What if the Royal Navy got It's Aircraft Carriers?

The TF41 version of the Spey that was in the A7E Corsair produced about 15000lb of thrust, compared to about 11000lb dry in the Spey Phantom and Buccaneer and about 21000 wet in the Phantom. So if the RN can upgrade their Speys to something similar then their Phantoms could have massive power. I wonder if the radar from the Tornado F3 could be fitted to a Phantom or could the OTL Blue Vixen be developed?

Yeah, that could work. You are thinking more like the Terminator 2020 F-4s that Turkey and Israel built, I think, and yeah you could do that.
 
A shitload more power is all that would be needed to turn the Spey Phantom from something of a dud into the envy of the world's Phantom operators. With 15000lb dry thrust it wouldn't be far short or J79 Phantoms in afterburner, and with approx 25000lb wet it would have a thrust ratio of close to or greater than unity. F4E/S wing slats wouldn't go astray either. And all this would still cost less than a new plane.
 
Yes I believe that the UK would go with a verison of the F-4 that would be an improvement on the F-4K and more likely the Super F-4 that was considered.
Eventually the Royal Navy might have bought a verison of the Grunman F-14. Wth the possibility of an interm buy of the F/A-18 Super Hornet and evenually the F-35.
 
A shitload more power is all that would be needed to turn the Spey Phantom from something of a dud into the envy of the world's Phantom operators. With 15000lb dry thrust it wouldn't be far short or J79 Phantoms in afterburner, and with approx 25000lb wet it would have a thrust ratio of close to or greater than unity. F4E/S wing slats wouldn't go astray either. And all this would still cost less than a new plane.

Perhaps the best idea here is going two fold. First try to take weight out of the F-4 where it won't hurt its performance or safety (perhaps replacing steel or aluminum parts with carbon fiber, for example) and using the Pratt and Whitney engines from the F-15 in the F-4.

I still believe that the F-14 would be a good thing to equip these carriers with. The F-4 is a tough SOB, but the F-14 is better to fly and has considerably better performance. And again, after the Islamic Revolution, the Brits could get their hands on the Iranian F-14s for peanuts.
 
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