. http://tailspintopics.blogspot.co.uk...f-4s-wing.html
You would have to be incredibly sharp eyed to tell any difference on a model!

John Redman

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I have never had intentions of making them move, just building them to replicate the look. Moving these would change the camber of the outboard panel I believe by a fair amount. It would be great to hear from a guy who has flown teh full scale hard and soft wing to hear what teh differences felt were like.

I am pretty confident the "E" and "S" use the same soft wing arrangement.


Anton, the F-4 wing looks awesome. Only note is the slats (E model) on the outboard panel were raised off the wing and the leading edge that currently moves on that model was fixed on the full scale.

Looks cool though.

JackL

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Same here, just want to replicate the look. The -E and -S used the same arrangement, but the outer slats themselves were a slightly different shape.

As far as the scale outline goes, the Skymaster matches pretty well with the documentation I have. It looks to me like they copied the Tamiya 1/32 F-4 kits right down to the non-scale raised panels that are present on the fuselage. The outline looks good to me, of course a lot of smaller scale details could be added.

John, your BVM F-4 build thread looks great, when are you going to finish them?

VF84sluggo

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All the slats did was give the Phantom driver 360 degrees of turn, instead of just 180, before he got gunned...

Chris Nicastro

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I own the large SM F-4 and the moment it came out of the box I could see the proportion of the nose in relation to the intakes is wrong. Then I had to pull out the Tamiya 1/32 scale model and one of my Phantom books and there is a clear problem with the barge boards. Im not sure what the scale source of the master model was but its a shame this nice size F-4 is not as accurate as it could have been.
Should have used a Hasegawa 1/32 Phantom instead of Tamiya! Lol
Anyway, I will build this jet eventually even though it erks me to see what cannot be unseen. Ive considered what it would take to fix the front end and there is no point it is what it is, just fly it.

As for the slats in a fixed position I would agree that either fixed deployed or fixed retracted as long as there is an open slot between the slat and the wing it will work. Make sure the slot is clean and not blocking the flow of air. The inside surface of the slat element should be smooth and mirror the surface of the main wing.
I have been testing this very same concept on a very small A-4 EDF for over a year so I could understand better high AOA jet flight. Its amazing and really opens up the flight envelope of the model. I use flaps as well and I can do figure 8 touch and goes while keeping it at less than 6 feet altitude. The top speed does suffer but the slow speed capability is the key and this is where you have to get used to flying slower than your used to doing. The SM F-4 does have very stable and impressive slow flight characteristics but I could only imagine based on what Ive done so far that it would just allow you to land at a walking speed practically if you added slats. Great for short field use! You will also have to understand your turbines spool up speeds and how the jet responds in turn because high AOA flight with a jet requires your immediate input.
I would prefer to make the LE Flaps work rather than the Slats static but thats just me.

Good luck, love to see your progress. Maybe this will inspire Anton to do some updates because the F-4 is a very popular and historic aircraft.

Chris Nicastro

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By the way I have video of the slats deploying during pre flight checks. The slats deploy forward and extend the wing cord as well as change AOA. They dont just pivot in place. Now that being said Im not 100% sure all F-4 slat mechanisms are the same because there were so many variants, I just know what I saw on this F-4.

JackL

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Chris, the inboard slats on the "soft" wing do indeed move forward when deployed. The outer slats on the "soft" wing pivot in place. Here is a good shot of the "soft" wing in action...

Chris Nicastro

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Thats right I should have been more specific. The inner slats deploy up and forward increasing the slot dimension between the slat and the wing. The outer slats pivot changing their AOA.
The net effect is the F-4's stall performance is improved so as Sluggo said it could turn around and see who is shooting at it... Thats funny but wouldnt it be shot down long before it had to turn because of the black smoke trails? []

Heres a good info link...

http://aviation.watergeek.eu/f4-phantom.html

John Redman

My Feedback: (8)

Sounds like we all are on the right track. I think if you look at the stab position you will also note how low it is compared to the full scale. I have never meassured the anhedral on teh stab but it seems to be a bit off as well. There are other items to note but not big ones like the two mentioned. It is surprising to me as well how they can make such nice models that are so out of scale. It takes just as much time to do it wrong as it does to do it right.

I wish there was a way to ehlp Anton out in this area. His are teh best of the bunch out of all the manufacturers over there, but they still need some adjustments to there outlines. I would help if I knew of a way.

Chris Nicastro

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Thanks John, now I feel the itch to take a look at that detail. Luckily my jet is in storage so I cant go dig it up easily.

John Redman

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Cool. I need to get back on the F-4's. For some odd reason life always seems to get in the way.

Chris Nicastro

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Here are some photos I took of the slats on an F-4 on display aboard the USS Midway in San Diego.

Chris Nicastro

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And some more details for you...

Chris Nicastro

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Here is a good one off of Airliners.net that shows the range of deployment. Also added some others for ref.