Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "PilotPhotog" channel.

  1. What killed the F-14: it was a hangar queen -- relatively speaking. It was outstanding in the air -- but require a LOT of man-hours by the mechanics. One key reason: many of its systems were pre-digital. They weren't anything like the plug-n-play of an F-18. As time went by, the F-14 adopted ever more digital systems -- but the heart of its combat radar -- due to its high power -- was a labor pig. The Phoenix was retired even before the Tomcat. (!) It's upkeep couldn't be separated from the Tomcat's expense. The USN did a bean-count and concluded that they couldn't afford the F-14 now that the Soviets were in the dustbin of history. Now, with the PLAN on the war path, the USN is starting to have some regrets. Pilots just loved that plane.
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  2. The F-105 was almost two different planes -- as when loaded the pilots termed it the 'lead sled.' To get its speed way up, on the deck, the wings were built small. So, it was no dog-fighter. Once the load was dropped, the F-105 could move like a bat-out-of-hell leaving the drop zone. Since the original payload was to be a tactical nuke, you can see why Republic went crazy for exit speed. The USAF loved that aspect of its design. The fact that it was a 'dog' inbound to NV targets -- unable to dance around SAM infestations -- led directly to the USAF specs for the F-15 and F-16. Now the Air Force wanted multi-purpose planes that could fly straight up. In many ways, the F-16 is the god-child of the F-105 & F-107 -- having traits from both machines, but mostly from the F-107. The tac nuke mission of the Thud has been given to cruise missiles.
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  3. The real story is that this funding is the life-blood of Boeing. The USAF can't bear to have any more contraction in its support base. Further, the F-15 has always been a pleasant asset for the USAF. Most nations can't even begin to deal with the F-15. The USAF wants to hold back its stealth machines for near-peer conflict. What that means is that Red China simply does NOT get a chance to de-bug or train against the F-35. These planes (stealth) are very likely to be re-deployed back to CONUS during international tension, entirely out of range of all Red Chinese tactical assets. In this manner, the Reds can't 'Pearl Harbor' the USAF fleet. To top this off, the USAF will be cranking out a 6th Generation machine that the Reds don't get to look at. The idea in all of this is to keep the Red Chinese quasi-ignorant about USAF capabilities... to keep things 'fuzzy.'
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  4. I resent OLD NEWS. Please stop.
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