Comments by "Gort" (@gort8203) on "The McDonnell Douglas F-15N Sea Eagle; Tomcat Rival" video.

  1. RE: the lecture by the F-14 designer at 3:05. Any airplane can "take" another in the right circumstances. However under most circumstances the F-15 had superior maneuverability. This is only natural, as the F-14 was handicapped by the weight and wing needed for the fleet defense role the F-15 did not have to perform.
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  2.  @GoSlash27  It seems you didn't read my comments and want to stick to your own narrative. Of course the side-by-side seating was not a deal breaker for the Navy; they had insisted on it over the objections of the Air Force in the first place. The fact is that F-111B was not designed to dogfight at all. Too big for carrier operations? The A-3 could fit on the elevators but the F-111B could not? The F-111 had worse visibility during landing than the F-4 or A-5? From Smithsonian Magazine: "In the summer of 1968, when the fifth F-111B prototype flew its carrier trials, Pete Pettigrew [of Topgun and F-14 fame] was aboard the USS Coral Sea. To the surprise of many, the big interceptor completed its evaluations without major problems. “It flew a nice approach, wasn’t too fast, and performed well on the ball,” says Pettigrew. “They were pretty happy about it.” The Navy pushed negative narratives about the F-111B after 'internal reconsideration' led to the desire for a combination air superiority / fleet defense fighter rather than a dedicated fleet defense aircraft. That was the right decision, but blaming the Air Force and McNamara for the switch was just politics aimed at Congress.
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  3. The failure of the F-111B has become a mythical narrative on the internet. The reality is that the Navy changed its mind about the roles its next fighter needed to perform. The lessons of the TFX program are commonly misinterpreted, but if you repeat a narrative for decades it becomes "truth". The idea that one basic airframe could fulfill two different roles was not a dumb idea at all. History is full of examples of aircraft that were versatile enough to fly for different services and even perform different missions. The original requirements presented by the Navy and USAF were not incompatible, but the requirements changed. Initially the TFX program was reasonable because USAF and USN were both asking for a large aircraft that could lift a heavy load of fuel and weapons, with long range or long loiter, plus high-speed dash or intercept. Twin engines and an innovative variable geometry wing were called for, and DOD logically assessed that it would be wasteful to develop two very expensive advanced airframes when a single one with some variations could do both jobs. The reason one basic airframe could do both jobs was because the original USN specification was for a fleet defense fighter, not an air superiority fighter. It was not originally intended to be what later became the F-14, but to perform the role meant for the Douglas F6D Missileer, with the addition of supersonic dash capability. I was never meant to be a dogfighter. The biggest difference between the airframe requirements of the two services was that USAF wanted a tandem cockpit and USN want side by side seating. Boeing tried to make both services happy, but MacNamara’s DOD thought USAF could suck it up and have the crew sit side by side. This is ironic considering that when the Navy cancelled its version USAF was stuck with the cockpit it didn’t want, which also ironically contributed to the airplane being too ungainly for a dogfighter. But if the Navy had expected the F-111 to be a dogfighter it would not have insisted on the side-by-side cockpit over the objection of the Air Force. The F-111 cockpit was suitable for a radar interceptor, but not for an air superiority fighter. The original idea wasn’t dumb -- what happened was that needs changed. USN revised its needs as result of combat experience in Vietnam, and realized they also needed an air superiority fighter to replace the F-8 and F-4, but couldn’t afford that in addition to a dedicated fleet defense aircraft. Thus, the TFX would now have to be able to dogfight as well as be a missile interceptor. The F-111B could have worked as a missileer, but it was too fat and underpowered to compete as an air superiority fighter. It was proper of the Navy to recognize that its needs had evolved. This was perhaps the beginning of the Navy realizing that budgets and hangar decks did not have room for so many specialized aircraft. USAF desperately needed the F-111 to replace the F-105, so they sucked it up and accepted the heavy airframe caused by the loveseat cockpit they never wanted.
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  4.  @30AndHatingIt  You should read more carefully. No one ever said an F-14 could never beat an F-15, only that the F-15 is overall the more maneuverable aircraft. As it should be, having been optimized for that attribute, while the F-14 had to meet more varied requirements. They don’t call them the laws of physics for no reason. BTW, there are all sorts of accounts online about everything, including visits by flying saucers. There is actually a web page by an experienced F-14 pilot who claims the airplane was not really that good at dogfighting because it wasn’t designed for that. He’s wrong, of course, but that extreme example illustrates the validity of internet accounts. My statement was based on face-to-face discussions with multiple F-14 and F-15 pilots about dogfighting in these aircraft. But F-14 fanboys will remain fanboys.
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  5.  @GoSlash27  The Navy drove the design of the TFX as much as USAF did, if not more. The F-111B was not meant to be an air superiority fighter, it was meant to be a Phoenix missile fleet defense interceptor, which is what drove the swing wing and the side by side cockpit seating. I put more detail in a separate comment if you want to read it.
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  6.  @GoSlash27  No, this argument is rooted in an unwillingness to accept the consensus of reality, and a desire to twist the argument into one you can win. You can argue all the ifs ands or buts you want all day long. The truth is that the F-15 has superior overall maneuverability to the F-14, as it should considering what these aircraft were designed to do. You must not think that USAF would have specified a heavier aircraft with a VG wing on the same thrust if it would have given the F-15 more maneuverability. They looked at that for the F-15 and discarded it because it was inferior. End of story for those of us who accept reality, but you seem to think Grumman worked magic that overcame the laws of physics. Have a nice day.
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  7. I've never seen a USAF taxiway with an arresting cable, but all runways at fighter bases have a cable at both ends so an arrested landing can be made at the approach or departure end depending on the situation.
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  8.  @GoSlash27  I can see your mind is made up and will not be confused by the facts, so I shall waste no more time.
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