Watch out, Putin! Huge American B-52s that can carry nuclear weapons land at RAF base as [Trunc}

Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | March 17, 2019 | Harry Howard

[Rockingham]

The F-4 had power and swagger but little beauty. Burdened by a demanding set of requirements, the F-4 design had an excess of aerodynamic kludges and compromises that needed two big, thirsty, smokey engines to shove it through the sky. Ugly but durable, the F-4 performed well enough and had a long enough production run to become the iconic third generation American fighter aircraft.

Yet, as the reform-minded "fighter mafia" showed, the F-4 was inherently flawed as a dogfighter and suffered too many avoidable losses to smaller and more nimble MiG-21s over Vietnam. For a successor to the F-4, John Boyd, an Air Force pilot turned Pentagon procurement officer, rejected a wish list of requirements in favor of a performance equation based on his authoritative energy-maneuver theory of fighter combat. This offered aircraft designers a wider scope for their talents. The result was the superb F-16, with the runner up becoming the Navy's F-18.

[mabarker1]

My Grandmother (Dad’s Mom) was Born in 1901 and Passed away in 2004, outlived all 3 of Her Son’s. Think about all She saw and did in those 103 years. Cars, Aircraft, WW I, WW II (She worked in a Bomb Factory), Atomic Age, Korea, Vietnam, Space Flight, Moon Landings, Space Shuttle, GW I, GW II. She had 5 Children and Raised them. I can’t even remember how many Grandchildren, Great Grandchildren and Great-Great Grandchildren. She traveled the World with one Aunt that was in the Army. Rode Camels in the sand pit. And I’m sure many other things that I don’t know about. She drank Bloody Mary’s , Screwdrivers, smoked unfiltered Camel cigs daily and ate Hamburgers that were basically raw.

They just don’t make’em like that anymore.

[mabarker1]

And now we have Fighter Jets that can carry more Ordinance than a WW II Heavy Bomber did.

[Yardstick]

Yeah, exactly — swagger. The F-4 is pure coolness.

It’s the Han Solo of jet fighters.

The technical nitpicking is just nerd stuff.

[Yardstick]

Oh, I agree the F-16 and F-18 are nice in a Luke Skywalker kind of way.

But anyone with any sense of aesthetics has got to love the F-4. It’s the rumbling Harley Davidson of fighter jets.

[arthurus]

I don’t know. No one is left alive that had that. I almost remember the name of his last ship but I can’t quite finger it. His name was George Simmons.

[sparklite2]

Buffs used to be stationed at the now closed Amarillo AFB. It was neat driving down the road and seeing row on row of their big tails sticking up.

On another note, I just streamed a documentary about the development and operation of the Thunder-chief (Thud) in Vietnam. The pilots loved them but they were largely wasted by the ridiculous ROE coming out of the Johnson White House.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The number of shipping lines has certainly been reduced in the past 25 years. I put fuel on Interlake Steamship, Columbia, American, Great Lakes Fleet and four or five others for 16 years on Lake Superior.
Fun days !

[Tom Bombadil]

Any B-52 attack would require a lot of battlefield prep by thing like stealth and ECM aircraft. Even then, the massive B-52 radar signature would make it hard to use against a near-peer enemy.

[Rockingham]

In the end, fighters have to be judged not on style but on how good they are at their defining mission of killing peer level opponents. In a gun versus gun dogfight, other things being equal, the smaller, harder to see, and more nimble F-16 beats the F-4.

Of course, the unfair part of such a comparison is that they are fighter designs from different eras. The F-16 was innovative in its clean lines, high maneuverability, fly-by-wire control system, high visibility bubble canopy, and g force resistant semi-reclined pilot seat.

Pilot critics these days like to refer to deride the F-16 as the lawn dart. Yet if one compares the F-4, F-16, and F-22, it is easy to see just from appearances that the F-16 is in the middle of that evolutionary line, with the F-4 now looking old.