Some flight model notes on this one:
You might fly the Skyray and think that it is a little underwhelming, and you would be sharing the same sentiments as the US Navy! The plane was designed at a time when radical ideas were being tried, and also at a time in which practically every Navy aircraft program suffered from the failure of the Westinghouse J40 engine. The Skyray suffered from some aerodynamic problems that limted its top speed to something just over Mach 1, but at low level it was actually pretty sporty, and held some closed course speed records for a short time.
Ed Heineman in his wisdom left enough space in the fuselage to accomodate other engines, and eventually the Skyray was powered by an early version of the J57. Range and endurance were always a problem, since the plane carries less than 4000 lbs internal fuel. But, it was designed to be a point-defence interceptor for the fleet, and was never intended to loiter on station. Still, it is said that its extremely short legs caused havoc with carrier cycle times. The Skyray never had a truly effective weapons system. Its good rate of climb made it a good platform for intercepts, but once it had found a target, it didn't have much capability to shoot it down. 20mm cannon were initially installed, but these were invariably removed at the squadron level to reduce weight, and unguided rockets were relied on for shooting down bombers. The AIM-9B was eventually added, but even then only two could be carried (the drop tanks were a necessity). In that sense, its contemporary and competitor, the F3H Demon, was a more effective all-weather interceptor being armed with the Sparrow III.
The main handling idiosyncrosy--which I was not able to successfully replicate--is a sharp pitch-down (as much as -3g!) as the aircraft passed through the transonic region. This reversed and became a strong pitch-up as the aircraft slowed down again. The large trim surfaces were designed to compensate for this, and initially an automatic system was installed, which proved defective and dangerous because it rarely operated both trim surfaces perfectly in sync. This was disabled and pilots could control them manually, but apparantly most just anticiapted and compensated for the problem using the stick. These trim tabs are functional in game, btw, just use the thrust vector input.
Douglas eventually worked out these problems and produced the F5D Skylancer, but by that time it was too late--the F8U and F4H had raised the state of the art to a new level.
The Skyray though is a great piece of history, because it is a microcosm of things that were going on in military aircraft development in the 1950s...and it looks cool as hell.