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

  1.  @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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  2.  @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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  3.  @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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  4.  @Eric-kn4yn  "But why 262 have sophisticated swept empennage?" Probably for the same reason the Grumman F6F had one.
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  5.  @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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  6. 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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  7. 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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  8.  @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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  9.  @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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  10.  @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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  11.  @gertjanmoens4188  Sorry, no. I do have imposters. ;-)
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  12.  @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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  13. 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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  14. 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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  15. 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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  16.  @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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  17.  @timb3499  Yes, the A-26 would be better for deep interdiction and level bombing against larger targets farther from the battle area, but that is not what I'm talking about. Close support and battlefield air interdiction do not require great range, and the P-47 could carry a heavy enough bomb and rocket load in addition to its guns. The important distinction is that the A-26 would require either air supremacy or fighter escort for those missions, while the P-47 would not.
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  18.  @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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  19.  @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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  20.  @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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  21.  @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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  22.  @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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  23. 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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  24.  @Ksozey  I can see document facts mean nothing to you when they contravene your conspiracy theory.
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  25.  @acecombatplayer1  You should look in the mirror, where you will see a person confident that what he learned from video games and YT is accurate. Hilarious.
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  26. "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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  27. 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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  28.  @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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  29.  @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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  30.  @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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  31.  @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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  32.  @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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  33. And the P-82 says bye as the Hornet drops out of formation to land and refuel. The Hornet is a stunning airplane and the prop fighter I would most like to fly if my dreams came true, but its range doesn't compare with that of the P-82.
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  34. 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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  35.  @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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  36.  @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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  37.  @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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  38.  @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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  39.  @reonthornton685  Have a nice day.
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  40.  @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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  41. 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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  42. 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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  43. I see no justification of any kind for claiming the Sud Vautour II Was The Most Significant French Aircraft Of The Cold War. It may have been the most unique, which is more like the opposite of being the most significant. A total of 149 built and no others like it built.
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  44.  @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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  45. 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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  46.  @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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  47.  @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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  48.  @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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  49.  @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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  50.  @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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