RAF without VSTOL and VG

[uk 75]

As a keen enthusiast of the F4 Phantom I have often pushed it for the RAF instead of VSTOL (Harrier) and VG (Various paper swingers).
It was no accident that the lineup of the RAF in the 70s was dominated by fixed wing CTOL Jaguars and Buccaneers instead of paper swingers and more Harriers.
If only the UK (either Hawkers or Vickers/BAC) had designed a Jaguar sized aircraft with the capabilities of the F4?

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

As a keen enthusiast of the F4 Phantom I have often pushed it for the RAF instead of VSTOL (Harrier) and VG (Various paper swingers).
It was no accident that the lineup of the RAF in the 70s was dominated by fixed wing CTOL Jaguars and Buccaneers instead of paper swingers and more Harriers.
If only the UK (either Hawkers or Vickers/BAC) had designed a Jaguar sized aircraft with the capabilities of the F4?

A Jaguar-sized aircraft would not have had the capabilities of an F-4 Phantom.

The various paper swing-wing aircraft varied from single-seat light strike fighter roles like the BAC Types 584 and 585, to larger aircraft capable of operating as all-weather interceptors and strike aircraft like Types 583, 589 and 590, and AFVG.

I'm not sure what you expect this aircraft to do. Is it a single seat-aircraft to be used as a cheap daytime-only light strike fighter or as a small supersonic trainer like the Jaguar. Or do you want a two-seat multi-role aircraft capable of operating as an interceptor or strike aircraft like the Phantom? Or do you want a dedicated interdictor like the Tornado IDS or F-111K? What sort of capability are you looking for? Why does have to have fixed wings. Variable Geometry provides to the high lift to take of from damaged airfields, rough fields and motorways, whilst also providing the high wing-loading required for Low-Level penetration.

 

[kaiserd]

It is one reality often overlooked by enthusiastic contributors to topics like this that it’s only relatively recently (late 70’s, early 80’s, maybe - the F/A-18A comes to mind) that electronic miniaturisation and avionic developments (and helped by more fuel efficient engines that boasted range/ payload capabilities) that really allowed true very capable multi-role capabilities in the one single airframe (rather than in specific variants of the same design), unless your primary avionic in all roles was the mark 1 - eyeball and likely undertaking air to ground missions over short ranges (like, say, for the Hawker Hunter).

The closest you got was relatively large fighters of which the F-4 is the most successful; the F-4 could carry more avionic at the same time/ in combination than its smaller contemporaries so could be more capably multi-role but it variants and their specific equipment were still primarily focused on particular missions - F-4D had a strike focus, the F-4Es and F-4Fs were more focused on the Fighter/ air superiority role, etc.

So to be a true contemporary of the F-4 multi-role capability wise at the same time as the F-4 you really had to be about the same size as the F-4, however much some contributors like to see proto- multi-role F-16s and F-18s in earlier smaller/ lighter designs that could never have been so.

And to be balanced on the excellent F-4 it drank fuel far too quickly and carried not enough of it to be an especially good long range low level strike aircraft (the more optimised A-6 and Bucaneer, and later F-111 were clearly better at that type of role).
Various developments just mean that the trade-off for multi-role versus dedicated roles is now much lower.

 

[TomS]

(late 70’s, early 80’s, maybe - the F/A-18A comes to mind)

The F/A-18 is precisely the turning point. That weird F/A designation exists because the initial plan was to have a common airframe that could literally be reconfigured from Fighter (F-18) to Attack (A-18) roles by swapping some electronics LRUs. Between the beginning and end of Hornet development, it became obvious that electronics miniaturization would allow them to stuff both sets of systems into a single airframe. Before that, no way you were fitting both into an airframe ~7,000 pounds lighter than the Phantom.

 

[uk 75]

I did write "if only".
The Buccaneer S2 is arguably the answer to all the UK strike roles for both the RAF and RN. In extremis it could do a lot of what Tornado did as well as the Jaguar/Harrier force.
The main F4 role for the UK was as an all weather fighter. My wishful thinking (crashing and burning) for a UK smaller F4 (able to fly off Hermes) is just that.
Had the UK grasped the nettle and reduced the RAF to a force equipped with just F4s and Bucs it could then have joined the Australians and Canadians on ordering F18s.
Of course this means no Tornado or Typhoon but the money saved would have permitted more aircraft to be ordered.

 

[Archibald]

A Jaguar-sized aircraft would not have had the capabilities of an F-4 Phantom.

Depends. Right from the early 60's Great Britain had a great asset unseen elsewhere until the J101 / F404 advent: the "smaller turbofan".

The RB.172, for a start. OTL it ended as the M45 on the other side of the channel, for the cancelled AFVG, and then nobody wanted it except a German small airliner, and then it vanished - only to reborn as the RB.199, XJ40 and EJ200 family.

The RB.172 was also scaled down and become the Adour: Jaguar and Hawk engine (and some others).

Soooo... starting from a pair of RB.172 there must be a way of screwing (altogether) Jaguar, AFVG and Tornado and instead build some kind of LWF - drawing inspiration from the F-5A Tiger.

Now, what happens when somebody replace the F-5 J85s by small and advanced turbofans ?

You guess... P-530 Cobra. F-17. F-18A. F-18L.

Hey one could take a 1/48 scale F-5 Tiger (to get a 1/3rd bigger size twin shape) and put 1/72 scale Tornado exhausts on it...

The F-5 did wonders with the minuscule thrust of its twin J85s.

Put two RB.172 in a slightly bigger airframe and voilà, a British P.530 in the early to mid-70's or even earlier.