Phantom FG.1 and FGR.2 Differences

[Airframes]

Worst part was widening the intakes and making the deeper rear fuselage, as well as making the larger jet pipes. Unfortunately, the 1/32nd scale version got wrecked, but here's a couple of pics taken before it was finished, circa 1981 or '82. The eagle and roundels were hand-painted, as were the markings on the fin, and I think the serial numbers - my hands worked in those days !!

 

[Catch22]

That looks fantastic Terry, don't know how you guys do it.

 

[Airframes]

Thanks mate - doubt I could do it these days, unfortunately.

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks great Terry. My biggest issue with hand painting is that I get a lot of paint build up. I suppose you use thinned enamel or artist oils though.

 

[Airframes]

Just thinned enamels Andy, and good-quality brushes - and many years of practice. I also use enamels for my pictures, so this helps with various techniques.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks!

 

[vikingBerserker]

Dam Terry, NICE!

 

[Airframes]

Thanks David.
I wish I still had that model. By the time I'd finished it - there was a lot more to add compared to what's seen in the pics - it had taken around 120 hours of work, with totally scratch-built cockpits, and, of course, the conversion to the fuselage, intakes and jet pipes, plus all the small details, all scratch-built.
It took an ex-girlfriend around 5 seconds to totally wreck it ................

 

[Crimea_River]

One more store to check Cory.

 

[Catch22]

Thanks Andy.

 

[Crimea_River]

Came up empty Cory. I found nothing locally.

 

[Catch22]

Thanks for looking Andy, I really appreciate it!

 

[Lucky13]

One for the No. 74 Squadron and one for the No. 111 Squadron...

 

[Airframes]

If you're using the Revell kit for the No111 Sqn bird old chap, you'll need to alter it to a FG1, with extra-extendable nose gear leg with the additional torque link, slotted tailerons, different nose gear door, and the strop hooks.

 

[Lucky13]

I think so old boy, as the No. 74 used the J, right.....or do I remember wrong?

 

[Airframes]

Yes, 74 Squadron were equipped with ex-US Navy F-4Js, known as F-4J(UK), as a stop-gap when 23 Sqn were sent on detachment to Stanley, after the Falklands conflict. The crews had to use US flight gear, including a torso harness for the US spec MB Mk4 ejection seat, as the aircraft were standard US spec.
The colour scheme was overall 'Flint Grey', unlike 'British' Phantoms, which had a bluish tinge to it.
These aircraft were later replaced in 74 Sqn with FGR2s, like the one shown below, from squadrons re-equipping with the Tornado F3.

Both 43 Sqn and 111 Sqn, based at Leuchars, were equipped with the FG1.
All of the Hasegawa kits include the parts for the FG1 and FGR2, with the possible exception of the slotted taileron, and also include white metal main and nose wheels, with 'rubber' tyres, which were different to US Phantoms. I'm not sure of the parts content on the Revell re-box of the Hasegawa kit, which may only have parts for the FGR2, and may not have the metal wheels.

 

[Mike Blair]

Both 43 Sqn and 111 Sqn, based at Leuchars, were equipped with the FG1.

Both 43 Sqn and 111 Sqn, based at Leuchars, were equipped with the FG1.

Not entirely correct. When 54 Sqn (FGR2s) ceased the ground pounding role, in 1975 they moved to RAF Coningsby to work up into the Air Defence role, be rebadged as 111 Sqn, (treble-One, or 'Tremblers') where I joined them as Junior Engineering Officer. Also at Coningsby were 19 Sqn doing the same role conversion. They were to move to RAF Wildenrath in Germany as AD aircraft once role conversion was complete. Our partisan view of them was expressed thus: 'The King of Saudi Arabia asked his 3 favourite sons what they wanted for Christmas. Abdul the eldest at 25 said "The latest top-of-the-range Ferrari and Porsche, please!" The second, Jamal, at 18, said "Lots of sparkly diamonds I can wear to parties, please!" (The King was a bit worried about that one), and the youngest, Karim, at the age of 8 said "A cowboy outfit. please!" and so he got 19 Sqn...'

111 Sqn, after eight months, moved to RAF Leuchars where 43 Sqn and 892 (Fleet Air Arm) Sqn were based. Previously, the last Lightning squadron had disbanded there. The time of our move coincided with an outer wing rebuild problem where outer wings were removed, sent to BAE somewhere, and reskinned and strengthened, in a long-running programme. Our aircraft establishment was 10, that of 43 Sqn was 12 plus 4 spares, and 892, 12 with 5 spares, but all three squadrons had to generate 75% of their establishment when a no-notice exercise was called. The less mathematically-challenged of you will note that 75% of 10 aircraft is 8 (you can't generate half an aircraft), but 75% of 12 is 9, but for 43, this was actually from 16 airframes and for 892, from 17 airframes. So, our move had to be completed by us generating 8 fully-armed aircraft within 6 hours of arrival at Leuchars, but the repair system could provide us only with 16 outer wings; in other words, we had to obtain 8 from 8, or 111 Sqn would have been rated as a 'fail' on its first day. Now the problem was that FG1 outer wings could not be fitted to FGR2s, and so our move required the 16 outer wings to come from the FGR2 pool. We succeed that Friday in generating 8 out of 8 on arrival at Leuchars just in time for the squadron boss, Wg Cdr Tony Park, to take us to Happy Hour in the Officers' Mess (he'd bought 3 barrels for the ground crew and had them brought to the hangar crewroom, and arranged transport home for them that night). At the Officers' Mess bar, Tony Park ordered a barrel of beer. The barman said "Sorry sir, the PMC (President of the Mess Committee) brought in a new rule last month that barrels can't be ordered any more". Tony Park's instant response (a classic in RAF folklore) was "That's all right, barman. 88 pints, please!". By the next Friday, the 'No barrels' rule had been rescinded.

Of our 16 outer wings fitted to the aircraft, 7 were unmodified and had been ruled as safe for one flight, and from midday on the Saturday, the ground crew were all back in to remove the 7 outer wings and package them up for road transport to the BAE factory. For the next week or so, we had only four flyable aircraft at Leuchars, and if one of those went long-term u/s, we would have had to remove its outer wings and transfer them to one of our serviceable wingless 'hulks'.

We then received four modified wings at Leuchars, but this was in error because these should have been delivered to Coningsby to our two aircraft that we had left there, wingless. We obtained agreement for the low-loaders to take the unpacked wings back to Coningsby, where after a delay because the truck drivers were out of driving time, we unpacked the wings only to find that there were three RH and one LH wing, the error being that the paperwork for one RH wing was actually for a LH wing still at the factory! We had to send ground crew by rail and their tools by truck to Coningsby. It took three weeks before our last aircraft at Coningsby had a pair of outer wings delivered and fitted.

Re the FG1 outer wings, RN aircraft still had the full mechanical wing-fold mechanism parts fitted. Some of the 43 Sqn aircraft had that system fitted - a few had a functioning system, other had disabled systems and a few had been modified to fully manual (groundcrew operated). However, FG1 outer wings were not compatible with FGR2s, and vice versa; FG1 wings had not suffered the fatigue loads of the FGR2 in the latter's low-level ground attack role - the upper surface suffered extensive skin panting and some of the internal ribbing had microscopic cracks detected by Non-Destructive Testing techniques, mostly radioactive sources emitting on to film material.

For all you modellers out there, FG1 tailplane tips differed from FGR2 tips in shape and planfom, but in some cases (maybe not 892) a little bit of fettling could make them fit. The RAF's last Phantom Squadron, 74 at RAF Wattisham, flew F4J(UK) aircraft cobbled to gather from stored US F4Js. F4J tips fitted neither FG1 nr FGR2, but apparently we bought about 60 spares - that's another story!

Ostensibly an off-the-shelf purchase of a complete squadron, 74 suffered additional difficulties because no two aircraft had been at identical modification standard when stored, and several had incomplete modification histories. Some effort was made to standardise the more important modifications before the aircraft were flown to UK, but quite often, RAF teams had to be sent out to the US to scour the stored aircraft (in the Mojave desert) to find parts that no longer were in the US inventory system.

The 111 FGR2s had an Inertial Nav system, AN/AWG 12 radar much superior to FG1 radar (and in the end on 111, much more reliable than elsewhere - credit goes to my radar/electronic/electrics technicians, who worked hundreds of hours of overtime to seek out the reasons for system failures - for example, on one aircraft (XV410) that had been used in Boscombe Down trials, we removed about 400kg of trials wiring which because of misconnections and defects, carried start currents and interfered with instruments and systems: we raised the radar total system airborne MTBF from around 8 hours to around 22), and we had made the external gun (previously used only in GA) a functioning and very worthwhile air-to-air weapon. The FG1 could not be fitted with the gun.

Some years after I left RAF Leuchars, the RAF powers that be decided to standardise on the lower capability FG1 at RAF Leuchars, and at about the same time the RN disbanded 892 Sqn, and so 43 and 111 standardised on the FG1. Incidentally, 43 Sqn, known for years from their emblem as the 'Fighting Cocks' tended at first to look down on 111 as upstarts, but soon after we arrived at Leuchars we managed to put one over on them. I mentioned to one of my flight line SNCOs, and Armourer ('Plumber' in RAF parlance) that it would be simply awful if the words 'The Fighting Cocks' over the side entrance to 43 Sqn's hangar were skilfully amended to read 'The Fighting Cooks', and he agreed wholeheartedly. When the motto was mysteriously so amended, we were thunderstruck that nobody on 43 Sqn noticed for about 8 days. says it all, really!
Mike Blair

 

[Lucky13]

Awesome!
Greetings and welcome to the family Mike!

 

[Airframes]

Welcome to the forum Mike, and thanks for the great 'inside' information. I know change has to happen, but I miss the old Phantom - spent some time working with the BBMF at Coningsby, making an AV show back in the early 1980's, and got used to them being around. Never did get my arranged flight in one though - darned MoD restrictions, following the cost of the Falklands !

 

[yiyiMCS]

Now that I'm more awake, I've had a quick check, and basically, I've covered the major differences. It would all depend on which squadron, and when, as to what Mark was used, and in which colour scheme.
The 'grey' scheme started to come into service in the early 1980's, and had completely replaced the grey/green scheme by around 1985, on UK-based Phantoms, with those in Germany being replaced by the Jaguar or Tornado. The grey scheme was Barley Grey and Medium Sea Grey upper surfaces, with Light Aircraft Grey undersides, the MSG being on the main wing panels only, the outer, 'bent' tips being in the Barley Grey.
There were no Phantoms active in the Falklands war - those three were sent down to Ascension, and then on to Stanley, after the conflict, to act as 'local defence', or 'showing the flag', and remained there until being replaced by Tornados, the crews doing a three-month tour in rotation.
One of the three had a 'zap' sticker on the port nose, from the Jodel Club, entitled 'Bent Wings are Best' which, as far as I know, remained in place until the aircraft was salvaged. I know - cos I stuck it there the day before they Coningsby left for Ascension !
The pics below - scanned from rejected slides from the AV production I was making at the time - were taken at Coningsby on the same day the three Phantoms departed for Ascension, and give a good impression of the colour scheme, and how it got dirty quickly. Note the black vertical 'lines' down the fuselage, left by the rubber heels of the ground crew's boots !
From memory, and with the lack of squadron markings, these would be from the OCU, whereas the ones sent down to the South Atlantic were drawn from one of the squadrons, and had their markings obliterated, later adopting the Maltese cross badge of the Flight (1335 Flight I think, I'd have to check) they formed, positioned on the nose, after the Flight of Gladiators used in the early defence of Malta.
Let me know when you decide what you want to do, and I'll copy and e-mail the 'Aeroguide' on the RAF Phantoms.

Hi Terry
Stumbled across this forum and this thread whilst looking for images of XV484. I was on 29 Sqn at Coningsby from 80 to 83. I knew 3 Terry's on 29 at the time of the Falklands, one plumber, one Comms and one Rigger. Going on your avatar any chance you're the one and only 'Streets'? I guess from your comment 'drawn from one of the squadrons' that you're not, as Streets would have been well aware that 29 was the only active Sqn at C. If you're not Terry S, what was your involvement on 29 at that time as I guess we must have crossed paths in those few days as we were all pretty busy with long hours worked by all to get the aircraft ready for the deployment.

Either way, you're correct in that we (29) sent 3 kites to ASI in May 82 to take over the island defence from the Harriers. By August we were up to 4 aircraft and when we transferred to Stanley in Oct 82, 8 aircraft made the trip down south. 23 Sqn relieved 29 in Dec 82 and it was 1435 Flt that finally took on the island defence mantel

Regarding the images, at the time OCU aircraft would have had diamonds either side of the intake roundel and the scarab on the tail. IIRC the only kites at C without markings at the time where those of 29 destined for ASI. These remained without markings until just before the move to Stanley when Tojo Whitfield and myself where granted permission, in between servicing the MCS, to add the XXX bar to either side of the intake roundel. It wasn't quite up to the mark unfortunately, but it wasn't long before all were completed by painters that knew what they where doing! Not sure why XV426 is without markings, she certainly served both 29 and 228/64 but wasn't one of the initial detachment, however she may have been the backup aircraft which could explain it. She may have transferred south in Oct 82 but I guess she would have had the XXXOXXX by that time.

I was on ASI up until the departure to Stanley, and would be interested to see the zap you mentioned. Strict orders on the initial detachment were that no aircraft would carry any distinguishing marks but as we all know orders of such like we're there to be broken. I don't ever remember any of our kites being zapped, at least not for long - removed as soon as spotted. I'd be surprised if a sticker would survive the airflow around the Tomb in anger for long and certainly not until scrap as the zap would have been removed when 23 repainted and added their logo in that same area. I certainly don't recall any added extras on any of the ASI aircraft, but then again I've lost a lot of grey cells since then I've got a box of photos some where and will try and dig some out from ASI and see if I can spot it.