NAVY Jet's middle 1950's

[hyair]

Dear Tony - according to what I read about the Skyray I know the following -
Due to very thick wings with the powerful J57 it could only break the sound barrier a little as mach 1.1 while the Crusader was good for 1.86 with the same engine !!!
It had a tendency to pitch violently up and down when crossing 0.9 mach back and forth.
During take off one of the main gear bays was shut with a delay that was needed to be counter corrected by the pilot.
The type suffered from very short range and alway carried two reserve tanks under the wings.
The look outside from the cockpit was restricted due to the canopy frames.
Its service life were short 1956 -1964 and was used by the NAVY and MARINES .
If it was so good why he didn't paticipate in Vietnam war ?
What it was good in was to climb like a rocket at 70% up and there for was the only NAVY plane to participate at NORAD with one squadron.
It is very hard to debate about possible outcome of different fighters but my guess is that the NAVY officials knew what they are doing when they decided to retire it early !

Yair

[hyair]

The Skyray F-4D

the Skyray main asset was its ability to climb very steep and fast.
The model here is from rare planes in 1:48 scale.
Model was rather basic so I added the following - full cockpit rear after burner section control plates at intakes a duct for the engine to avoid seeing the big inner wing tail hook rear bulge at upper back tail and pitot tube.
This is the drone version so the color is special .
I don't know about a decent alternative to the Skyray so I decided to build it.

Yair