Posted on 01/11/2014 8:25:52 AM PST by Sir Napsalot
Thanks for the info. A tip of the hat to those guys that flew the F104’s and others.
was the wire story even true?
About the navy ship yes it was. IIRC it was a support ship in the Med. Was a minor stink but the MSM wanted it to fall down a memory hole after how badly they flubbed the original story. I think the ship was spotted from an aircraft that didn’t crash or another passing ship.
They shouldn’t have been doing that, of course
I like those too. The droopy nose, the upturned wing tips with the downturned tail fins, the way the engine outlets are set forward in the fuselage — somehow it all adds up to a cool looking machine.
The F-111 has always drawn negative press because there were so many variants of the basic design. If any version failed to meet it’s design criteria, the press played on that. The whole F-111 program was made to look like a failure.
It was a good idea but difficult to develop one plane that could perform the various roles envisioned for the F-111. I think the F-111 (fighter) and the FB-111 (fighter/bomber) were good products. The other versions were scrapped on the drawing board or during development. But time took it toll, rolls changed, materials and computer technology improved, and the world changed.
I don’t think the author of this article did enough research to make the judgements he has made.
During Red Flag exercises on straight out air to air, the F-111 sucked. But crank up it’s advantage of TFR ( Terrain Following Radar ) and it got low, no plane in the world would even try and take it. TFR used to take up half of an aircraft’s “black boxes”. Now it’s only one small chip.
Yes, and the space shuttle computers were 286’s. Great in it’s day, but so 20th century now.
Maybe I’ve been misread but you’ve hit on something I know. How many You Tube videos are you going to access on station 2A on an F-15?
I’m sorry I missed your point.
“Royal [sic] B.E.2
Brewster Buffalo
LaGG-3
F-101/102/104/105
MiG-23”
Author Farley has published enough errors to make even moderately educated heads spin; errors documentational, technical, tactical, and conceptual. He cannot even be bothered to get basic names right: The B.E.2 was a product of Britain’s Royal Aircraft Factory (just renamed from “Royal Balloon Factory”). It did not make its way to the Western Front from any manufacturer named “Royal”.
And he couldn’t be bothered to count: his entry for the US “Century Series” - more of an ex-post-facto bit of jargon cottoned to by aviation buffs, than a term of military meaning - was four separate aircraft, acquired for widely different reasons, built to accomplish greatly different missions.
It was inconsistent, even dishonest to list the B.E.2; it was designed during the first decade of flight, before even the most visionary thinkers fantasized the advent of air-to-air combat.
But its place at the top of the author’s list points to an even greater error in concept: the notion that all aircraft designated “fighter” do exactly the same thing and can be judged by the same criteria. It’s never been true, but that’s never been understood by the general public, and - more disturbingly - it’s rarely understood by military leaders, even ones inside aviation organizations.
Indeed, it can be said that the “common sense” perception of air power in war is that the highest, best, and most decisive use of airplanes is in direct clashes with enemy airplanes.
And most debates - in the Halls of Congress, between august heads of Armed Services, in O-Club bars at AFBs and NASs around the globe, and between fans and wannabes down to junior high school - focus on the one-on-one aerial duel, that clash of two pilots in two machines, in a death struggle.
All of it is wrong. In three very large ways. At least.
1. The aerial duel between “lone wolves” is dramatic, compelling, absorbing, utterly final - for participants, support staff, media hacks, and fans alike. But it has played no part in air combat since 1915 or so (indeed, a less-thrilling chore that had to be taken up by the earliest military flying schools was the “de-programming” of over-cocky volunteers, who wanted to take the fight to the enemy single-handed, and direly needed concepts like discipline and teamwork hammered into their overblown, egotistical heads).
2. The duel encompasses only a tiny part of any engagement; what happens after the combatants see each other is only a few percentage points of the total elapsed time. What really counts is who spots the other fellow first - a giant majority of combat engagements end in victory for whoever gets the drop. All tactics, all differences in airframe design, engine power, armament, every other factor is insignificant in comparison.
3. Command of the air (and, increasingly, near-Earth space) is essential to all other air activity, and (through that control) everything else that can happen - on the ground, in the water, or under it - on any battlefield. The use of air power, broadly defined, affects everything. And its possibilities multiply every day.
Not that military leaders appreciate any of this. Still less does the public.
Will they do so?
We can but hope.
When I served in Catapults on the USS FDR (CVA-42) out of Mayport FL, we spent several days in the Atlantic doing carrier qualifications for the Vigilante. It was fantastic looking, so sleek and big!
Our normal squadrons included A-4, AD-4 (prop), F-4 and the A-3 Skywarrior (largest)and 2 F-8Us (photo recon). I’ve always wondered why the Vigilante never caught on, as it appeared to be a good aircraft.
I wonder how each would fare against an F-20.
Did you mean high wing loading?
Yes it was a great low level jet.
TFR gave it a heck of an advantage at night.
Today, with FLIR and TFR, the F-15E is now the low level night strike fighter.
Have to give the F-111 guys credit; at the Mach, just off the deck at night with nothing but black out the front windscreen. . .took big balls. (At least the F-15E has FLIR so the aircrew can see where they are going while TFR low-level at night).
As I recall, the F-111B avionics bay was just behind the cockpit instead of right in front of the cockpit as in all other versions. What was sacrificed was the saddle fuel tank that was normally there in the other versions, reducing the overall internal fuel of the F-111B vs. the other models.
(added) Yup, here's a comparison:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.