Comments by "Gort" (@gort8203) on "Not A Pound For Air To Ground" channel.

  1. The MiGs were not smaller and "more agile" than the F-86, the planes were roughly comparable there. The MiG had superior ceiling and rate of climb. The Korean War pilots interviewed by Kelly Johnson asked for a plane with superior speed, climb and ceiling in a lightweight package, and that drove the design of the F-104. It also limited its range and load carrying ability as a fighter bomber, which is why USAF brass was not that fond of the airplane.
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  2. The photo at time 1:10 should be very informative for those who refuse to accept the purpose of the wing sweep of the 262. This photo of a prototype clearly shows that at first only the outer panels were swept back from the originally straight design, which was done to change the relationship between the center of gravity and the center of pressure caused by engines that were heavier than planned. You can see the wing inboard of the engine remains straight. The whole point of sweeping the outer panel was to avoid changing the structure of the fuselage to move the wing attach point. The sweep of the inboard panel was added later simply by extending the line of the outer leading edge to add additional surface area at the front of inner panel, and the trailing edge remained straight. By the way, the 262 wing was swept nowhere near 35 degrees, it was only 17.5, the same as the DC-3. 35 degrees is more like the F-86.
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  3. The F-111B was not for one second ever intended for BFM. It was to be purely a fleet defense missileer. This is why it had to go after the Navy realized it really needed an all-around fighter rather than a missileer. If the F-111B had been intended to dogfight the Navy would never have firmly insisted on the side-by-side cockpit seating over the objections of the USAF.
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  4. No, the F-106 was never intended to be the USAF premier air superiority fighter. It was intended to be its premier bomber interceptor, working in concert with the SAGE system. The F-106 not only did not have a gun or a gunsight, it did not originally even have air supply for a pilot G-suit. This is why USAF bought the Navy developed F-4 when it saw an immediate need for a new tactical fighter to replace the F-100 and 104.
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  5. Like most Vought designs the F-8 was not that conservative and introduced innovation. The variable incidence wing allowed for shorter and lighter landing gear as well as better pilot visibility on approach to landing. In keeping with some other Vought innovations it worked but was not really necessary, and was not used on subsequent designs. But it was another example of Vought not settling for the common solution.
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  6. Reconstitution of destroyed or degraded forces in order to keep an exercise going is standard in furtherance of the goal of learning as much as possible from the limited units and time available in most exercise scenarios.
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  7. For those who need fact more than drama, a couple of details about the throttle. The sequence begins with the throttle in the off position, which is behind the idle stop in the right hand normal range of throttle movement. After pressing the starter button the throttle is moved outboard to the start position, and held there until the starter motor fires. At that point the throttle is moved back inboard and supplies ignition to the engine, but not fuel. The throttle must then be moved forward past the off detent into the idle position to supply fuel to the engine and allow it to start. This sequence ensures fuel does not enter the combustion chamber prior to ignition. In runup for takeoff you do not hold the brakes with afterburner lit. After checking the engine in military power you release the brakes and ensure the airplane is rolling straight prior to lighting the afterburner. A nozzle malfunction can cause yaw that would be uncontrollable on the runway.
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  8. A lead collision pursuit curve is not designed to provide a head-on attack. It provides a quicker intercept than a pure pursuit curve in which the interceptor just points at the target. The aspect of the final engagement depends upon the relative positions of the interceptor and target when the intercept is initiated, as well as any maneuvering by the target.
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  9. Yes the design was already obsolete, but it was still the best jet in actual combat over Germany in WWII. So it wasn't as good as who thought it was, Adolf Galland in 1944, or the YouTube 'community' 80 years later? It was a tool for a job. The controversy has little to do with the machine itself, the problem is that social media 'discourse' causes people to pick a side either for or against something. Like most real things the truth is much less dramatic, but modern society craves drama rather than truth.
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  10. The point about the combat formation and tactics used is important. F-8 pilots were superior at air-to-air because it was in their culture and what they trained for. Same for the F-104, which started life and inculcated its community as a pure day fighter. F-104 pilots used superior tactics to other USAF fighters because it was what they focused on to maximize their air-to-air capability. In terms of pure aircraft performance, the F-104 and F-4 were about even at low and medium altitudes and the F104 was superior at high altitudes. The F-4 was superior overall due to its avionics, range, and loadout. But too much is made of turn radius and dogfighting, which is not as large a part of air combat as most think. The Korean war pilots interviewed by Kelly Johnson did not ask him for an airplane that would turn tighter than the enemy. They asked for superior speed, climb, and ceiling, because those are the factors that convey advantage in air combat. Bleeding speed in tight turns squandered the advantage such an airplane had and was not considered an advisable tactic even in WWII.
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  11. I have to suspect the wings were larger not because the fuselage was shorter, but to give the heavier jet more lift at slow speed for approach to the carrier. I have to suspect the increase in size of the vertical fin was not to improve lateral stability, but to improve directional stability that was reduced by the shorter fuselage and shorter lever arm between the CG and the fin.
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  12. The F-105 didn't have to shoot at aircraft with its gunsight in "ground strafing mode". It was an air to air gunsight when not depressed for ground attack. The F-105 shot down more Migs with its gun than any other fighter in the war.
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  13.  @pyronuke4768  Sorry, but your logic is twisted. These terms have meanings. The F-106 was not an air superiority fighter, as claimed by this video. It was designed and equipped to intercept and shoot down bombers attacking the United States; it was not equipped to engage enemy fighters in a battle for air superiority over contested airspace. Just because such specialized aircraft no longer exist doesn't mean we should forget why they existed, especially if we are endeavoring to discuss history.
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  14.  @KaoKacique  And then it goes on to say the airplane lacked the BFM capabilities the Navy needed in the real world. This in conjunction with other comments can be interpreted as meaning the airplane was forced on the Navy by McNamara even though it didn't meet its needs. This is the common narrative, but it is not the case. The design did meet the stated needs of the Navy at the time, which were quite specific.
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  15. An amazingly ignorant comment.
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  16. The all flying tail of the F-86 did not allow removal of the leading edge slats, it allowed superior pitch control at transonic speed when the normal shock attaching to the horizontal tail impeded elevator authority. Removal of the leading edge slats in favor of a wider chord wing was a later upgrade that increased lift at higher speeds with some loss of lift for takeoff an landing.
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  17.  @christophmahler  You are misinformed on the genesis behind the fleet defense doctrine. The F-111B didn't need a stronger engine to perform the design fleet defense role, which did not require high maneuverability. Connolly's statement to Congress was made after the Navy had decided it needed to dump the F-111 in favor of a more versatile air superiority fighter that could perform other roles as well as fleet defense. This was the result of combat experience in Vietnam. Connolly had been part of the Navy leadership (their 'fighter mafia') that never wanted a Fleet Defense Fighter in the first place. He had always wanted a true air superiority fighter, but more senior leadership overruled his faction and specified the fleet defense airplane. His statement about how all the thrust in the world wouldn't make the F-111 a fighter is tossed around as a proof that the F-111 design was a failure, but he conveniently failed to mention that the F-111B had never been intended to be the fighter he now said the Navy needed. It's the politics of procurement. The Navy changed its mind about what it really needed, and for decades its PR allies in Congress and the media have aided and abetted misrepresentation of that decision as being due to deficiencies in the F-111B design.
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  18.  @absolutelynotacommie  That's not the point. The point is that the Russian war of territorial acquisition against Ukraine is hardly a defensive operation, nor are the weapons being employed.
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  19. The conclusions of the exercise were valid and useful in shaping future doctrine. That fact that they are uncomfortable is lamentable but is not a reason to discount them. BTW, it a nuclear rather than conventional war exercise for a reason. There was no need to conduct a conventional war exercise. There had been recent conventional wars, and in the case of a another conventional war in Europe the West would not prevail without a massive buildup of conventional forces that would have been far more expensive then the nuclear one. When passing judgement on the thinking of the time another thing to keep in mind is that fallout is not necessarily as bad as depicted in the movies, depending on the targets. Airbursts are more effective again non-hardened targets, and above a certain height they don't create as much lasting fallout as ground bursts. To borrow from Bucky, "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks", is less than the last conventional world war. It was a difficult time.
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  20. Yeah, they all had wings and engines.
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  21.  @kilianortmann9979  The YA-7F is fascinating because it moved the A-7 even closer to being an F-8 optimized for attack capability. It was what the USAF version of A-7 probably should have been from the start. The YA-7F is noteworthy because the proposal was requested by USAF because they already knew the A-10 was too slow for the interdiction role. The plane had barely lost its new car smell before its limitations were driving a proposal for another airplane, but that is a discussion for a different video.
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  22. They did not fly at low speeds and high AOA on this mission. Speed was life, which is why the slow movers were withdrawn. Later USAF Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak wrote that when he was a Misty his minimum airspeed was 500 knots, and if he unintentionally got below that speed he lit the burner until got a minimum of 500 knots back on the jet. (He was also not a fan of the A-10, because he knew it was too slow to survive in the environment he flew in during the 1960s, let alone the even more lethal modern air defense environment, which severely limits its usefulness.) But I do agree they had huge brass ones.
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  23.  @marcusott5054  Had Germany used the F-105 in that way it would have also suffered a high accident rate. The problem was not the F-104, it was the type of inherently risky operation coupled with Germany's lack of experience with high-strung Mach 2 aircraft.
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  24. All turbojet engines have difficulty with at low rpm at high altitude. The solution is for the fuel control to raise the minimum rpm allowed there.
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  25. People hear all sorts of things, but there is nothing to indicate the aerodynamics of this aircraft were modified to make it a bomber interceptor. It was designed as an air superiority fighter, and like all such aircraft it was designed to be faster and fly higher than opposing fighters because that conferred advantage in aerial combat. It was later modified to serve as a fighter-bomber. Any fighter can intercept a bomber, but the F-100 didn't even have a radar or radar homing missiles. The F-102 was the first supersonic purpose-built all-weather bomber interceptor, designed to be directed at bombers by ground control until being able to complete the intercept with its own radar and fire radar homing missiles.
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  26.  @wesleyworley8982  "Unlike the F-104, the F-8 had the range to get to North Vietnam where the air war was fought." The F-8 didn't have more range than the F-104, but it only had to travel from carriers off the coast.
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  27.  @pyronuke4768  Your convoluted argument is specious and does not change the meaning of the commonly used term air superiority fighter.
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  28. The soviets had plenty of tactical medium bombers and fighter-bombers to support offensive operations. SU-7B, SU-17/20/22, SU-24, plus older fighters still useful in the fighter-bomber and ground support roles.
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  29. You can't be serious. You are misconstruing the TO&E of the superpowers.
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  30. When I was in middle school my study hall notebook contained sketches of airplane designs with telescoping wings. I was wondering why nobody had tried it. Now I know.
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  31. The F-111B did not "fail". It met the original specifications for the fleet defense fighter. What failed was the Navy's ability to foresee the needs of the future when issuing those specifications. As a result of combat experience in Vietnam the Navy later realized it could not afford a dedicated fleet defense fighter, and it needed its next fighter to be an all-around air superiority fighter that could also perform the fleet defense role. The F-111B had NEVER been intended to be an all-around air superiority fighter with the dogfighting ability the F-14 would have. Connolly, having been a fighter purist who never wanted the dedicated fleet defense fighter in the first place, was fittingly given the job of putting the nail in its coffin before Congress. But his words are always taken out of context, and the F-111B gets the blame for the Navy's changing requirements.
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  32. The F-100 was employed only briefly in the air-to-air role and the great majority of its work was interdiction and close air support, for which the C and D models had been produced. The Misty FACs were indeed a very daring part of its prodigious SEA service.
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  33. Yes. USAF has always wanted a gun on its tactical fighters. The bomber interceptors were armed first with unguided rockets and later with radar guided missiles. The F-102 and 106 not only lacked a gun and a gunsight, they lacked provision for a pilot G-suit (added later in life to the 106). They were bomber interceptors. The other century series jets were tactical fighters and all had a gun, whether designed for air superiority like the F-104 or air to ground like the F-105. Even the later F-111A bomber could carry a gun if necessary, although doing so would have been a waste of its specialized expertise.
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  34.  @crazymavbro6418  And not just ROE, but basic target selection. When you are only allowed to attack things the enemy has in large numbers instead of things that are in short supply you are squandering the basic attributes of air power.
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  35. Why not add the kitchen sink as well. The airplane could not carry both the rockets and the cannon. Also, calling the rockets inaccurate is misplaced criticism. That's like calling the shot pattern of a shotgun inaccurate. The idea was to blanket the area of the sky containing the bomber with a pattern of rockets so that at least one would hit. If the rockets were too accurate, they would all hit the same point, leading to all of them missing in what is known as an accurate miss.
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  36.  @sergeipohkerova7211  No, the aircraft could not carry both cannon and the rocket armament without significant performance penalty. You seem to think airplanes are magic vehicles to which weight and internal space don't matter. It's not about "extravagance", it is about reality. Don't compare the destructive power of single shot pellet to a single explosive warhead. The shotgun analogy was about using a spread of projectiles to hit a target, not the destructive power of the projectiles. They were accurate enough, and like I said great accuracy was not desired. Don't compare that to firing pairs of air to ground rockets at a ground target, which is an entirely different thing. I get a kick out of the assumption that these rockets were useless against bombers. Like you said yourself, they (thankfully) didn't get a chance to perform in combat, but when tested against a B-17 they easily destroyed it. Again, reality interferes with assumptions.
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  37.  @pyronuke4768  And the F-111 was meant to be a bomber for the Air Force and an interceptor for the Navy. Airplanes can do more than one thing when properly equipped, and the two versions had different equipment for their different roles. The USAF F-4 was equipped from the start to be a tactical fighter-bomber because that's what USAF needed. The F-106 was not so equipped; it was equipped to be an automated bomber interceptor. Read up on ADC and the SAGE system. The F-4 was not equipped for that. The F-106 was not equipped to fight enemy fighters. It didn't even have provision for a pilot G suit because that wasn't needed to intercept bombers attacking the U.S.
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  38.  @chriscarbaugh3936  They were not a complete failure. They kept MiGs from attacking the assets for which they flew escort or BARCAP, and even performed successful ground attack missions.
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  39. Opinions vary on vertical tape instruments. Despite the theory behind them, many believed it was easy to confuse one reading with another and spend more time scanning, because they all looked the same. When the F-15 came out in the 70s it had gone back to round dials for most instruments.
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  40.  @RCAvhstape  It was never intended to be "an actual fighter plane". It was intended to be a bomber for the USAF and a fleet defense interceptor like the Douglas F6D Missileer for the Navy. The Navy's plans changed after experience in Vietnam lead to cancellation of the F-111B and development of the F-14.
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  41.  @christophergagliano2051  I know your question was not directed to me, but I'm going to jump in with a comment. Terms like "fighter mafia" and bomber mafia" tend to polarize discussions rather than illuminate them. There were many USAF leaders who wanted to prioritize air to air capability in the next fighter, but they were not all as extreme as Boyd and Sprey. Nevertheless, the advice USAF leadership they did accept was very important in moving the F-15 toward the greatest fighter of its time, and in later getting the follow-on lightweight fighter competition greenlighted. But Boyd and Spey were extremists who wanted to go too far. If they had their way the next fighter would have been a lightweight fighter armed only with guns and IR missiles for close combat. Luckily more mature leadership was in charge, and we got the much larger and more capable F-15 that was going to be absolutely necessary for the next war. Sprey and the extremists were also against the M-1 Abrams tank and other systems, but they were resoundingly proven wrong by combat in the Gulf War, where the weapons they had railed against as “gold plated” proved their worth in battle. People also need to remember that the extremists were against the changes USAF made to the YF-16 to convert it into the more useful multirole fighter that entered service with numerous air forces. It was larger, more versatile, and more capable than the YF-16 prototype. Combat in the real world is not just a 1V1 cage match.
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  42.  @christophergagliano2051  Yes I've read the book called Boyd, and much more. Your single source of information is highly biased and tells a slanted story, and some of us here know more. Like I said, they did not control the design of those airplanes. If they had, those airplanes would be quite different from they way they turned out. But you sound like they type who believes the first story you hear and are done deciding, so you reject any contrary information.
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  43.  @christophergagliano2051  Your facts are in error becuse you have fallen for the comic book version of the Boyd and Sprey story. It's fake. Bye.
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  44. It was fast but did not have the loiter ability or load capability necessary. One thing the F-111B and the F-14 had in common was the VG wing necessary to meet those mission parameters. The A-5 wing was not capable, nor the fuselage for that matter.
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  45. There were no advantages to the taildragger landing gear. The video is bunk in that regard. I posted this comment earlier: The type of landing gear fitted to an airplane does not determine its nose attitude on approach. That is a function of the angle of incidence at which the wing is set. This also has nothing to do with 'aerodynamic braking' on approach, which is a term normally reserved for the post-touchdown maneuver used in lieu of wheel braking. What must be meant in the video is that the airplane was draggy enough on approach (probably due to those flaps) to not require additional drag or thrust attenuation devices to maintain safe engine rpm. Another thing, having taildragger landing gear does not shorten the takeoff run unless the airplane isn't able to rotate to the takeoff attitude when necessary. If a plane can't rotate for takeoff (for example due to bicycle landing gear) then you need to have the wing set at an angle of incidence to allow liftoff without rotation. Having nose gear does not limit the pitch attitude an airplane can achieve on the ground. With conventional gear keeping the tail down for the entire takeoff run can actually inhibit acceleration, as compared to raising the tail during acceleration and then rotating when near takeoff speed.
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  46.  @robertmaybeth3434  It was obviously suitable, or Germany and Canada would not have bought it specifically to fulfill their NATO obligations to perform that role. You can't see this because you do not understand the role or the history of combat aircraft in general. Here are some facts that may help you understand more: Number of engines is irrelevant. All the aircraft that performed that role in that theater prior to the F-104, such as the F-84, were also single-engine. The F-104 was an improvement due to is speed, which improved its ability to reach its assigned targets, and do so more quickly. All these single engine fighter-bombers had relatively short legs. It was not a long-range strategic bombing mission. The mission was to deliver a tactical nuclear weapon against an enemy airfield, troop concentration, or supply dump. Strike fighters carried external fuel to extend their range, but even so in many cases it was expected to be a one-way mission. Pilots with insufficient fuel to return to a friendly base expected to bail out over a designated safe area for evasion and maybe have a chance to survive the war. People who did not serve during the cold war may not understand such plans, or the commitment it takes to perform them. The weapon loadout was a single tactical nuclear bomb, so how much payload do you need. The F-104 could carry four external fuel tanks in addition to the weapon, so it had sufficient range to reach its assigned targets. Hope that helps you understand the realities.
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  47.  @robertmaybeth3434  I served as a pilot who was prepared to bail out above the arctic circle and become a popsicle. Hope your silo was warm with plenty of snack food.
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  48.  @feedingravens  "he said it was to a large part simply the giant jump from jets like the Fiat G-91 to this Mach 2 interceptor without intensive training that caused the issues. He said that after the pilots were sent into the USA to train there the number of accidents went down drastically. " That is the true story.
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  49.  @slowpoke3102  "It also had horrible handling characteristics" Such as what, it stalls and sinks if you fly too slow? Welcome to manned flight.
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  50.  @heatloss  The F-15 was not better by accident, but by hard work.
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  51. Disregarding other facts of the F-104, the fleet was simply too small to be viable for sustained combat operations over North Vietnam. The F-105 fleet also became too small and it was the first U.S. aircraft ever withdrawn from combat due to an unsustainable loss rate. The F-4 was in production and could fulfill both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles.
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  52. (3:55) A fighter that has greater sustained turn capability than a predecessor with greater instantaneous turn capability is usually considered more maneuverable, not less.
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  53. You need to understand that in the age of guns speed was the most important attribute for a fighter. Speed and climb is what conferred the ability to control the engagement. If tight turns were the decisive attribute aircraft designs would have sacrificed speed for turn rate/radius, but the opposite was the case, at least until effective A-A missiles began to dominate combat.
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  54.  @SoloRenegade  No question that the P-80 was a better airplane. If the Luftwaffe had not been already defeated it would have been interesting to see the P-80 in combat. But it wouldn't have had the range to escort the heavy bombers until it could be based pretty far forward, and by then the Luftwaffe was on the ropes anyway.
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  55.  @hlynkacg9529  That's because the U.S. has to be able to go elsewhere to fight with their NATO and other allies. Once upon a time the U.S. originally thought it was safe to isolate itself behind the world's two largest oceans, but being dragged into 2 world wars forced it to go elsewhere to fight. It then realized that waiting for invasion forces to pull up to its coastline was not a viable defense strategy. If the U.S. continues to help defend allies from the acquisitional states of the world it must remain expeditionary.
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  56.  @christophergagliano2051  Who are "they"? The people you think are "they" did not write the specifications for those airplanes, they were overruled and their desires moderated. If they had controlled design of those airplanes they wouldn't be what they are.
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  57. The F-111B was what the Navy wanted when they asked for it, and if you paid attention to the video you would have seen that explained. The Navy later changed their mind when they realized they couldn't get both a new fleet defense interceptor and a new air superiority fighter and had to combine both missions into a single airframe, which became the F-14.
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  58.  @katamarankatamaranovich9986  I agree with you about escalation management in a war, but the point is that action against North Vietnam was not yet a 'war', and the US policy was to keep it from becoming one. The US never intended to defeat North Vietnam. The whole point of rolling Thunder was to demonstrate US resolve in deterring North Vietnam from interfering in the south. That is not a war as much as border control (something the US has also never learned). If defeating North Vietnam was a goal you would have seen something that looked more like desert storm than Rolling Thunder. Despite everything the US should have learned from WWII and Vietnam, it still has an exaggerated fear of escalation which is evident in how it has let that fear hamper Ukraine and Israel in their current wars.
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  59.  @robertkalinic335  Comrade, you miss the point that North Vietnam should not have been sending forces into South Vietnam. The border was established by international treaty, and the South was to be allowed free democratic elections. Illegal aggression by totalitarian North Vietnam forced the US to fulfill its obligation to support the South in resisting external aggression.
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  60. It was listed as a "probable" becuse it had been hit, but nobody saw the aircraft destroyed. Thems the rules.
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  61. It wasn't the guns of the MiG-15, it was the speed.
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  62.  @stinkyfungus  Actually in real life I think Skyraiders attacked the bridge.
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  63.  @robjohnson8522  When people comment about MiGs being smaller and lighter they are usually parroting the line from the movie Top Gun, which was comparing the MiG-21 to the F-4. I don't think the difference between the Mig-17 and F-86 was as significant, meaning they were roughly comparable, as do most aviation scholars who write on the subject. The MiG was a bit lighter with a better thrust to weight ratio, so it accelerated and climbed better. The F-86 had more wing area to compensate for its weight, so agility was roughly comparable. In fact, the Sabre had an edge at high AOA and high speed due to handling deficiencies of the MiG. Most scholars of the Korean air war write that what made the difference between these two in combat was pilot training and tactics rather than the differences between the aircraft. That to me is roughly comparable.
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  64.  @alandavis6429  "a Mig fuselage can fit under the wing of an F86 and it is about 1/2 as long" You are clearly delusional.
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  65.  @sergeipohkerova7211  My intent was not to confront you personally, but it was to confront your assumptions and speculation with facts, some of which were mentioned in the video. But One thing we certainly do agree on is that it is good that these aircraft never had to test these theories for real.
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  66. What's the deal lately with so many YouTube channels referring to engine output as pounds of force rather than pounds of thrust? Thrust is of course a force, but the word thrust has always been used in aviation and is more specific and descriptive than force. I've never seen the word force used in place of thrust in the official documents and manuals associated with any airplane, and I've seen a lot of them.
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  67.  @DIREWOLFx75  I beg to differ with your 'well read' opinion that this was "psychopathy". From the comfort of your keyboard it is easy to slander people who were defending the West under difficult circumstances. It seems you would have them surrender because they were unwilling to fight a war that might be thrust upon them. We're lucky we had smarter men than you in charge of defending us then.
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  68. I don't think Vought was "sticking with what it knew" with this airplane. For one thing they banished the poor visibility of the F4U by pushing the cockpit as far forward as possible. For another they tried innovative composite skin surface materials. I don't think there was yet any appetite for swept wings on carrier jets. Even the successful first generation Navy jets like the F9F were straight wing, so we can't blame failure of this design on lack of wing sweep.
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  69.  @MrKentaroMotoPI  True. From the point of the commenter's question, we should also keep in mind that a pitot intake does not have to be at the nose of the aircraft. The F-16 is one aircraft with a simple pitot intake, meaning an intake with no ramps or cones to control the shock wave(s) in the inlet. The inlet is located under the cockpit so that the nose can house a sizable radar antenna. Conversely, the MiG-21 does have a nose mounted intake that is not a pitot intake because it is served by a shock cone, which I assume houses a small radar antenna in addition to placing an oblique shock in the inlet.
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  70. This is the most factually accurate and balanced video yet on the F-111B. The design was actually a success and would have performed the mission for which it was intended. It was never intended to be a maneuvering dogfighter. But the needs of the Navy changed, and they couldn't have both a new fleet defense interceptor and a new air superiority fighter (VFX). It's sad that the airplane usually gets blamed for the shifting desires of the Navy. It's also sad that by the time the Navy bailed out of the F-111B, the Air Force F-111A was left stuck with the side-by-side seating and crew escape capsule that they did not want.
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  71. The purpose of the cambered leading edge was not to reduce transonic drag, it was to improve lift at low speed.
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  72. Why would the Air Force want a slow straight-wing jet when the the faster straight-wing F-84 was already in service and F-86 was about to enter production. Answer is they would not. They also had the F-94 and F-89 Scorpion for night /all-weather.
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  73.  @RCAvhstape  Thank you.
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  74. Everybody likes to repeat that because the Navy wanted the F-18 instead of the F-16. But the number of single-engine Navy fighters and attack aircraft far outnumbers those with twin engines, and the Navy's latest fighter is again a single-engine.
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  75. What heavily laden bombers were thrown at SAM sites by SAC in the Vietnam war?
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  76.  @michaelfrench3396  You remain wrong about everything. The F-105 was the fastest thing going at low level. ALL airplanes are slower while carrying a heavy external load. The A-6 would not have been faster carrying that load. I don’t know that any of these aircraft were cleared for release of an external bombload at supersonic speed. Who said they would be at top speed when releasing their bombs? You are making up counters to irrelevant points not even made. By the way, heavily laden is a relative term. Yes, bombs are heavy. If you think any jet carrying a normal bomb load is ‘heavily laden’, then they are all always heavily laden all the time, and there is no way to send a non-heavily laden jet against a target. You are soaking your comments in pejorative language that means nothing in realty. Any jet attacking a SAM site was going to do it at low altitude. Of course there is more AAA there. What plane do you think should have been used to attack SAMs from higher altitude (which was of course within the heart of the SAM engagement envelope). The F-105 was designed for striking ground targets. The air force did not have a better plane for the job or they would have been using it. We could discuss the tactics employed, which varied during the war, but that is beyond the scope of your comments and your knowledge. Weasels flew in pairs. Of course, in the battle area. Not to make them harder to hit, but because they were a limited resource, and you don’t put them all in the same area. Because they had to maneuver a lot to do their job, and a two-ship flight is a maneuverable formation. “I'm saying that the military leadership knew that it was a bad idea to throw a Large group of heavily laden aircraft at a Sam site” No, they didn’t know that, and it’s an inaccurate description of what they did. Again, your pejorative language means nothing. It was a strike package. You have no idea of how a strike package works. It is not “throwing damn near a hundred slow moving heavily. Laden bombers at a anti-aircraft missile site”. A strike package is a coordinated group of aircraft, and they all don’t swarm over a single point in the sky at the same time. You need to learn a lot more before you start criticizing the actions of people with more training, experience, and responsibly in this area than you will ever know.
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  77. The point was that the USSR was not the enemy, and the Johnson Administration was fearful of any action that might make make it the enemy and turn a minor regional conflict into a major superpower conflict. This was not a new concept. Before Germany declared war on the U.S. in December 1941 it did not conduct unrestricted warfare against all U.S. ships supplying England, in order to keep the U.S. out of that war. That changed when Hitler declared the U.S. to be an enemy on December 11th.
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  78.  @katamarankatamaranovich9986  "But at the same time escalation and actual invasion of North was the only way to win the Vietnam war." I agree it would have been the most practical path to victory for sure, the fastest and least costly (provided it did not bring China or Russia fully into the war). I suppose in theory the US could have poured enough resources into the south to defend it without a ground invasion of the north, but that would have been a much more protracted and costly endeavor that the US public would never be willing to endure. (Especially if Walter Cronkite was going to report that the war was lost after every enemy defeat.)
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  79. Its not that it wasn't good, it was very good against the aircraft it met in combat. But by 1945 it was already a dated design. Much better designs were already on the drawing boards, so it would have been counterproductive to copy the 262.
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  80. Downwash on the horizontal tail does not cause the nose to tuck under. The narrator is mixing up misunderstood sound bites about different phenomena. The nose high approach attitude is not caused by lack of a horizonal tail. It is a product of the angle of attack needed by the low aspect ratio wing and its angle of incidence on the fuselage. It would not have flown at a different attitude if it had a tail.
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  81. I wouldn't accord too much meaning to nicknames applied to aircraft. Pilots are simple creatures who think in terms relative to what they know. Perhaps the F-100 was a lead sled compared to the F-86, but it wasn't a lead sled compared to its contemporaries, and I doubt there was a pilot who would rather take the F-86 into combat instead of the F-100. It also had lower wing loading than the F-5 that fans think of as a highly maneuverable fighter.
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  82. Delivery of air to ground weapons by fighters was not a new idea born of nuclear weapons, and in WWII was an integral part of offensive counter air operations. You can destroy and damage enemy fighters more efficiently by attacking them while parked rather than by engaging them in dogfights. As nukes proliferated fighters were adapted to carry them as a natural progression of fighter weapons capability.
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  83. They did succeed in their assigned mission of preventing the essentially helpless EB-66 from being shot down by MiGs. Could even have been the same outcome if the escort has been F-4s instead of F-102s, we will never know. War is not a video game were each task gets served by the ideal weapon for that task from a menu; you use what you have available.
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  84. The F-104 was not designed as a bomber interceptor, but as a high performance day fighter. The F-101 started out that way, but the B model added a large radar and a radar operator and flew as a stopgap interceptor for ADC while the F-102 and 106 encountered delays in development.
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  85.  @fighterjetsteve  I Plane Encyclopedia lists the XP-86 Sabre as the original designation of the airplane. "In June of 1948, the new US Air Force redesignated all Pursuit aircraft as Fighter aircraft, changing the prefix from P to F. Thus the XP-86 became the XF-86. XP-86 number one was officially delivered to the USAF on November 30, 1948. The three prototypes remained in various test and evaluation roles well into the 1950s, and were unofficially referred to as YP-86s."
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  86. Air National Guard was comparatively loose on enforcing grooming standards back then.
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  87.  @robertmaybeth3434  Hey, we were on the same team.
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  88. It wasn't an impractical exercise, it generated valuable information. Truth is not always pleasant.
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  89.  @djbiscuit1818  It was not my assumptions that led USAF to arm the Sabre Dog with Mighty Mouse rockets instead of cannon. I did not make that choice. I stated that this aircraft could not carry both these rockets and a set of cannon. These were alternatives to each other, and I think the video even alluded to that. Cannons would certainly be more accurate when fired from behind under visual conditions. However, at the time it was thought that the pilot would have insufficient time to accurately aim guns during a head on attack. The rockets could be salvoed more quickly, and only a single round need hit the target to disable it. Not my assumption, but that of those guiding development of the airplane. Cannon were also seen as insufficiently destructive, with multiple hits being necessary to ensure disabling a heavy bomber. A sufficiently destructive gun installation would not only have heavy recoil but would be a much heavier installation than rockets of equivalent destructive capability. Not my assumption, but reportedly the USAF thinking at the time. So perhaps Mighty Mouse rockets did not live up to the hopes for them, but USAF did not return to guns. What replaced these rockets on bomber interceptors? Not cannon, but larger and more sophisticated guided missiles. These facts all tell me something. They may tell you something different. Feel free to challenge the USAF assumptions of the time. I think their number is in the phone book (I’m dating myself again), but I suspect those who made these assumptions and decisions are unable to come to the phone.
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  90. Because they were simple day fighters and didn't have a large radar set in the nose. When it became necessary to house a large radar antenna in the nose the intakes were relocated.
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  91.  @neilturner6749  I think the Aerial Attack Study is not as closely linked to interception of strategic bombers as one might gather from this video. The F-100 was certainly not one of the aircraft USAF procured for that role during this time frame, and it was not well suited for it even in a pinch. It was a day air superiority fighter upgraded to a fighter bomber in later versions. Like any fighter it could shoot down a bomber (if it could find it), and as you point out defense of the US from attack by enemy nuclear bombers was the purview of more suitable aircraft. I also think too much is made of Boyd in general, as if he was the inventor of these concepts.
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  92.  @MrArgus11111  Surprising, but then again this is YouTube, where anybody can post a video about anything no matter how little they really know about the subject. Boyd did a couple of good things such as sparking a mathematical analysis of energy maneuverability. Good pilots tacitly understood EM, but getting into an objective format that helped inform the development of the next generation of fighter planes. But he was an extremist rather than a genius, and luckily senior USAF leadership that had actual experience commanding combat operations did not fall for the extreme concept of the simple dogfighter. Boyd was wrong about what was needed to dominate in actual air combat, as opposed to friendly dogfights over the local air patch, and he and his acolytes were wrong about the need for modernization in general. What was really bizarre was that while they were trying to hobble the USAF with a fleet of simple dogfighters, the Soviets we working as hard as they could to modernize their own weapons systems. The Gulf War proved Boyd and the ‘reformers’ wrong, but they still had the nerve to insisting this war proved them right! There was no way to retreat from the position they had zealously established for themselves, so they tried to twist reality into their own story. To me the OODA loop is just common sense painted up to look like incisive insight. I’ve seen this sort of thing from consultants of all types, particularly in aviation safety. They make a bunch of graphics and charts to explain things you already know with bigger words, and then charge you $400K for it.
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  93.  @oreticeric8730  Huh?
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  94. No, it was not designed as a point defense interceptor. It was designed as an air superiority fighter. Read the history.
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  95.  @SoloRenegade  Oh, you're trying to hurt my feelings. Good thing I don't have any. Like I said, if you think the range reduction at low altitude is comparable there is no use talking to you. Enjoy having the last last word, which of course has to be an insult given your mentality.
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  96. Nah, you're dreaming. The reason modern jets don't look like this is becuse they wouldn't have modern radars and weapons.
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  97.  @pyronuke4768  You have been wasting our time with convoluted argument that ignore the basic facts. Thanks for stopping.
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  98.  @christophergagliano2051  LOL, you keep referring to the one book you read as if it's the bible. All your comments indicate a fundamental lack of understanding and an almost religious fervor. You will not accept facts contrary to your belief so there is no point in debating further. Goodbye.
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  99.  @christophmahler  I wrote a response to your question but YouTube seems to have eaten it. Here is an abridged last attempt. I don't have "a source" at my fingertips. I also know Washington's army spent a winter at Valley Forge but I don't have a specific source handy for that either. I've followed the F-111 since the beginning and have read multiple sources in books, magazines, and war college research papers, and all I can suggest is that you can do the same if interested.
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  100. Wrong. It was designed as an air superiority fighter, not an "interceptor".
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  101.  @DonPatrono  Your opinion on what makes an air superiority plane is uninformed. Your focus on turn radius is mistaken. Every generation of fighter that was faster than the previous generation could not turn as tightly as the previous generation, yet they still kept making faster fighters. This is because speed, climb, and height were the factors that conferred advantage in that era of air combat. Pilots of the faster fighter knew not to get into a slow turning fight with tight turning fighter, but they didn't want to switch places with its pilot. People who think air combat was about tight turning dogfights get their assumptions from video games instead of history books. All that said, a properly handled F-104 could hold its own in a fight with an F-4 and beat it at high altitudes, because it did not turn as poorly in real life as it does in video games. At any rate, your claim that the F-104 was designed as BVR bomber interceptor is false.
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  102.  @DonPatrono  You are the one with bias, I just gave you the facts you can't accept. Fact: The F-104 was designed to be a simple air superiority fighter. Your biased opinions on how bad it was do not alter the facts and are of no interest. Fact: The F-104 was never intended to be BVR capable in USAF service. I could go on but why waste my time. You don't know what you are talking about, so please stop trying to spread misinformation.
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  103.  @kilianortmann9979  The last thing the Navy wanted was a slow straight-wing jet. The A-10 emulated the A-1 Skyraider, which the Navy was dumping as fast as it could, happily letting South Vietnam and the USAF take them off their hands. This was becuse the agreement that separated the two Vietnams until elections could be scheduled forbade introduction of jet aircraft. After that restriction became moot USAF had a political problem with the Army that the Navy didn't have, and got stuck with slow movers long after their day was past.
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  104.  @michaelfrench3396  "My God everybody's so butthurt that I confused TAC and SAC. I'm guessing it's the only problem you could find with my argument." It's a huge mistake indicative of ignorance of the subject matter, and it's not the only problem with your comment.
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  105.  @katamarankatamaranovich9986  Obviously people can disagree as to whether these sites should have been attacked, as many did at the time. Many years later even more people can disagree from the comfort of hindsight and no responsibly for avoiding escalation of what supposed to be a limited war, not a no-holds-barred war. I also think they should have attacked the sites, but I can't say I would have made that decision if I'd been in LBJ's chair at the time. The point was the concern was not about 'offending the enemy' -- which is a sarcastic throw-away line in the video -- it was about fear of killing non-enemy personnel on site in an advisory capacity, out of fear of possibly forcing undesired consequences. We've now had had a lot of time to study that war, which didn't look so simple back then. (BTW, they were SA-2s, not SA-5s.)
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  106.  @minera7595  "I'm no expert on plane design and might be very wrong, But I think it's possible that "Nose inlet" like the one in F-84 require some time to study and test, unlike the side inlet found in P-59 and P-80" Why would that be? Nose inlet was the original method and side intakes came later and are more complicated.
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  107.  @minera7595  It didn’t come first just on the He 178. The Gloster porotype, the Meteor, the Me262, the Arado 234, and even the P-59 all had inlets that let the air flow in a nearly straight shot from the inlet lip to the compressor face. The P-80 is the only plane you mentioned that had side mounted intakes that required the air to flow a less than straight path. The P-80 intake was the newer development, and the F-84 did nothing that had not already been done with and air intake.
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  108.  @minera7595  The inlet of the F-84 did not take years to test and presented no structural issues. Doesn't matter if it was the first one on a US made jet, because it was in no way unique. At this point you are just repeating yourself in trying to defend your original idle speculation, which still has no logic behind it. Okay then, believe what you will.
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  109. It is entertaining but not necessarily reality. When passing judgement on the thinking of the time another thing to keep in mind is that fallout is not necessarily as bad as depicted in the movies, depending on the targets. Airbursts are more effective again non-hardened targets, and above a certain height they don't create as much lasting fallout as ground bursts. To borrow from Bucky, "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks", is less than the last conventional world war. It was a difficult time.
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  110.  @darkknight1340  You seem to think air combat is like an artillery duel, where the longer range gun can hit the enemy without being hit in return. Fighters don't shoot at each other simultaneously from fixed opposing positions; one fighter gets to fire while the other can't. A shorter range gun just means the attacking fighter needs to get a bit closer to score hits, it doesn't mean it will get hit before it get there. By the way, the NR-23 of the MiG-15 has a muzzle velocity of 2,264 ft/s compared to 2,901 ft/s for the AN-M3 .50 cal. Seems to me the M3 is more likely to score hits. This is one reason US fighters retained the .50 cal for as long as they did.
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  111.  @Idahoguy10157  No, it was not designed for point defense, it was designed for air superiority. It was designed to do the same thing the F-86 did over MiG Alley in Korea. Kelley Johnson interviewed those pilots and asked them what they wanted in their next fighter. They said a lightweight fighter with superior speed and altitude. That is what the F-104 was designed to do.
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  112.  @Idahoguy10157  Like many others you substitute your own misinformed judgment of the airplane in place of the actual facts. I did not give you my judgement or opinion on the origin of the F-104, I gave you the documented facts. You can read them for yourself anywhere actual books on the airplane are sold. You opinion of and inability to understand the airplane it does not change the actual facts. A couple of points to demonstrate your mistaken assumptions: Yes, it had the range too. The F-104 had a slightly greater combat range than the F-86. And yes, the German and Canadian F-104s were bought for the tactical nuclear strike role, and they were going to go west at low level to strike critical WARPACT targets in the event of war.
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  113. It was a great idea. The USAF never intended it to be a fighter. The F-111A was a bomber. Just like the F-105 before it and the F-117 after it. Don't be misled by a simple letter.
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  114.  @robert-trading-as-Bob69  Perhaps you share some misconceptions with the creator of this video. Perhaps I can help with how you see things. “The airflow over the wing creates lift, which would be difficult with the wing at an angle as per the taildragger scenario envisioned by the video.” The angle of the wing doesn’t make it difficult to create lift, the angle is necessary to create sufficient lift for takeoff. The point is that angle is best controlled with the elevator, and you don’t get a benefit from sitting at that angle prior to nearing takeoff speed (unless on a rough field, see below). “It would take longer to achieve translational lift.” Translational lift is a helicopter thing, not an airplane thing. The wing provides lift as soon as it has airflow moving past it. It just needs to reach a certain airspeed before it has enough lift to break ground. Keeping the wing at a high angle of attack for the entire acceleration run incurs drag that slows the acceleration. Not a problem in a powerful prop fighter like an F8F, but a definite issue for an early jet with poor takeoff acceleration due to low installed thrust. You must have heard of the civilian-owned F-86 that failed to takeoff and crashed into an ice cream stand because the pilot rotated to takeoff attitude too soon. “I do seem to recall crop duster taildraggers having VTOL capabilities.” You must mean STOL capabilities, and of course they do. So does the OV-10 nose dragger. STOL is a function of slow speed lift, and does not require a tail wheel. Tail wheel aircraft are often considered better at coping with rough field surfaces, but for a smooth hard surface the landing gear has no real benefit, and a nose gear usually allows for harder braking after landing. The subject of this video was not designed to be rough field STOL jet. Tailwheel aircraft benefit from lighter weight, and less drag if the landing gear does not retract. It is arguably better for soft rough lumpy surfaces. Other than that they are no benefits and multiple drawbacks to tailwheel landing gear.
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  115.  @robertmaybeth3434  If you were an aerospace engineer you would realize that the F-104 was inherently suitable for the high-speed low-level nuclear strike role. But instead, you assume the actual experts who selected the airplane for the role were the idiots.
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  116. At time 13:40 we are told that because the plane lacked any power assistance for the control surfaces the controls became very heavy at high speeds. (This is of course normal for unpowered controls). Then a minute later we are told the elevator was fitted with a system that made the stick progressively heavier as the speed increased. This doesn’t seem to make sense in light of the previous statement. Stick force gradient can become too light for reasons such as increasing AOA or aft CG, but unpowered controls getting lighter purely due to increasing airspeed doesn’t sound right. If the elevator stick forces were somehow so light at high speed that overcontrol was hard to avoid, then adding resistance would have made the airplane easier to control for max performance, not harder. The pilot would have an easier time determining how hard to pull without pulling too far. Unless the system was grossly dysfunctional it would not prevent the pilot from achieving max performance, or intentionally exceeding a limit just by pulling even harder. The point here is that if this system was actually necessary to prevent unintentional overstress that does not mean it would prevent intentional overstress by the pilot. I am familiar with servo tabs, spring tabs, and control tabs that reduce stick forces due to high airspeed, and with bobweights that increase stick force required as G increases, but not with a system that somehow adds resistance to unpowered flight controls based on airspeed. Can anyone explain how this worked?
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  117. You don't have to have a swept trailing edge to have a swept wing. The angle of sweep is measured by the angle of the 1/3 chord line. This 262 wing was not swept by much, and it was not done to delay compressibility. It was swept only 17.5 degrees, not the 35 degrees stated in the video, which is a number from the F-86. The photo at time 1:10 should be very informative for those who refuse to accept the purpose of the wing sweep of the 262. This photo of a prototype clearly shows that at first only the outer panels that were swept back from the originally straight design, which was done to change the relationship between the center of gravity and the center of pressure caused by engines that were heavier than planned. You can see the wing inboard of the engine remains straight. The whole pit of sweeping the outer panel was to avoid changing the structure of the fuselage to move the wing attach point. The sweep of the inboard panel was added later simply by extending the line of the outer leading edge to add additional surface area at the front of inner panel, and the trailing edge remained straight.
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  118. Pilots who transitioned from the F-4J phantoms where disappointed that the F-14A did not accelerate as well as their previous aircraft and did not see it as an improvement in performance. The F-4J probably had superior maneuverability though most of the flight envelope other than at very low speed.
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  119. The F-111B was not an Air Force design. The general configuration of the aircraft was determined as much by Navy needs as those the Air Force.
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  120.  @razgriz4978  The F4J was the hot rod of F-4s. I have not seen an EM diagram of these two, nor read pilot reports of dogfights between them, which is why I said probably, and at higher speeds. But the F4J had a better thrust to weight ratio than the F-14A, and as I said pilots who transitioned felt the F-14A was sluggish. Acceleration and sustained turn rate are both products of excess thrust. The F-14 could probably turn a tighter radius when slow with the wings out, but at higher speeds the F-4J probably had some advantage in sustained turn and use of the vertical.
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  121.  @jedibusiness789  You missed a lot of swept wing Navy jets if those are the only two you can recall. This channel recently mentioned the FJ-4 Fury, this video mentions the F7U Cutlass, there was the F-11 Tiger, the F8U Corsair, the . . . well, you get the idea.
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  122.  @MM22966 I have no idea what that useless comment means, and I don't need to know. Why don't you go troll somewhere else?
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  123.  @paulfrantizek102  Interesting - I have never seen or read of a production F-86 with such a notch. Perhaps it was the Fury?
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  124. Turning is much less important than you think it is. And it actually could turn with an F-4.
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  125. Your view out of focus, because the F-104 was not meant to be a bomber interceptor. Read the history. TAC did not have many of them but did use the F-104 in Vietnam. It served in escort, defensive CAP, and ground support roles. It was not well suited to penetrate heavily defend North Vietnamese airspace and was replaced by the F-4 in that role.
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  126.  @douglasgabrielle6623  The F-104 was used for a time by ADC as a stopgap bomber interceptor when the F-102 and F-106 suffered developmental delays, but it was not an excellent bomber interceptor. The F-104 wasn't equipped to operate under the SAGE system, and didn't even have radar homing missiles. It was a clear air day fighter, not an all weather bomber interceptor. The premise of this video faulty because there was no choice between the F-104 and the F-4. They both served well in Vietnam, but the 104 had a much smaller role. F-4 was certainly the better airplane for penetration of heavily defended areas of North Vietnam.
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  127.  @MrKentaroMotoPI  A simple pitot inlet does not have to be at the nose, and an inlet at the nose is not necessarily a pitot inlet.
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  128. 5:55 "The tricycle landing gear was possible because there was no propeller needing ground clearance." The P-38, P-39, F7F, and others would call that preposterous. What kept a nosewheel off most prop fighters was inconvenience of the nose mounted engine.
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  129. The F-5 was inferior to the F-104. The F-4 was the best USAF had for the job.
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  130.  @SoloRenegade  Of course it took time to form up into large formations, and that involved circling the field at lower altitude where the jets would suck down a lot more fuel than the pistons of the P-47. That's not grasping at straws, that's considering real world escort operations instead of thinking like a simple 4-ship sortie. I don't need to fish for anything. Have a nice day in the perfect world your airplanes inhabit.
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  131.  @SoloRenegade  You don't think there is a difference in fuel consumption between a P-80 and P-47 at low altitude. Then you think the range figures of the airplanes include fuel for circling. Goodbye, I'm done here.
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  132.  @thelandofnod123  "Galland was a fool then if he wanted to switch to just 262 production." Thank you for so clearly illustrating my point. You are an armchair non-expert who thinks he is smarter that the Luftwaffe general of fighters who actually had to fight the air war. You can't even make the simple connection that when you have a shortage of resources you need to expend them on things that can make a difference in the battle. The fact is that Germany had no shortage of fighter planes at the end of the war; what they were short of was the high-octane fuel and trained pilots needed to fly them. Galland, being way smarter than you, wanted to give those pilots a jet that outperformed the opposition. That is the opposition actually over Germany, not better aircraft that never fought there. So the fact that the 262 was the best jet fighter over Germany at the time is exactly the point. It doesn't matter how inferior it might have been to fighters that were not there. You seem to have no ability to understand the issues here. And why don't you just look up the word discourse if you are going to keep misusing the word? It's not an insult to observe that you don't even understand what it means. I'm done arguing with you.
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  133.  @Eric-kn4yn  "But why 262 have sophisticated swept empennage?" Probably for the same reason the Grumman F6F had one.
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  134.  @drgondog  Actually, I think technically the U.S. did have air superiority over Vietnam. It could conduct operations at any time and place despite enemy opposition. I think many critics simply had an expectation of absolute air supremacy and a lower loss rate. USAF Air University Doctrinal Advisory on Control of the Air: Air Superiority is that degree of control of the air by one force that permits the conduct of its operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats. Air Supremacy is that degree of control of the air wherein the opposing force is incapable of effective interference within the operational area using air and missile threats.
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  135. The video is easy to misunderstand in a few places, but I don't believe it intended to say the wing was typical of the Me262. I believe it refers (perhaps unknowingly) to the 35-degree sweep proposed for a follow-on development of the 262 that was never built. The 18-degree sweep of the production 262 had not been implemented to increase the critical Mach number, but to resolve an issue with the center of gravity when the engines turned out heavier than originally planned. The DC-3 had about the same degree of sweep for the same reason. The video also seemed to be saying that the wing stalled from the tips at high speed rather than high AOA. Tip stall and compressibility are unrelated.
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  136. If it wasn't best way it wouldn't have been such a widespread procedure among everything from Skyraider to the B-47.
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  137.  @tararaboomdiay7442  The accounts I've read are that the F-111B handled well around the boat. That seem to have been just another myth that was crafted to support cancellation of the airplane. USAF did not change its mind about the F-111A, which was always intended to be a bomber. It was needed to replace the F-105, and also replaced the B-58. The F-15 was a completely separate program to develop the best possible air superiority fighter.
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  138.  @gregp6210  Since your information is exactly what I have, I suspect you also have Dan Sharp's very detailed book on development of the 262. I was wondering if you have another source that is anywhere near as thorough, and perhaps gets as much into operations as development.
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  139.  @gregp6210  Thanks. If that book was Smithsonian Press that means government funded and should be in the public domain now. Maybe I can find a PDF somewhere. I recently discovered a PDF of their "Carl Spaatz and the Air War in Europe", which can't replace my hardcover copy but is easier to search and copy text from.
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  140.  @gertjanmoens4188  Sorry, no. I do have imposters. ;-)
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  141.  @Ernest-jr  The Curtiss Ascender is another example of wing sweep for the purpose of balance and stability rather than delay of shock formation. It was not an unusually fast airplane and didn't even break 400 mph before being cancelled.
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  142. They never planned to nuke Hanoi, because they didn't even get to nuke North Korea. This video assumes the U.S. left itself completely unprepared for limited conventional war like Korea or Vietnam, but that was not the case. Curtiss Lemay was asked about that and said something to the effect of that if your forces are capable of fighting a major war they are also capable of fighting limited one. He said it more colorfully but he was not wrong. The airplanes used in Vietnam did not fail, the strategy used failed.
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  143. The type of landing gear fitted to an airplane does not determine its nose attitude on approach. That is a function of the angle of incidence at which the wing is set. This also has nothing to do with 'aerodynamic braking' on approach, which is a term normally reserved for the post-touchdown maneuver used in lieu of wheel braking. What must be meant in the video is that the airplane was draggy enough on approach (probably due to those flaps) to not require additional drag or thrust attenuation devices to maintain safe engine rpm. Another thing, having taildragger landing gear does not shorten the takeoff run unless the airplane isn't able to rotate to the takeoff attitude when necessary. If a plane can't rotate for takeoff (for example due to bicycle landing gear) then you need to have the wing set at an angle of incidence to allow liftoff without rotation. Having nose gear does not limit the pitch attitude an airplane can achieve on the ground. With conventional gear keeping the tail down for the entire takeoff run can actually inhibit acceleration, as compared to raising the tail during acceleration and then rotating when near takeoff speed.
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  144. The F-104 was absolutely not designed as a BVR bomber interceptor. It was designed as an air superiority fighter. It never had BVR capability in USAF service. Read the history.
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  145.  @DonPatrono  Unable to see any logic in that incoherent rant, which you probably think is clever. The fact remains that the F-104 was designed as an air superiority fighter, not a BVR bomber interceptor. Your uninformed opinion of its effectiveness has no effect on the facts.
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  146.  @patrickgriffitt6551  And a smart pilot doesn't let things get tight in the first place. Robin Olds, much worshipped by as the archetypical fighter pilot, once derided what he called "rat racing", or fighters chasing each other around in circles. Most people here seem to think maneuverability means a tight turns circle. For a fighter pilot maneuverability means being able to convert a position of advantage, which was achieved by virtue of superior performance, into a shot. Bleeding airspeed in tight turns with slower opponents is something fighter pilots were told to avoid.
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  147.  @IgnoredAdviceProductions  You're damning the very first Mach 2 fighter because it is a couple of tenths of a Mach slower than aircraft that came along later? That's some perspective you have there. The F-106 came along years later and was much more modern and expensive. Although faster, the 106 couldn't do what the 104 was designed to do because in its heyday it didn't have a gun and a gunsight, or provision for a pilot G suit.
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  148.  @IgnoredAdviceProductions  Oh, I can read. You didn't explain crap, but you did spew a bunch of it. I’ve already addressed your dumb comment about how more recent planes were slightly faster. And so what if other aircraft that followed it could do what the F-104 could? That about a dumb argument—nobody said the F-104 remained the best when other fighters came along later to match or exceed it. Your comment about maneuverability is ignorant. Tight turning radius was not as important as you think it was, and in any case the F-104 could turn better than internet keyboard aviators like you think it could. It could turn with an F-4, but nobody who designed it or bought it thought it would turn as tight as an F-86 or a MiG 17. They built it because it would dominate those aircraft in air combat. More ignorance on the “safety issues”. All single-engine fighters were risky to fly. Even though the F-104 was a lightweight fighter with minimal backup systems, when used in its design role did not have an extraordinarily high accident rate, especially after the reliability of the new J-79 was improved. The high accident rate of the F-104 in German service was well above the norm for the airplane. Pretending for a moment that the F-106 could bomb and strafe, If Germany had flown the F-106 in the same high-speed low-level role in European weather they would probably have crashed it at the same rate as the F-104. And the F-104 was just as safe as the F-106 on takeoff and landing, which is another thing internet keyboard aviators like you do not comprehend. You have explained nothing, literally.
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  149.  @IgnoredAdviceProductions  I'm not defending the F-104, which doesn't need defending from you. I'm just countering the misinformation and illogical arguments you are slinging around. You are the vehement one trying to make the case that it was an awful aircraft. Just give the airplane a break and accept it for what it was instead of what you like imagine it was and was not. And no, if you think the F-104 was un-maneuverable you are the one who doesn't understand maneuverability. But no sense arguing with someone who just wants to keep grinding the same old axe.
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  150.  @michaelfrench3396  F-105s were not sent by SAC, which was Strategic Air Command, the operator of B-52 heavy bombers. The F-105 tactical fighter-bombers there operated (as I recall) by 7th Air Force under PACAF. The F-105 was anything but slow. It was the fastest fighter-bomber in the inventory and was designed for attacking well-defended high priority targets at low level. You appear to be completely ignorant of air to ground aircraft and tactics. Your use of the word maneuverability indicates you probably think a slow airplane like the A-1 Skyraider would have been a better choice for this mission. That's of course completely ludicrous, and even more of them would have been shot down attacking that target. One wonders why you think fast light bombers like the F-105 were even built.
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  151. It was a good idea if it kept the glass from collapsing on the pilot at extreme airspeed. They used flat plates of glass for a reason. This was early 50s technology. At least in the beginning there wasn't a gunsight in the way, and when that was later added to the 106 it really messed with forward visibility.
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  152. "The box you see 2/3 of the way up the fin contains landing lines" What is a landing line? All I see is the fairing that contains the fuel vent and a position light.
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  153. The snarky disrespect of the general in charge of the exercise is unbecoming of a channel which I view in the hopes of seeing objective and balanced material.
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  154.  @robert-trading-as-Bob69  “Since you seem to be tightly wound, that last sentence was a joke.” Says the guy who launched into a nasty tirade because he had no rational response to having his inaccurate comments corrected with facts. Your entire response is a sad joke, especially the part where you said you were trying to dumb it down so I would understand. I presented you with nothing but a few facts, but you cannot understand the concepts involved, and getting angry aver that will not make you smarter.
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  155.  @justforever96  Yeah, so many YT videos about airplanes are made by people who don't really understand airplanes, so they pass along every misunderstanding they gleaned from whatever inaccurate source they used for research. Nobody had to pass a bar or peer review to write about airplanes. What's funny is the way the audience gives so much weight to whatever they see on YouTube and are willing to fight over it if you try to correct them.
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  156.  @nodirips_8537  The F-86H was a post Korean War development of the Sabre. I think the subject here is the contest between the Sabres and Fagots used in Korea.
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  157.  @slowpoke3102  "it takes 3 states to let it turn 180 degrees" And you actually believe that crap? Of course, at Mach 2, “ANY” airplane could make a turn around the corner where 3 states come together and fly over all of them, but an F-104 trying to turn tightly would certainly not take require the space of 3 average states. Use your head before you spew such nonsense. It also seems you have no specific claims as to exactly what the “horrible handling characteristics” of the F-104 are. I assume you have no actual concept of what good or bad handling characteristics of a would be. And I have no intention of even reading your irrelevant BS about the F-22 and F-35, because I can see it is more fantasy. I bet you watch “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel when you are not watching YouTube.
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  158.  @rossmum  If you are talking about the F-104, there is no question the high wing loading was a considerable benefit in high-speed low-level flight. All jets designed for that have high wing loading, which is why the F-104 was completely suitable for the role.
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  159. They have finally been forced to learn their lesson, and now the F-18 has replaced multiple single-purpose aircraft. There isn't enough room in the budget or a hanger deck for multiple types of single-role aircraft.
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  160.  @Justanotherconsumer  Not well funded? How many rockets have Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran fired at Israel in the last year alone? You must be too young to remember the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when Egyptian SAMs caused unanticipated losses of Israel aircraft
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  161.  @reonthornton685  You don't have to have the same type of sophisticated equipment as the IDF to qualify as being "well funded". If HAMAS and Hezbollah are not well-funded why is the IDF still trying to subdue them after a year at war? And as I said, you may be too young to remember the 1973 war in which a sophisticated Egyptian air defense network inflicted significant losses of IAF aircraft.
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  162.  @reonthornton685  I'm not questioning the fact that unguided rockets are cheaper than more sophisticated systems like artillery. I was merely challenging any blanket assertion that the enemies of Israel are not well-funded, which if interpreted as less than well-funded in general could convey a less than accurate impression of the overall threat they represent.
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  163.  @reonthornton685  It's asymmetric warfare. Of course they can't compete directly with a conventional military force. You are arguing about what well-funded means in terms of money. I'm talking about whether they have the funding to execute their strategy. I don't think we will get on the same page, so let's agree we disagree. And again, the Egyptians were well-funded even in a conventional sense in 1973.
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  164.  @reonthornton685  Have a nice day.
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  165.  @razgriz4978  Yes T/W is not always the determining factor -- just like wing loading -- but it is usually related to thrust/drag, which is determining. I'm sure the F-5E turned better in part of envelope, but that doesn't mean it will usually "beat" a MiG-21 any more than it will usually "beat" an F-4. As to your point that the Tomcat has more lift than the F-4 well of course it does at high AOA, but that isn't necessarily determining in a dogfight, and misses the point about sustained turn at high speed, which is thrust vs drag, not total lift. I'm not saying that the F-14 was not a better airplane than the F-4, only that its performance was not superior in every respect. I'm not going to argue more with you because it's too tiring and you will believe what you want anyway.
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  166. The F-104 was not designed at the request of the Air Force for a bomber interceptor. It was designed as a speculative venture by Kelly Johnson, who wanted to create a lightweight high performance air superiority fighter. He then presented the design to the right general in the Air Force, who was very impressed and said "build it". Not all USAF generals were as fond of it as the one who greenlighted, so it was only built in small numbers.
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  167. If that's what you get from this video it didn't do a very good job of educating you about the realities of war in general or that era in particular.
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  168.  @MrKentaroMotoPI  Look, you can call a pitot inlet inlet other things if you want, but the definition I find is that it is simple scoop with no ramps or shock cones that relies on a normal shock. I have seen the F-16 inlet labelled as pitot inlet in multiple references. You can disagree and add complicating terminology but that is the basic definition I see in multiple references. The only reason I brought it up to point out that a simple pitot inlet does not have to be at the nose, and an inlet at the nose is not necessarily a pilot inlet.
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  169. Huh? It is small in all dimension other than length, and even that still 10 feet shorter than an F-4. This is not "a really big plane".
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  170.  @croskerk  That's because the FJ-4 was derived from the Sabre while the FJ-1 was not. The FJ-1 preceded the Sabre and is substantially different in more ways than wing sweep. The resemblance is just that, as resemblance.
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  171.  @croskerk  I didn't tell you the FJ-1 and -4 were different, which you could already see. What you didn't seem to understand was why the FJ-4 looked more like the Sabre than the FJ-1 did. I can't tell what you mean by: "what jet came around to lead the FJ-1 to said design". If your "said design" is the FJ-1 then nothing led to it. It was North American's first jet fighter, and was based more off the P-51 than anything else. If your "said design" is the FJ-4, it was derived from the F-86. The F-86 was not just an FJ-1 with swept wings, it was a different airplane.
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  172.  @croskerk  Man, you just don't listen, do you, yet you want insult my intelligence. The question you said I need to answer has already been answered, but you are too busy hurling insults to see it. The FJ-1 doesn't come from anywhere other than the NA-134, which was based on the P-51. The FJ-1 does not lead to the FJ-4. The FJ-1 was the grandaddy. The FJ-1 was not “built off the XP-86”. And the XP-86 was not built off the P-80. The XP-86 was designed slightly after or in parallel to the FJ-1/NA-134, and to USAF rather than Navy requirements, so it was lighter and faster even before its wings were swept back. It had a much narrower fuselage. The later FJ-4 Fury is the offspring of the F-86 rather than the FJ-1. I’ve tried to help you, but since you want to act like a jerk you’ll have to help yourself the rest of the way to understanding this. Bye.
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  173.  @Airsally  That because they are based off the F-86 rather than off the FJ-1. Crosjerk2704 doesn't seem to be able to grasp this but hopefully you will.
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  174.  @croskerk  I was responding to your inaccurate comments in more detail than you used uttering them. It's not my fault that you have poor reading comprehension.
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  175.  @ReviveHF  I commented on the F-5 vs F-104 but you want to confuse things with an unrelated comment about the F-4. Random thought generator at work, or did you mean the comment for someone else. But since you raised the subject, USAF had the F-106 as its strategic bomber interceptor. Although it was USAF's most capable tactical fighter the F-4 was nowhere near as suitable as the F-106, and hardly perfect for its role. The F-4 wasn't even equipped to operate under the SAGE system. Unlike the F4 and F-104, the F-106 was originally designed as a dedicated bomber interceptor and was not equipped to be a tactical fighter.
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  176.  @IgnoredAdviceProductions  The reason the F-105 had so many guns kills is that it had more exposure to MiGs than and other fighter, up close, where the gun was easier to employ in self-defense than the rarely carried missile. They didn't have to find MiGs because the MiGs found them.
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  177.  @SoloRenegade  Yes, they would have to have been forward based to escort the deeper missions, and they certainly could have done the closer escort relays. It would have been more challenging in terms of combat radius, but doable. One point to consider is that the book figures for range would not hold up well for a combat mission involving a lot of time spent joining up into squadron and group formations. Circling the field at low altitude while everyone gets joined up would impact the range of a jet more than it did for a piston. The F-80 successfully flew ground attack missions from Japan to Korea and back in the early days of that war, but they were small formations that could almost immediately begin climb to cruise altitude.
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  178.  @wanderschlosser1857  You are clearly and demonstrably wrong, but thankfully someone else has already explained why and saved me from that dreary task.
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  179.  @thelandofnod123  So, I mention the fact that opinions on how good the 262 was have become artificially polarized by the state of online discourse, and you blame me for the polarization. I think you must have nodded off at some point. It seems you don't even understand what the word discourse means. I didn't say you said something controversial, I said judging how good the airplane was outside the context of its use is pointless. You think it wasn't as good as people thought it was. Which people? It seems you mean armchair aviation enthusiasts that didn't fly the airplane in combat, and who compare it to other jets that came later. Adolf Galland thought the 262 was terrific and wanted to cancel production of all piston fighters in favor of the 262. He didn't know North American would soon produce an F-86, he knew he need to best the North American P-51 and get at the B-17. The 262 was pretty damned good in the context of what the Luftwaffe needed at the time. Who cares if it wasn't as good as fighters developed later. In that context the P-80 was "better", but as I said it wasn't in combat over Germany.
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  180.  @paulmaxwell8851  Thank you for understanding my point and not using it to go off on a tangent as some others have.
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  181.  @johnshepherd9676  If you say so.
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  182.  @wanderschlosser1857  The fact that the early P-80 may have been a few knots slower on its early engine doesn't change anyone's mind as to which was the better airplane overall. Sometimes models the Spitfire were faster than the Fw190 and sometimes it was not. The 262 design was a dead end and the P-80 lived on for a long time.
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  183.  @thelandofnod123  Thanks for providing a perfect example of what I was talking about. He was fighting the war and you are an armchair opinionist who thinks he knows better. He is certainly not the foolish one. That fact that you think an aircraft that was superior in combat pointlessly consumed resources indicates just how foolish you are. As I suspected, you are indeed on one side of an ignorantly polarized argument. Have fun constructing more dumb conclusions.
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  184.  @wanderschlosser1857  You keep pointing to Greg's analysis as though it will change my mind. I've already seen it. While I value Greg's analysis of supercharging and piston engine control systems, he is not the expert in all areas his followers think he is. At any rate I'm not really interested in arguing the P-80 vs the 262 in the first place. I merely politely agreed with solo renegade when he said that to me. If you want go on arguing that the 262 was better I suggest you take it up with him because he likes arguing about it. Bye.
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  185.  @wanderschlosser1857  I'm not obliged to argue with you about anything just because I made a simple comment. You just want to keep dicing the mouse turds when I told you I'm not interested in the mouse. Get a grip.
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  186.  @thelandofnod123  Did I not say I'm done with you. You can't think your way out of a paper bag, and I'm not interested in reading any more of your moronic comments.
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  187.  @thelandofnod123  I've already read enough of your illogical drivel to know you are the fool you claim Adolf Galland to be. I will not waste any more time with you.
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  188.  @wanderschlosser1857  I don't like arguing over opinions with someone such as yourself who can't see the issue and just wants to focus on meaningless details. Nobody is obligated to argue with you.
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  189.  @thelandofnod123  I did make an argument, you are just too stupid to recognize it. It's also stupid of you to demand I cite sources when you do nothing of the kind. One can't win an argument with a stupid person, which is why it is pointless to continue with you. For the benefit of others I will say that nod's argument that Galland was a fool for wanting to suspend production of prop fighters in favor of the 262 rests mainly on the fact that German aircraft production was restricted by lack of resources. That is a stupid argument, because scarcity of resources is itself the very reason Galland wanted to shift them from propeller fighters to the 262. When you can only build, fuel, and crew a limited number of fighters, it makes sense to expend scarce resources on planes that will have the advantage in combat.
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  190.  @GreenBlueWalkthrough  What wasn’t what by any metric? If you want to comment on comments that are four months old you have to be more specific. Here you might be talking about the Me262 or the P-80. I will address a couple of you statements just to point out why I have no interest in further discussion with you. “I never heard of a ME-262 going supersonic in a dive yet it's extermly esasy to do in a Mustang” That myth has been busted many time over so I reject your claim. If this is your level of knowledge I’m not interested. “... Like where do you get this idea that it was the best jet let alone plane over germany in WW2?” Here you must be talking about this comment on the 262: “Yes the design was already obsolete, but it was still the best jet in actual combat over Germany in WWII.” You obviosity can’t grasp the point, which is that the Me-262 was the ONLY jet fighter in combat over Germany in WWII. Pay attention to what is being said before you try to jump into a pointless argument.
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  191. In that stage of the war the F-105 usually carried 750 lb. bombs rather than 500 lb. bombs. The double sidewinder rack was high drag and was avoided, but I don't think the single missile rack was high drag. However, it was often replaced by a bomb or an ECM pod anyway.
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  192. Or electric. But not hydraulic. Good catch of another video making inaccauraet assumptions for the sake of a dramatic script.
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  193. The subject matter of this video is very interesting. I wish it could have been presented without all the annoying drama and hyperbole.
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  194.  @Ernest-jr  The sweep angle of the XP-55 has nothing to do with compressibility and is there to provide stability, just like the wing sweep of flying wings or the Me-163. There is nothing wrong with the agility and stability of the 262. Slats have nothing to do with stability. Slats are nothing special and were in use before the Me262. The BF-109 had them. Many jet fighters had either slats or leading edge flaps for the same reason, greater lift and control at low speed. They are a high lift devices that remain in use in some airliners.
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  195.  @Ernest-jr  You think you have accurate info on the XP-55, but you do not. What is "less agility" ? Of course the Me 262 had a larger turn radius than the slower aircraft to which those pilots were comparing it. That is natural function of speed, and is not a deficiency. Swept wings do not have "difficulties" near stall speed. Swept wings behave different than straight wings, and actually have some superior stall characteristics. The world has not gone back to straight wings for faster aircraft. Next time you fly on an airliner take a look at the wing. The F-86 had slats. It had nothing to do with high speed stability, it had to do with need for more low speed lift.
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  196.  @RCAvhstape  The F-111 was never intended to be "an actual fighter plane". It was intended to be a bomber and a fleet defense aircraft. 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 later changed. When the TFX program began the 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. To achieve this 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 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. It was not intended to be a dogfighter. The biggest difference between the airframe requirements of the two services was that the USAF wanted a tandem cockpit and the USN wanted side-by-side seating. Boeing tried to make both services happy and made two different configurations, but MacNamara’s DOD wanted more commonality and 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 to be a dogfighter. If the Navy had wanted a dogfighter it would not have insisted on the side-by-side cockpit over the objections 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 requirements for its next fighter as result of combat experience in Vietnam, and they realized that the missileer was too limited a role. The 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 overweight airframe caused by the loveseat cockpit they never wanted.
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  197.  @christophergagliano2051  LOL. You are believing a fantasy. The F-15 came out great despite the fighter mafia's attempt to hamstring it. You are uninformed and need to find better sources of information. But you won't, so I'm done repeating the facts you reject. Bye.
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  198.  @christophergagliano2051  "And another thing, you certainly don't need radar if you got an airborne early warning aircraft that can direct/warn you to the enemy aircraft, And that's a fact." This is funny, you telling Karl Gruner the facts about what is needed in fighters.
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  199.  @christophergagliano2051  Boyd was as silly as you are in thinking that radar missiles were a waste of time. History proved him wrong 35 years ago. Apparently you have trouble keeping up with real world events and still want to believe Boyd was correct. Wake up and accept reality.
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  200. What do you mean by working and floating? All wings are still working even at angles of attack where much of the flow has separated. Also, the term laminar flow airfoil described an airfoil with is peak upper surface camber pushed father aft on the chord. The more gradual rise and aft peak was meant to maintain laminar flow over more of the wing, but not necessarily all the way to the trailing edge.
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  201.  @christophmahler  I get a chuckle when people ask for "a source" for any fact which is contrary to their already accept narrative even though what that narrative is often supported merely by internet chatter or undocumented YouTube videos. Sorry, but I can't recall "a source" to make your research easier and I'm not going to go search my library. I also know Washington's army spend a winter at Valley forge, but I don't recall a source for that either. I'm old and I've followed the F-111 since its development. There is plenty of documentation of these facts in books and war college research papers, so you'll have to do some reading.
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  202.  @tararaboomdiay7442  No the F-111A was not going to be an air-to-air fighter, it was to be air to ground only. I did not say it was originally planned to replace the B-58, but it did also replace the B-58, just as I said. The F-111B handled well around the boat, which is the opposite of the story you hear on YouTube. Lack of carrier suitability was not the reason the plane was cancelled.
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  203.  @tararaboomdiay7442  I've stated correct facts and I'm not going to keep repeating myself or arguing with you about irrelevant details that don't change those facts.
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  204.  @paulholmes672  "The carrier trials of the Aardvark were after it's cancellation, and may have been done because the Navy knew if it flew/landed fine, it was moot." Yes, it did fly fine, but it seems the Navy tried to cover that up because it didn't support the decision to cancel. Today a myth survives that the airplane was not suitable for carrier landings, yet the accounts I read by actual Navy pilots such as Heatley indicate the airplane was well-mannered and was stable and responsive during approach and landing.
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  205.  @Ernest-jr  You don't know what you are talking about. The Ascender was not fast, and its swept wings were not there to make it fast. And I can't even imagine what you think the the M52 has to do with the subject of swept wings. You are obviously uninformed and I don't see any point in arguing with you.
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  206.  @Ernest-jr  I don't know what you think you are telling me, but what you actually wrote is non-factual. You think you know and understand a lot more than I do because of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Like I said, you don't know what you are taking about, and you are not worth arguing with.
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  207.  @christophmahler  I do not see the connection between my comment about aircraft design specifications and your desire to begin a discussion related to geopolitics. I would suggest that is an interested topic but that it would be better discussed elsewhere.
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  208.  @christophmahler  You ware playing with words. Of course procurement involves politics (in a democracy), but the F-111B design was not driven by colonialism and proxy wars, it was driven by the race in airpower technology. During this era airpower technology and doctrine were progressing so rapidly that airplanes were often obsolete before they entered service, and some were even cancelled before they entered service. The only politics here is the domestic politics of the Navy trying to save face by blaming the F-111B that had been designed its now discarded doctrine. Colonialism and proxy wars are a very different subject. Have nice day.
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  209.  @christophmahler  You are full of nonsense. Goodbye, and I no longer care if you have a nice day so leave me alone.
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  210.  @christophmahler  That's just a bunch of nonsense. Have a nice day.
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  211.  @IgnoredAdviceProductions  McNamara was not wrong to believe that a USAF and a Navy aircraft could share a common airframe for different roles, but he went too far in continuing to cancel the design the services settled on. Not that the additionally commonality he wanted was technically infeasible, but it was politically infeasible. The Navy could not bring itself to accept anything USAF wanted. For example, one of the biggest sticking points between the services was the USAF insistence on tandem seating for its tactical bomber, version while the Navy insisted it must have side-by-side seating for its fleet defense interceptor version. Ironically USAF was overruled and forced to accept the loveseat cockpit, yet when Grumman took over to build the F-14 the first thing ditched was that loveseat cockpit, and the F-14 got the tandem seating USAF wanted for the F-111. The interservice conflict still lives on in social media, where most people have no idea what really happened and simply accept all the fables repeated about the F-111B. If they could put aside their hate of McNamara and just look at the airplane they might be able to see the truth.
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  212.  @IgnoredAdviceProductions  I don't disagree with you about the deep motivations of the Navy, but the actual rationale for side-by-side seating was so that the pilot and RIO could share a single radar display as well as eliminate need for a lot of duplication in an aft cockpit. It might also make crew coordination (and holding hands) easier and more efficient. The Navy did this for other aircraft like the A-6 Intruder, so it had established that precedent. USAF had established the opposite precedent, and preferred tandem seating for all tactical aircraft. They even insisted that the USAF version of the British Canberra bomber be modified into a tandem seating configuration. What most who blame McNamara for the poor performance of the F-111B as a fighter fail to realize is that the loveseat cockpit is prima facia evidence that the jet was not meant to be a dogfighter. The later F-14 was designed to dogfight as well as perform long range fleet defense, which is why the loveseat was the immediately ditched from that design.
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  213.  @IgnoredAdviceProductions  “Now I know what the reasoning for side by side seating is, but considering no fighter has ever had that seating arrangement, it's a pretty flimsy excuse.” Of course real fighters don't have side-by-side seating, that was my point. But you are missing the important point that the F-111B was not a fighter; it was a fleet defense radar interceptor which was a follow-on to the cancelled Douglas F6D Missileer. That airplane also had side-by-side seating for the pilot and RIO. It was cancelled because it was too slow, after it had been decided that the role would require a higher performance jet. I would not have chosen side-by-side seating, but for this narrow role it is not completely illogical. “I blame McNamara for the vark mess because there WAS a design that both the Air Force and Navy were happy with, the Boeing model 818. The source selection board approved it 6, Six with a capital S, times and he overrode them every time, fired everyone, and decided to just go with the General Dynamics/Grumman design instead because "he said so," completely ignoring the experts telling him over and over, "no, this is going to be a complete disaster, stop it" all because he wanted to chase his stupid "commonality." I already said I essentially agree with this, so you are repeating yourself. You can hate McNamara all you want for various reasons, but I’m limiting my discussion to the technical merits of the TFX program. I say the essential objective of commonality was valid, but he pushed it to a disruptive extreme. He had to assert his authority and make his mark. The program could have succeeded if he'd listened better, but he believed he was always the smartest person in the room. In this particular case, the idea that one basic airframe could fulfill two different roles was not a dumb idea. History is full 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 aerodynamically or structurally incompatible. The reason one basic airframe could do both jobs was because the original USN specification was for a heavy 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. It was not intended to be a dogfighter. Both services were 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 for penetration or intercept. To achieve this a large airplane with twin engines and an innovative variable geometry wing were called for. Given rising budget pressures and development costs, DOD logically assessed that it would be wasteful to develop two very expensive advanced airframes when a single airframe with some variations could do both these jobs. Ultimately, the Navy changed the job requirements for F-111B after it had been designed, which is why it was canceled. Don’t get us started dissecting the F-35 or we will really be off in the weeds.
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  214.  @petestorz172  The first three aircraft you just listed had to be twin engine to have the performance desired (speed and load). At the time a single engine could not do the job.
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  215.  @RCAvhstape  Apparently you did not comprehend my comment, which is that I do not believe that story. Of course the Navy said that, but the real reason was to prevent having the F-16 forced on them. The F-18 as developed did end up with attributes more suitable for the dual role the Navy planned for it, but two engines was not the primary attraction of the YF-17.
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  216.  @jedibusiness789  I think if the Spitfire could be navalized anything can be navalized, the question whether it is the best choice available. The F-16 as developed for USAF use was not carrier suitable, but neither was the YF-17 before it was navalized, so the YF-16 could have also been navalized. I'm not saying it would have been better or even as good as the F-18 was for the Navy, but the commonality and potential cost savings was behind the proposal to have the Navy adopt the F-16.
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  217. "We have learned at a terrible and a brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety, and weakness does not bring peace." The truest words ever uttered by LBJ. It's too bad most in his country seem to have have forgotten them.
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  218. When it set the altitude record for a turboprop aircraft, was the turbojet engine also running? If so that was not really a turboprop record.
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  219. Tips tanks of the P-80 could be dropped in flight. The F-104 could also drop its tip tanks.
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  220. It wouldn't have been superior. Lockheed explored using a delta wing for the F-104 but discarded it. They chose the small straight wing for its advantages over a delta wing.
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  221. Tell that to the F-4 pilots who were out fought by it at high altitude. Dogfighting in terms of tight turning is overrated and was not emphasized as a productive combat tacit in those days.
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  222.  @darkknight1340  LOL, you expect readers to understand this drivel? "That's when the MiG 15 dominated the F-86 etc,When it fired its cannon at the F-86s that were in range of the MiG,which was outwith the effective range of the F-86s 0.5s,not necessarily in a turning dogfight yes,on those occasions armament WAS a factor." Talk about bollocks . . .
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  223. The F-104 had better acceleration and a better supersonic combat radius. But it was also a lighter fighter designed for a different purpose, so its not a straight comparison. The F-104 was a much smaller lightweight day air superiority fighter with minimal avionics and armament. The F-106 was a heavier all-weather radar interceptor carrying a heavy avionics and fire control system as well as an internal weapons bay and missiles. Advantage in acceleration to the F-104, but advantage in bomber interception to the F-106. The F-106 is still listed as the fastest ever single engine fighter, but it couldn't hope to accelerate as quickly from the low speed regime as the spectacular F-104.
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  224.  @scootergeorge7089  You didn't learn much from the video, did you? 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 later changed. When the TFX program began the 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. To achieve this, 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 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. It was not intended to be a dogfighter. The biggest difference between the airframe requirements of the two services was that the USAF wanted a tandem cockpit and the USN wanted side-by-side seating. Boeing tried to make both services happy and made two different configurations, but MacNamara’s DOD wanted more commonality and 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 to be a dogfighter. If the Navy had wanted a dogfighter it would not have insisted on the side-by-side cockpit over the objections 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 requirements for its next fighter as result of combat experience in Vietnam, and they realized that the missileer was too limited a role. The 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 overweight airframe caused by the loveseat cockpit they never wanted.
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  225.  @lancerevell5979  I don't know that the F-102 was totally unsuited to the role of defending South Vietnam and American assets there from air attack by North Vietnam, which was the reason for the deployment. But I was quite surprised to read that while there it was pressed into service in a night ground attack role and reportedly scored a least one hit with an AIM-4 Falcon IR missile. When you don't have the perfect weapon, you use the one you have available.
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  226.  @icewaterslim7260  The D had larger wing to provide more lift and a larger vertical tail for more directional stability. It also had improved avionics. A big improvement to lift was the addition of trailing edge flaps, which the earlier models did not have. It had two more pylons and was the definitive fighter bomber variant. The airplane didn't have a tendency to "porpoise at throttling up". Its low-speed handling was fine as long as the pilot did not get below the charted minimum controllable airspeed. Final approach speed was based on this rather than on stall speed. The famous Sabre dance incident was a result of the pilot getting below minimum control speed. At the time the airplane still had the small vertical fin, which did not provide sufficient directional stability. This allowed the airplane to yaw, inducing roll that could not be controlled with lateral controls. Uncontrolled bank angle is what caused the airplane to hit the ground, not uncontrolled pitch.
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  227.  @icewaterslim7260  Thank you for being open to new information; many viewers are not.
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  228.  @mcamp9445  That was not original to the design and was added to only some of the jets after 1972. They also had to add a gunsight and a new canopy for better vision. Given that the gun was an afterthought installed in the weapons bay with the barrel titled downward, I have to wonder how it could have been useful in a dogfight. Seems that to pull enough lead on a hard turning target you could lose sight of it below the nose. Any 106 drivers out there?
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  229.  @Stay_at_home_Astronaut81  Although it had not been designed as a dogfighter (no jets really were at the time anyway), I have never heard that the F-106 was an awful dogfighter. The ADC pilots were originally not trained for that and didn't even have a G-suit or gunsight, and the canopy had poor visibility. But it reportedly had good maneuverability, and when used as a simulated MiG-21 adversary did well against the F-4. The gun could have been used against bombers, but I read that its installation was primarily inspired by the test dogfighting the 106 did in the Have Doughnut program. The clear vision canopy and G-suit hookup were added along with the gun, and those items were not needed to shoot at bombers. That said, I don't see how the gun in this particular installation would have been very effective in a dogfight because it would seem nigh impossible to pull much lead on a maneuvering target. But we mustn't forget that historically most pilots never even saw the fighter that shot them down, so pulling a lot of lead is not always necessary.
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  230.  @robert-trading-as-Bob69  Wow, it appears you have some serious emotional and maybe even cognitive issues. Please seek help.
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