Douglas F3D-3 , the Swept Wing Skyknight

[Justo Miranda]

Via Carlo Godel

 

[Stargazer]

Nice. Had never seen so much material about that project, thanks. Looked like a perfectly logical evolution of the Skyknight, and handsome too, a bit like a scaled-down Skywarrior...

 

[Steve Pace]

Nice. Had never seen so much material about that project, thanks. Looked like a perfectly logical evolution of the Skyknight, and handsome too, a bit like a scaled-down Skywarrior...

With a D-558-2 Skyrocket vertical tail.

 

[Brickmuppet]

Mr. Miranda, there were 3 or four more pics in your post earlier. Were they deleted intentionally? Can anyone else still see them?

Regards the missing pics: It really looks like it would have been a useful general purpose aircraft even with the earlier engines. Any thoughts on its real world utility?

Could it have ended up filling the niche the stillborn Missileer was intended to?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Mr. Miranda, there were 3 or four more pics in your post earlier.

It was another post that has vanished utterly.

 

[Stargazer]

That's when I'm glad to save everything I like on disc...

 

[Antonio]

Mr. Miranda, there were 3 or four more pics in your post earlier. Were they deleted intentionally? Can anyone else still see them?

Gentlemen,

It was not Mr Miranda but fightingirish. The scans came from Mr Steve Ginter Naval Fighters #4 "Douglas F3D Skynight".

For those interested, the book can be purchased here:

http://www.ginterbooks.com/NAVAL/NAVAL.htm.

It was me who deleted the post because it was a unfair to the author and we received complain. To those who downloaded the scans, please don't repost it.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

The judgement was made by a moderator that the poster had gone beyond "fair use" by scanning everything on the Swept Wing Skyknight from Naval Fighters #4 "Douglas F3D Skyknight" by Steve Ginter, which was quite a few pictures.

Given the book remains available ($14.95 from http://www.ginterbooks.com/Order/Order.htm) I suggest anyone who is interested in the Swept Wing Skyknight can obtain a copy.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The judgement was made by a moderator that the poster had gone beyond "fair use" by scanning everything on the Swept Wing Skyknight from Naval Fighters #4 "Douglas F3D Skyknight" by Steve Ginter, which was quite a few pictures.

While I agree that it was excessive, I'd suggest that a better compromise would be to post tantalizing but frustratingly small "thumbnail" versions of the scans. Of course, if there was a complaint by the author/publisher and a request to simply remove them, that's one thing... but if you want to get people to buy the book, showing them what's in it would seem to be the way to go.

 

[hesham]

By the way,

the Douglas F3D-3 was given the designation D.601.

 

[Triton]

The judgement was made by a moderator that the poster had gone beyond "fair use" by scanning everything on the Swept Wing Skyknight from Naval Fighters #4 "Douglas F3D Skyknight" by Steve Ginter, which was quite a few pictures.

While I agree that it was excessive, I'd suggest that a better compromise would be to post tantalizing but frustratingly small "thumbnail" versions of the scans. Of course, if there was a complaint by the author/publisher and a request to simply remove them, that's one thing... but if you want to get people to buy the book, showing them what's in it would seem to be the way to go.

No, I don't agree that it would be a better compromise. One of the criteria that the courts look at whether use of copyrighted material is copyright infringement, or non-infringing under the Fair Use Doctrine, is the percentage of the copyrighted work that is reproduced.

 

[Stargazer]

By the way,

the Douglas F3D-3 was given the designation D.601.

Thanks hesham, I'd been unsuccessful myself at finding this.

 

[Orionblamblam]

No, I don't agree that it would be a better compromise. One of the criteria that the courts look at whether use of copyrighted material is copyright infringement, or non-infringing under the Fair Use Doctrine, is the percentage of the copyrighted work that is reproduced.

If a book is 150 pages long and contained 1.5 pages of "Secret Projects" stuff, reproducing those 1.5 pages at good resolution might legally be fair use... but for those of us interested in "Secret Projects," you've just reproduced *all* of the book that we might be interested in. So, legal, yes... but ethical, no. And wise? Certainly not. If an author sees his "secret projects" stuff getting splashed all over such that nobody buys his books for the "secret projects" stuff, there's no longer an incentive to include "secret projects" stuff.

Basic free market capitalism teaches quite clearly that for the *buyer* it's unwise to steal a limited product, if you want that product to continue to be made available.

EDIT: perhaps time to split the thread...

 

[iverson]

"legal, yes... but ethical, no"

If there is a better place for this, please move it. But I need to respond to this.

I make no claims about the alleged infraction that started this discussion. But ethics has nothing to do with copyright. I'm both a professional writer and, through some years working with a publisher, experienced in copyright law. I am somewhat knowledgeable about its history. Copyright is just a matter of law. Ethically, information is free. For law, there are some excellent books available that explain both your legal rights and your responsibilities.

Copyrights are not property. They are monopolies, restraints on trade that governments grant for particular purposes. Historically these purposes have sometimes been defensible and more often not.

Copyright originated in monopolies that European monarchies gave printers in order to control information and suppress dissent. The press was given guaranteed profits in exchange for working with the censors to keep subversive literature out of print. In all of Europe, the US Declaration of Independence could not be published except in Denmark (for some reason).

US copyright came about to subvert such restrictions. US copyrights promote free echange of information. They were designed to promote the publication of ideas by giving authors--NOT publishers--a limited short term monopoly (origninally something like seven years). But the monopoly would be voided by "abuse" of the monopoly. You can't charge too much or artificially limit distribution, for example. The concept of "fair use", broadly conceived, is thus integral to US copyright.

In our time, the revolutionary concept behind US copyright is under attack from the recording and motion picture industries, both of which want to convert it into an absolute monopoly or a kind of private property. All of us who have a real interest in knowledge--whether as authors, as scholars, or as casual enthusiasts--should be careful to defend the revolutionary, libertarian character of US copyright.

And if you are worried about the author, don't be. As one who is one, I can tell you that the author always gets screwed. It's the corporations that make money by limiting the spread of information. For writers, more information is always grist for more books, and being able to write more books is job security.

 

[Orionblamblam]

ethics has nothing to do with copyright.

Perhaps not. But in *my* opinion, dumping an authors work - even if that work is not his own, necessarily, but something he nevertheless had to work at to find - out in the open for all to see for free is unethical when that authors work is easily available for reasonable purchase.

Ethically, information is free. ... defend the revolutionary, libertarian character of US copyright.

These two statements are contradictory. The libertarian view is "what's yours is your, and what's mine can be yours for a price," and that includes information, whether produced by a person (an artist, an author, an engineer), or found by a person.

In the terms of this forum, "fair use" would, IMO, include "tantalizing but frustratingly small reproductions." I've little interest in debating the finer points of the law, since the law is an ass and can be twisted to fit any situation.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

I'm both a professional writer and, through some years working with a publisher, experienced in copyright law. I am somewhat knowledgeable about its history. Copyright is just a matter of law. Ethically, information is free. For law, there are some excellent books available that explain both your legal rights and your responsibilities.

Yet you fail to note the one simple basis of print copyright. It is expressly NOT a right of ownership to an idea just the presentation of this idea. If you want to own an idea you have to patent it which is very different to copyright. All copyright provides you is protection from unauthorised copying of whatever text, image, audio, video, etc you have created.

Now as to the example of the Skywarrior book Steve Ginter and company would have copyright to all the text and original pictures within the book. In most Ginter books most of the pictures are actually owned (copyrighted) by the US Government as having being produced by the US armed services. Or they are actually owned (copyrighted) by various aerospace companies who produced the original image in a brochure or promotional document that has been copied by Ginter into the book.

Now that doesn’t mean I’m in favour of rampart copying of such excellent books as those published by Steve Ginter. The forum policy in this regard is quite clear and perfectly sensible. But don’t mistake ownership for publication, presentation for ideas and ethics or rights for ignorance.

 

[fightingirish]

The member "Dizzyfugu"at our sister forum "whatifmodelers.com" made a superb model of a Douglas F3D-3/F-10C "Skyknight" with swept wings. B)
Link: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,30833.0.html
Pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dizzyfugu/with/13894238810/
Sketches and scans originally from Mr. Steve Ginters' book "Naval Fighters #4 - Douglas F3D Skynight" are posted from post #3 onwards.

 

[allysonca]

Here are some in-house wood 1/4 scale Douglas models from my collection... note on the lower shelf a swept wing Skyknight. Also a close up.

 

[RAP]

Douglas drawing of the F3D-3.

 

[Dynoman]

Nice model/art of the F3D-3 from Aviation Archives

 

[Talon Smithee]

From Joe Baugher's site:
"The F3D-3 was the designation assigned to a proposed swept-winged version of the Skyknight. Like the original F3D-2, it was to have been powered by the J46 turbojet. However, following the cancellation of the J46, calculated performance of the F3D-3 with the substitute J34 was deemed insufficient to warrant production, and the order for 287 production F3D-3s was cancelled in February of 1952 before any could be built."

From AirVectors:
"An F3D-3 with swept wings and J46 engines was planned, with a contract placed for a large number of aircraft. Unfortunately, the delays in the J46 program meant that the J34 engine would have to be used, and studies demonstrated that, with J34 engines, the F3D-3 would show little performance improvement over the F3D-2. The order was canceled in early 1952. There was no further new production of Skyknights."

 

[BlackBat242]

Drawings/pictures via Steve Ginter "Naval Fighter Number 4, Douglas F3D Skyknight"

 

[topspeed3]

F3D was issued in 1945:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnHJmyyTC_8

 

[hesham]

From American Fighter,book.

 

[archipeppe]

The F3D-3: an Intruder before the Intruder??

 

[acegeek9992]

The F3D-3: an Intruder before the Intruder??

View attachment 698987

Possibly!

 

[riggerrob]

Drawings/pictures via Steve Ginter "Naval Fighter Number 4, Douglas F3D Skyknight"
View attachment 698970


View attachment 698971


View attachment 698972


View attachment 698973

Wow!
What bizarre arrray of external stores.
The only practical application missing is the electronic warfare “canoes” that were hung under the wings of their EA-6 Prowler and EF-18 Growlers.
Another missing practical application is SCAD rescue pods containing inflatable life-rafts, though I have not heard of SCADs being carried by fast jets.
A missing whimsical under-wing store would be the man-carrying pods carried under a few P-38 Lightnings. Man-carrying pods have also been proposed for AV-8 Harrier, AH-64 Apache, F-35B, etc. but never made it to flight test.

 

[Firefinder]

The more I look at the slithouse for this the more I'm reminded of an picture of what looks to be this design but used for the Missileer program.

Which does make a scary amount of sense thinking of it.

Damn I wish my dad didn't throw that book away...