Comments by "mpetersen6" (@mpetersen6) on "Not A Pound For Air To Ground" channel.

Westinghouse along with General Electric are both companies with their industrial efforts in many areas. They are more akin to large Japanese industrial firms. GE got the original US contract to build versions of the original Whittle centrifugal jet engines because of their experience with building turbosuperchargers for aircraft engines and high temperature alloys. Both companies have experience with steam turbine and generating sets for power plants. Other US companies that became involved in jet engine technology were Allison and Wright. Companies that would build engines under license included Studebaker and Allis Chalmers iirc.
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Saddled with the underperforming Westinghouse (1) axial flow engines and aerodynamics of questionable performance for the late 1940s. I wonder just what the difference a more powerful set of engines and fly by wire controls only really made possible in the 1970s would have made. 1) Westinghouse did have turbine engine experience prior to dipping their toes into aviation jet engine design. Unfortunately that experience was all in steam turbine or posdibly gas turbine units for power plant or possibly ship board use. The US market for steam turbines was pretty much dominated by General Electric and Westinghouse to my knowledge. And the Westinghouse was not the first acisl flow engine designed or built in the US. That goes to the Lockheed engine designed for their L-133. That engine was taken over by Marquart and never really did work out.
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A far better looking aircraft, and likely much better, than the clumsy Vought Pirate.
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It is what happens when a project spans numerous administrations from the time the services ask for proposals until entering service. If it was just the airframe and engines the time to first flight would be much shorter. Add in all of the radar and weapons systems. Along with requests to match changing needs or requirements. Then see what happens. The US Navy used to do a lot of business with Petersen Ship Building in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin. Primarily support and auxiliary ships. Petersen finally walked away from submitting for contracts because they were sick and tired of having to tear apart partially finished vessels because the Navy changed their minds. They now build top tier pleasure craft. Much less hassle.
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I remember a single panel cartoon were the Party Leader is screaming at the designer. "I said Space Shuttle! Not Space Shovel!"
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The Missileer wasn't really a bad concept. The airframe almost looks like an up dated Skyknight. The big problem is the overall slow speed of the airframe. Just no dash capability at all. Of course if the launch aircraft could hand off the misdile to a guidance aircraft then you are just dealing with a missile truck.
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It's pronounced Spo-can
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Having an interest in building card models I'm pleased to see that there have been at least two versions of this lesser known aircraft available. One in 1/33rd scale and a bundle of three versions in 1/100th. The three great things about card modeling are 1) At 1/33rd scale it at least a magnitude cheaper than plastic. 2) Because of greatly reduced development costs unusual subjects can be done even in large scales. 3) If you scan the parts sheets you have a back-up if you mess up. Just print more parts 😊
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Refering to the F-84 as a jet powered P-47 makes sense from the design philosophy at Republic.
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@petesheppard1709 A local technical college had a F-84 on static display outside their Airframe & Engine school. The swept wing version. One of the administrators decided he didn't like it and called in a scrap company to chop it up and haul it away. Turned out the airframe was on loan from the Wisconsin Air National Guard and they were not pleased.
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While in concept the idea of common airframes across services to save money sounds great. In practice the needs of a land based versus the needs of a carrier based air force will result in vastly different versions of the same aircraft. Look at the F-35. Of course McNamara came out of the auto industry as a cost specialist. In the auto industry it is common for different models to share many common components. Amazingly though two very good aircraft did result in cross service use in the US. The F-4 and the A-7. Every other airframe used by both the USAF and the USN was a land based airframe.
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The Iranian experience with the F-14 proves two things. First is be careful who you sell front line equipment to. Second is never, ever assume that your now non friends are dummies.
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To this day there is a company in Illinois that still build vacuum tubes for specialized uses. I'm old enough to remember test fixtures at electronics stores where you could check tubes for whether they worked or not.
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Given its ditching performance maybe it should have been called the Seaview. Interesting take on the invention of the afterburner. Although i would think it can be traced to experimental motorjets.
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American politics work?
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The big strength of the F-15 lies in its radar support aircraft. No mistake the F-15 is a superb aircraft. Why else would we be seeing new airframes being delivered in 2024. Was the F-15 the best fighter of its era? In some ways it's an open question. Did the F-15 ever really meet peer aircraft and peer pilots in combat? For that matter the US Navy overmatched any opponent with the F-14. How well did Iranian F-14s do against the Iraqis. It amazes me that the Iranians are still able to keep at least some of them operational. But then l did still see a comment on YouTube the other day about how one person said some of the best mechanical and electrical engineers he had ever worked with came out of Iran.
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I've wondered about the idea of BUFFs or B-ONEs equiped with the Tomcats radar and armed with Phoenix missiles. And by missiles l mean 4 to 6 times the number of missiles carried by the F-14. If the Cold War had ever turned hot the ability to ambush Soviet Naval Aviation Badgers and Backfires before they could get into range of convoys would make a big difference. Provided the whole thing didn't go nuclear first. Open season on Bears too.
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It took Vought three tries to get a capable carrier based jet fighter.
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One should never forget that in the 50s and 60s the US and Canada also deployed SAM batteries for point defense of major urban areas. The Nike and Nike Zues were housed in concrete bunkers that covered logical approach vectors. Part of this SAM reliance resulted in the cancellation of the CF-106 Arrow.
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@petesheppard1709 I'm not a Washington resident but l watch a lot of videos about PNW geology. Specifically Nick Zentner. A fellow Cheesehead.
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@ulfosterberg9116 60 & 64 Dems, 68 & 72 Repb, 76 Dem, 80, 84 & 88 Repb. That's just the White House. House and Senate yah that's a different story. But a lot of the Dems then would've liberal Republicans now if they have the same views.
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 @prowlus If the insurance company is on the ball he probably cannot get life insurance. And that's what he really needs. Something that insures he survives.
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 @afmo500 And his party dues were like 10,001 rubles. Easy come, easy go
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First afterburner equiped US fighter? No. That's yhe Vought F6-U Pirate. First operational fighter with A/B? Yah, I'll ho with that.
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When the Navy was looking for an aircraft to carry the AIM-6 Phoenix Douglas proposed another airframe very similar to their earlier one.
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Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and atomic weapons. I suspect in a full on nuclear exchange Soviet bomber formations would seperate long before they could be intercepted by US or Canadian aircraft. In the 50s and 60s the bomber and missile gap was for the most part a misread of intelligence. If the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone hot (1) the US would have been hurt. But the USSR and Western to Eastern Europe would have been shattered. In terms of the percentage of GDP the Soviets far outstripped the US during the Cold War. In almost every type of weapons system be it armor, aircraft, SAM systems etc the Soviets by far out produced the US. By the early 70s the Soviets had by far more missiles and warheads than the US and its Allies in the UK and France. 1) The most likely cause would have been a Soviet commander in Cuba authorizing a launch or a submarine using a nuclear armed torpedo of a US carrier group.
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The only fighters I remember seeing as a kid were F-86s at Truax Field outside of Madison WI. Deeper inside North America there was more SAM based point defense around major urban areas. In the 50s the Air Force started building Bong Air Force Base about 15 miles west of us. Cancelled before they even started pouring concrete for the runways. Now the site of a state recreation area and county golf course.
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IIRC the F-16 was originally designed with twin vertical stabilizers. When they switched to one the structure for the horizontal control surfaces were not changed much. Of course that could be internet or aviation magazine BS. Kind of like the reason the Corsair had a full wing was to shorten the landing gear for ground clearance on the prop. Nope. The gull wing resulted from it improved the aerodynamics of the airframe.
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Morphed into General Dynamics iirc.
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In 1948 the Soviets had yet test their first atomic device.
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