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

  1. In recent years it's been stated that antiballistic missile shots are super hard, but back in the early 60s systems like Nike and Sprint were scoring metal-on-metal hits against practice warheads. Sprint is one of the most insane missiles I've ever seen, accelerating to ungodly speeds after launch which made the missile body glow white hot from the dense atmosphere,
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  2.  @joshuabessire9169  I mean it's true, right? America produced the F-106, and BAM, Armstrong walks on the moon!
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  3. When the tower radios, "Check wheels down" and the pilot thinks, "How do I tell him?"
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  4. In addition to all the other problems mentioned and the issues with clearing the flight deck quickly, I'm trying to imagine Vietnam era vacuum tube avionics suffering this sort of abuse. Even modern solid state electronics don't much care for it. Still, the only way to know for sure if it doesn't work is to give it a serious try.
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  5. If you look closely at an F/A-18, especially the A-D versions, you can see the F-5 DNA in there. There's definitely a family resemblance.
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  6. I think we only stepped away from it because ballistic missiles became a bigger threat than bombers. Vietnam wasn't considered a "real" war, since neither superpower's existence was threatened it could be treated as a sideshow (at first, anyway). But right up until 1991 the potential battle in Europe was considered the real deal. The F-117 and B-2 were not built to drop bombs on desert-dwelling guys with sandals and Kalashnikovs; those aircraft were designed to penetrate defenses of places such as East Germany and the USSR.
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  7.  @uberduberdave  Amazing how those two details make all the difference between the beautiful Six and the rather homely-looking Deuce.
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  8. For some reason I had confused this aircraft with the Douglas Skypirate torpedo bomber which also never saw service. I wasn't familiar at all with this particular jet. Great to see this series talking about how US Navy fighters evolved after the War.
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  9.  @johnstirling6597  That makes the aircraft maintainer in me shudder. Different times.
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  10. Cursed image.
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  11. If you haven't been yet, visit the USAF museum in Dayton, Ohio. There you will find the world's only remaining XB-70 and a B-58, along with 4 hangars full of aircraft and missiles.
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  12. Certainly true in those days. One can fantasize about Northrop Grumman developing a rival or follow on to the F-35 and giving it a "cat" name for the Navy someday.
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  13.  @minertheo  Not being designed for something is not same as "can't do" that thing. Gordon states he found the F-106 was a good dogfighter once he trained up for it, and there is also the example of the A-4 Skyhawk, a light bomber which was used for years by Top Gun instructors to fight against students in F-14s. I don't know that much about the F-102, other than the fact that it was disappointingly slow compared to the Six, but maybe it can dogfight subsonic? That was my question.
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  14. The A-5 Vigilante was similar in size and shape to the Six, maybe even a bit longer, and they flew off the boat. Also a beautiful machine in its own right.
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  15. I think it had to do with the difficulty of landing jets on a carrier with primitive early jet engines. One reason why modern supercarriers were built, too.
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  16. While it's true we don't measure success of aircraft the same as e used to, it's interesting to note the handful of 1950s aircraft types that are still in service today. Most of them are large transport or bomber type aircraft which don't put lots of G loads on their airframes and thus don't suffer as much from fatigue, B-52 Stratofortress being the obvious example. Others are so successful in their role that they are not only still in service, but even still in production after over 6 decades, such as the C-130 Hercules.
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  17. The SR-71 makes no sense, the F/A-18 is wrong, the F-117 is not a fighter, etc.
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  18. I feel the need. Does anyone else here feel the need? I feel the need.
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  19.  @legoeasycompany  I always thought Blinder was scary because it reminds one of a nuclear flash.
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  20. Love the way you ended this video, with the silent flyby. Great work on this series. A lot of this footage and photography is new to me.
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  21. Another top notch video, and Happy 4th to all!
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  22. YouTube doesn't like history type channels lately. The Operations Room has mentioned this a few times.
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  23. I left a comment here that contained nothing controversial and apparently youtube deleted it. Sorry, NAPFATG, I would love to have a nice conversation here but the petty tyrants who run this place won't let me.
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  24. Worth mentioning is that there were two aircraft companies named Ryan, this one was "Ryan Aeronautical", not to be confused with "Ryan Airlines", builder of the Spirit of St. Louis. This used to confuse me, when I was growing up, I assumed they were the same outfit, but apparently, they were different entities started by the same guy named Ryan. It's still confusing to be honest.
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  25. This has me pumped. Not sure for what, yet, but I bet it'll be good.
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  26. Loving this channel. And you know it's getting bigger since haters are starting to show up. Losers can't stand it when others win.
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  27. You need to check your facts before posting comments. The early Sparrow 1 was a beam rider. Look it up. (I admit, I'm being a dick here, but it's kind of funny.)
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  28. 3:52 those guys shooting the Finger at the pilots is hilarious. I'm kind of surprised that film managed to survive.
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  29. No apologies needed.
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  30. Totally agree. Nothing like getting off work and seeing a new Not a Pound vid in the feed.
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  31. And history shows that Grumman is always right when you want a naval fighter.
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  32. I've often wondered why the US Navy or Coast Guard don't operate any flying boats any more. Almost as fast and ranging as a Hercules, but with the added ability to land on water. Japan has cool 4-engine turboprop flying boats, I saw them operating out of Iwakuni and they were very impressive. Besides, I watched Tales of the Gold Monkey growing up and always wanted a Grumman Goose.
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  33. They deserve the credit he gives them for getting the USAF more focused on basic dogfighting again, even if they were wrong about so much else. The F-111 program is the poster child for bloated pork defense spending, even though the airframe did eventually become useful as a bomber and electronic warfare platform it was never going to be an actual fighter plane.
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  34. Because communism.
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  35. Loving this channel so far. Solid work.
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  36. So did the Sabre Dog never get a chance to shoot? Interesting. And another solid video.
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  37. The Lighthorsemen (1987) is a good movie about Aussies in WWI.
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  38.  @benitoswagoini4713  The F-14 had its share of TF-30 compressor stall issues as well. The TF-30 is what killed Goose!
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  39. That image of a navalized F-15 with Phoenix missiles...as if the swing-wing Phantom variant wasn't disorienting enough already.
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  40. Especially in the shiny dark navy blue scheme.
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  41. I'd like to see a video about the entire Grumman cat family, from the Wildcat to the Tomcat.
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  42.  @petesheppard1709  To be fair, the X-15 and the Apollo Command Module were some of North American's greatest achievements in their later years.
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  43.  @notapound  I second the in-depth look at SAGE, I find it fascinating. Also, you might want to reach out to youtuber Bruce Gordon. He's an old F-106 pilot who flew continental defense missions in the 60s before heading to Vietnam to fly combat in the F-100 and he has experience with SAGE as well as the AIM-4 Falcon missile. His channel is pretty awesome.
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  44.  @prowlus  Carrier air wings on Essex class flat tops included F-8 Crusader squadrons, which were pretty good fighters with supersonic top speeds. But the Tu-126 was subsonic, and the A-4 Skyhawk is as good at air-to-air combat as any subsonic jet has a right to be, so, what the heck.
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  45.  @notapound  As has been mentioned, former F-106 pilot Bruce Gordon talks about the AIM-4 on his youtube channel and his opinion is that it's a fine missile, so long as it's paired with the correct radar and fire control system. The F-106 has this system, built specifically for the Falcon missile, but other fighters such as the F-4 Phantom do not, which is what Gordon attributes the negative reviews to. In an exercise, Gordon made a successful head-on shot against an oncoming BOMARC cruise missile in a supersonic pass using an F-106 and a Falcon missile.
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  46.  @thethirdman225  Makhonine was the French Sikorsky. Sikorsky was the American Makhonine.
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  47.  @weldonwin  Wasn't the Soviet Union, though, IIRC it was Not-Libya. In the sequel it was Not-Iran-or-North Korea.
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  48. Interesting analysis. Given post-Vietnam hindsight it's tough to put yourself in the heads of decision makers in the 50s. The idea that a fight would break out and either side would decide not to immediately go full nuclear and eliminate the enemy's nuclear forces just didn't seem to make sense. In a way, it almost still doesn't. I remember the 80s when it was still assumed that any conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact wouldn't stay conventional for very long, if at all. If one side feels its survival as a nation state was in jeopardy, it was assumed they'd open all the stops and use all the big bombs in desperation. Even today, people are wargaming a Pacific war between China and US allies, and it's important to realize that both sides have considerable nuclear capability, which presumably discourages either side from attacking the other's mainland. That seems like a dangerous assumption, but the alternative is to go back to a hard Cold War mentality like we saw in the early 80s where everyone lived in constant dread.
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  49. 58:20 That's the same maneuver Maverick and Rooster pull in their stolen Tomcat!
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  50.  @toddabowden  For me it's Cold War electronics. Radar and radios, as well as the SAGE system with its giant computers and data links.
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