ORIGINAL: Mark Basel
Hey Carlos, I am not very familiar with the Navy versions. I believe the J model had fixed leading edge slats on the stabilator but did not have slats on the wing. Depending on what picture you see, the inboard wing leading edge slat or flap on the J model is fixed and on some other pictures it is extended so maybe that is a B model or N Not sure. Sorry, my partical experience is with AF version. I have read somewhere that very early E models did not have slatted wings and where modified, someone out there can clarify. If so the RC jet above could in reality could be very accurate with leading edge flaps?
mb
Hy Mark,
you are right, the early E's did have hard-wings, the slats were incorporated after severe losses due to stall buffet and spin onset in close combat maneuvering (high alpha). I believe many of the early productions were also retrofitted with those slats in an upgrade program.
There are 2 combination of leading edge devices used on F-4s as far as i could find out. Apart from "none at all" that is....
-"Leading edge flaps" on inboard and outboard wing, mostly used on recce and navy versions (short-noses)
-"extending inboard slat and pivoting outboard slats" on most air force variants (long noses)
The inboard extendings are very very difficult to get right, very small deviations (around 1/10th of a millimeter!!!) in the rod length cause very very wrong movements. We have chosen to go CNC-machined to 3/100th of a mm) on those, otherwise there is simply too little guarantee for scale function.
The pivoting outboards are fairly easy to do....
Best regards
Hank
PS: The RF-4E was flown with the german air force :-)