McDonnell F-101D/E Tactical Fighter (J-79 engines)

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Archibald

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The J-79 powered Voodoos are quite interesting projects.
I know there was this NF-101A testbed (with J-79).
What modifications would be needed to replace J-57s by J-79s ? (the latter beeing much smaller and lighter!)

Any three -view ?

This aircraft could have been a kind of Phantom back-up (even if Mc Donnell and Douglas only merged later)...

Source http://www.scramble.nl/wiki/index.php?title=McDonnell_F-101_Voodoo
And Joe Baugher, as usual... ;)
 
If you took an F-101, put J-79s in it and tweaked it some you'd end up with an F-4 :) If you look at the design iterations that lead to the F-4 there are some F-101-looking studies in there.
 
A long time ago, when I was child and started to be interested in aviation, I had a cool book ("Grande histoire illustrée de l'aviation")
The book was full of aircraft profiles, pictures and the like.

Well, the Voodoo and Phantom were side by side... and I noticed that they looked very, very very similar.

alas, the Phantom is not a "child" of the Voodoo. It a Demon derivative... (via some
J-71/ J-67/ twin J-65 iterations which looks like F-101, for sure ;D).

When did Mc Donnell and Douglas merged ? ??? ???
 
Archibald said:
When did Mc Donnell and Douglas merged ? ??? ???
Click to expand...

McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft began to sound each other out about a merger. Inquiries began in 1963; Douglas offered bid invitations from December 1966 and accepted that of McDonnell. The two firms were officially merged on April 28, 1967 as the McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC). In 1967, with the merger of McDonnell and Douglas Aircraft, Dave Lewis, then president of McDonnell, was named chairman of what was called the Long Beach, Douglas Aircraft Division. Lewis managed the turnaround of the division.

McDonnell Aircraft Corporation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Anybody has pics of this advanced F-101?

..and about Demon to Phantom intermediate stages? ;)
 
Archibald said:
The J-79 powered Voodoos are quite interesting projects.
I know there was this NF-101A testbed (with J-79).
What modifications would be needed to replace J-57s by J-79s ? (the latter beeing much smaller and lighter!)

Any three -view ?

This aircraft could have been a kind of Phantom back-up (even if Mc Donnell and Douglas only merged later)...

Source http://www.scramble.nl/wiki/index.php?title=McDonnell_F-101_Voodoo
And Joe Baugher, as usual... ;)
Click to expand...

Well, the NF-101A used the longer "burner cans" of the F-101B to help mount the engines and there were J79 nozzles on the end. All in all, a fairly minimal conversion effort. Somewhere, buried amidst a lot of other stuff, is an inflight picture of this aircraft that I got from the GE rep when I worked on the B-2. I admit that it's tempting to model that one, possibly along side the Lear 35 PWAC modified as a JT15D-5 testbed and/or Lear 25-064 which flew with a CJ610 on one side and a TFE731 on the other as a prelude to the Model 35/36.
 
Lets go to the topic again, Archibald :D

First of all a curiosity: I went to "The American Fighter" by Angelucci with Bowers and reading the F-101 entry I found that

F-101D - Designation not assigned
F-101E - Designation not assigned
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:-[
 
I went to Wings of Fame: Volume I (McDonnell F-88/F-101 Voodoo variant briefing)...AIRtime Publishing is the best for me 8) http://www.airtimepublishing.com/

Again no references to D and E marks (they pass from C to F) but there is an NF-101A model:

Serial 53-2418

NF-101A was the first F-101A bailed to GE as a platform for the J-79, apparently in connection with design and development work on the F4H-1. The sole NF-101A ended its life as a ground maintenance trainer at Amarillo AFB, Texas
Click to expand...

Here's the pic

The J79 Voodoo featured a different extended afterburner section to the JF-101A (the F-101B interceptor test aircraft
Click to expand...
 

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Aerofiles looks like a serious website
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I agree, looks like a serious source.
On the other side, authors in "Serious paper publications" use to omit unbuilt or minor versions. May they think that nobody is interested on it?. Anyway I'll try to find more info about J79 Voodoo later on my library.
 
I know that web sources tend to be unreliable because everyone use the same source, even if its wrong (best example beeing the interceptor TSR-2 :( )

Thanks for you help! a Phantom/ Voodoo kitbash would be very interesting ;D
 
pometablava said:
I went to Wings of Fame: Volume I (McDonnell F-88/F-101 Voodoo variant briefing)...AIRtime Publishing is the best for me 8) http://www.airtimepublishing.com/

Again no references to D and E marks (they pass from C to F) but there is an NF-101A model:

Serial 53-2418

NF-101A was the first F-101A bailed to GE as a platform for the J-79, apparently in connection with design and development work on the F4H-1. The sole NF-101A ended its life as a ground maintenance trainer at Amarillo AFB, Texas
Click to expand...

Here's the pic

The J79 Voodoo featured a different extended afterburner section to the JF-101A (the F-101B interceptor test aircraft
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Mmm, from talking with the folks I know, they're a bit off. The NF-101A was used by GE to test "zip fuel" usage in the flight environment. Since the J79 was the "little brother" of the J93, it was the obviously test engine. The picture and description come close to what I said earlier, an extension similar to that of the F-101B but with J79 nozzles.
 
That's fine, but what is "zip fuel" ? ???

What's the exact link between the J-79 and J-93 ?

is the J-93 a (much) scaled-up J-79 ?
 
Archibald said:
That's fine, but what is "zip fuel" ? ???

What's the exact link between the J-79 and J-93 ?

is the J-93 a (much) scaled-up J-79 ?
Click to expand...
"zip fuel" has already been addressed.

The J93 uses much of the same technology and configuration as the J79 (stands to reason since both derive from GE's experimental VSXE engine and both had the same expatriate German chief engineer) and, thus, testing done with the J79 could be carried over to the J93.
 
Hi there:

I'm new to the site and stumbled onto the site doing a search on the McDonnell F-101 D Voodoo and found an old conversation from 2007. I used the same topic name, for search purposes, and labled this conversation #2 to differentiate between the two. I registered on this site for two reasons: 1) to try and gain more info from those in the "know" and 2) to shed some light that wasn't mentioned in the previous posts.

My father, Dennis E. Kelsey, purchased the first Voodoo S/N #53-2418 in 1976. It is sitting in the PWAM museum in Pueblo, CO and you can see pics of it on my facebook account.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=605022215&v=photos&viewas=605022215.

The plane is still in the family.

Dad was one of the primary historians of the F-101 during his lifetime. He was good friends with Paul Stevens, author of "Voodoo" - a Squadron/Signal "Modern Military Aircraft" series and Bill Simone, author of the "F-107" by Ginter publications. Dad's plane was one of two that used the J-79 engines. Prior to the NF-101, it was used as a testbed for that platform, reaching Mach 1.4.

Dad was an avid model-building, something he passed onto me, and desired to build a model of every version of the F-101. Unfortunately, that dream was never fulfilled when he passed away last year from complications with Parkinsons. When the Parkinson's symptoms made it to difficult to build models, he gave me an F-101 conversion that he had started in 1/144 scale. He had two Otaki kits: an F-101A and an F-4. When I asked him what it was, he said that he was going to be an F-101D. He gave me some pictures of it and the ones that I used were called the F3H-G/H; in other words, the advanced Demon design that eventually became the F-4 Phantom. The F-101E would have been the two-seater version of the plane.

I've never found any published documentation to prove that the F-101D was the same plane as the F3H-G, but Dad had connections through his association in the Washington ANG, McDonnell-Douglas and other military contacts, that I trust that what he said was true. I finished the model before he died and there's a pic of it on my Flickr account.

www.flickr.com

U.S. Jet Fighters & Bombers

My father served in the Air National Guard for 25+ years and greatly influenced my love for building model kits and military aircraft. Every year he would take me to the Fairchild Air Show - we'd arrive early to see the static displays, then go to his unit's hangar and watch our own "private"...
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com

I've been a fan of 1-144 planes and plane to honor Dad within the next few months of fulfilling his dream of building every version of the F-101. I've already got three done - just four more to do.
 
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To the best of my knowledge, the F-101D was a J79 powered F-101 project, and hence a different design from the F-3H-G/H which was a new design evolved from the Demon powered by either J65 (G) or J79 (H) engines. The mockup built had the J65 on one side and a J79 on the other. I've never seen an illustration of the F-101D, but it must be a different plane.

There's a great photo of the F-3H-G/H mockup on p.234 of US Naval Air Superiority by Tommy Thomason. There's a nice photo of your F-101A re-engined with the J79 back in its testing days on p.165 of Experimental & Prototype US Air Force Jet Fighters by Jenkins and Landis.

If the pictures of the F-3G-G/H mockup you have are not out of existing books, I'd be interested to see them :)
 
Welcome convairxf92 !

I share your Dad's and your love of the F-101 as well!
As well as all things McDonnell (among others as well) !

Sorry to hear of your Dad's passing - my condolences!

I'm sure he's very proud of your aircraft modelling efforts!
I enjoyed seeing your flickr modelling work.

It isn't everyone who has their own F-101A !!
How did your Dad come to buy 53-2418 ?

I'm going to have to get a facebook account to see your other
shots of 53-2418 !
 
Thinking about it logically, the F3H-H was a J-79 engined Demon derivative, so perhaps what your dad meant was that the modifications from F3H to F3H-H would be the same as the modifications from F-101 to F-101D.

This could have been speculation on his part, or he might have had some information from one of his friends that led him to this idea.
 
...Ah, the Voodoo. The first plane the Air Farce bought that looked like it also deserved to be the Batplane. In fact, for a while it was actually used as such in the comics, with the flaps being batwinged.

The cheap Aurora 49c kit was also the first model kit I ever assembled by myself, at age 3. God, I miss the old Testor's Red Tube glue... :p :p
 
Gentlemen:

To answer a few of your questions, I suppose it could have been speculation on Dad's part or an educated guess. Paul Stevens didn't know anything about it; then again, he was more into the service aspect of the plane and Dad was into the technical information. Somewhere stored at Mom's house are volumes of research that Dad did on the plane. Paul is very interested in them, as are some of other Voodoo afficianados.

As far as the history goes, Dad bought the plane in October, 1976. It was for sale by the air base in Amarillo, TX and Dad paid to have it moved to Puelbo. Doing some research on it last night, it was the same plane as the NF-101. I really knew very little of Dad's plane until after his passing; in fact, it wasn't until I was in college during the 1980's that I was told that he owned a military aircraft.
 
F-101D project located!!!!

A friend of mine was at the Smithsonian this week researching the service record of the F-101 and came across a report on the F-101D, dated 9/18/59! I attached a scan of the cover document that he sent me, which was scanned in a pdf file. That was too big for this site, so I shrunk it down.
 

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Really great find.

If possible, can you send me the higher resolution copy (paul at secretprojects dot co dot uk) so I can edit and post it in higher resolution?
 
Yes, please do post higher res images of this. If known, what's the model numbers?
 
Can you get your friend to share the entire pdf document with us?...
 
I sent what I have of the PDF to Overscan. What was given to me is only four pages long, but gives a pretty good idea of what the illusive D model looked like.
 
Ta-da... it appears to be an F-101 with J-79 engines and F-4 type intakes. Note arrestor hook and refuelling probe - is this Navy or Air Force? Maybe an alternative to the F-4?
 

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The light arresting hook is used for emergencies. Every USAF fighter aircraft that I can think of has one, even the F-22!
 
Good point Sean. It seems most likely intended for an F-105/F-4C type role with the Air Force, don't you think?
 
Thanks convairxf92 and Overscan. I was completely surprised by the F-4 style inlets.
 
Overscan:

Looks pretty good. That took some time. The outboard wing stores look like either two sidewinders on each wing or one bullpup.
 
Note: No weapon bay, no guns, AIM-9 and Bullpup added to the weapon inventory, F-104G radar. Big difference from the earlier F-101s is armament and mission - it's not an interceptor or a nuclear bomber. And since the USAF did not have AIM-7 (or any interest in it) at the time, it does not have the same kind of radar/missile setup as the F-4.
 
LowObservable said:
Note: No weapon bay, no guns, AIM-9 and Bullpup added to the weapon inventory, F-104G radar. Big difference from the earlier F-101s is armament and mission - it's not an interceptor or a nuclear bomber. And since the USAF did not have AIM-7 (or any interest in it) at the time, it does not have the same kind of radar/missile setup as the F-4.
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Maybe they were designing it to try and get some foreign orders?
 
Date is just after the end of production I think? Chasing foreign orders makes sense, but who would have used AIM-9D / Zuni?
 
The objective customer is pretty obvious in the title: “tactical fighter”. Which would be the USAF TAC fighter community who were meant to be replacing their F-100Ds with the F-104C at this time but quickly rejected that type. With a nuclear bomb (aka special store) under the belly the F-101D could have carried out the primary TAC mission of the time.
 
Very interesting! Based on the date, the Phantom II was still all US Navy and not yet on the USAF's "To Buy" list. I wonder if it was McDonnell's way of using some of the items learned on the Phantom for the next generation Voodoo to keep that program alive and building planes.

Thanks for posting the images ConvairXF92 - any chance you can PM me as I would like to obtain a copy of the PDF for the Museum's archives.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 
Mark Nankivil said:
Very interesting! Based on the date, the Phantom II was still all US Navy and not yet on the USAF's "To Buy" list. I wonder if it was McDonnell's way of using some of the items learned on the Phantom for the next generation Voodoo to keep that program alive and building planes.

Thanks for posting the images ConvairXF92 - any chance you can PM me as I would like to obtain a copy of the PDF for the Museum's archives.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
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Mark - would you happen to know the model number of the proposed F-101D? Was there a proposed F-101E - possibly a tandem-seater?
 
I've seen references to an F-101E, being a twin-seat J-79 powered counterpart to the F-101D.
 

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