The new issue of Air & Space magazine has an article about the F4D Skyray.
It goes into the positives and negatives of the aircraft's performance. The
positive was that at altitude, that big delta wing gave it great turning
performance.

The negatives, however, were pretty severe. At approach to landing the
plane was a real mess. One pilot remarked that because the landing gear did
not all deploy at the same time, the result was that the plane skidded all
over the place. It sounds like it must have been really tough to bring down
on a carrier deck, although the article does not go into that.




D