I also see RN Phantoms and Buccaneers. There were some big differences between the RN Phantoms and USN Phantoms. The RN Phantoms had larger intakes due to the Rolls Royce Spey engines (insisting on UK content), and a longer nose gear. The latter was to get a larger angle of attack due to the shorter catapults. RN carriers tended to be very cramped. A holdover from their design philosophy from early WW2, they had armored flight decks, as well as the hangar being an armored box. Thus reliance on centerline elevators that were quite small (did the RN ever implement deck edge elevators?), and any angled deck tended to be quite shallow, with maybe the exception of the HMS Victorious. The USN Essex class IMHO appeared more capable (similar size to the Ark Royal and Eagle CATOBARs). I just wonder how they cross decked the Intruders, although the Buccaneers were similar size and weight. The Buccaneers however did have some kind of boundary layer bleed on the wing, or something like that, optimizing for lower speed takeoff and landing. I know I’m going to get flamed on this one.
Correction - blown flaps not boundary layer.
The Phantoms used the a variant of the same engine we had in our A-7E Corsairs (the Rolls Royce-Detroit Diesel Allison variant TF-41) they had two of them, and also had afterburners on them. They were thermally limited engines due to the engine’s propensity for developing turbine blade cracks due to high temperatures, so when you put a new engine in, you had to set a thermal governor that would limit how high the temp could go,and as a result, limited the power output.
It was unusual. Our previous models had used the TF-30 (same as the Tomcat) but they weren’t as powerful as the TF-41.
On the Phantom, those two TF-41 variants, the Spey engines sure as hell did not smoke as much as the J-79s our Phantoms had, and weren’t as loud either, and didn’t gulp fuel the same way. I think the J-79 significantly had more thrust...you don’t get something for nothing!