F-104 Starfighter.....

Thorlifter · 08-08-2008, 10:58 AM

I like the Crusader too, but I never understood why they had the whole wing section come up to act as a speed brake. It seems they could have picked a better way to slow the plane down.

Was it effective?

I'm guessing there may have been problems or it didn't work as well as planned since there isn't any other plane (that I know of) that uses this method to slow down.

fly boy · 08-08-2008, 10:59 AM

it is a cool jet but it did have proplems with the controls i think

Matt308 · 08-08-2008, 12:42 PM

Crusader, heck yeah. Now we are talking.

And JugBR, certainly NOT the MiG-25. May have been an engineering marvel, but beautiful it is not. At least in my eyes.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 08-08-2008, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thorlifter

No sir, I was not aware of that. I assumed (yes, I know what an assumption will do to you) that role was for the F-15. Besides, I never claimed to be an expert at jets!

Heck, I'm not even an expert at WWII planes. That's why I love this site. If you don't know, someone will tell you.............

The F-14 was a fleet interceptor. Its purpose was to go up and intercept (usually with the Pheonix missile) bombers and other aircraft attacking the fleet.

Lucky13 · 08-08-2008, 02:57 PM

DBII · 08-08-2008, 03:51 PM

F-104 has my vote. Pictures do not do it justice, one has to see it in the air. I was lucky enough to see one flying back in the 80's. It belong to a collector that lived in the Houston area. He kept it at IAH for several months. I saw it one and never saw it again.

An LTC attached to my old unit was a F-104 driver. He told me they trained to fly at max speed toward a bomber formation and launch missles. If they made it through the first pass, they would roll off the top and try to catch the formation for a second pass.

DBII

SoD Stitch · 08-08-2008, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thorlifter

I like the Crusader too, but I never understood why they had the whole wing section come up to act as a speed brake. It seems they could have picked a better way to slow the plane down.

Was it effective?

I'm guessing there may have been problems or it didn't work as well as planned since there isn't any other plane (that I know of) that uses this method to slow down.

Actually, the original reason for the "tilting" wing wasn't so that it would act as speed brake, but that it would increase the incidence of the wing when landing on carriers, thereby increasing the AoA and decreasing the landing speed. It also allowed the pilot a better view over the nose when landing, as the fuselage would be closer to level during the final approach.

Matt308 · 08-08-2008, 09:02 PM

And with respect to the F-8, you gotta love these...

""Safety" Record - a point of perverse pride. Overall accident rate of 46.70 per 100,000 hrs. (For comparison: A-4: 23.36; F-4: 20.17; F-14: 9.32). Many reasons probable, none of which include pilot inadequacy. The VIW wing (or something) made it a strange beast on final; 140 kts+/- approach speeds to a 27C; gremlins; "tiger" attitude, to close for the kill on anything, anyplace, any time, with any weapon available, apparently including the airplane. In an article in the August 2000 issue of Flight Journal, Paul Gilcrist points out that "the
accident statistics of the Crusader in the Fleet was atrocious . . . the Navy bought 1266 Crusaders during those years and at the same time, experienced 1106 major Crusader accidents. In other words, some intrepid aviator or
other crashed virtually every Crusader ever built!"

and...

"First (& only?) to execute 4 point slow roll on take off & not get his wings jerked forthwith: 7 May 1958 in F8U-1 BuNo 143814. (Awarded poison oak leaf cluster for displaying extreme stupidity in the face of serious personal peril to wit, ignoring commonly know fact that maneuver would obviously be in full view of black shoe atsugi base skipper who, when he wasn't gleefully reaming perfectly innocent brown shoe folk, spent the balance of his time feet on desk sucking on pipe & staring out of office window - I thought he was asleep.)"

and this beauty...

"Most Unique Ground Attack - During the 64 cruise on ranger I was a unarmed photo type with VFP-63. I was launched about 2 am in the dark night with 4 A-4s and a tanker to do photo bomb damage on a truck farm in the middle of the jungle.

The A-4s spent an hour dropping flares looking for the truck farm- while me and the tanker orbited at 20m.. I kept topping off and when the A-4s gave up and left, I had a full load of fuel and 40 million & half candle power photo flash flares with 8 sec delay, that I could not bring back to the ship.

We were near route one on the west side of Nam and with a full moon the road stood out like the yellow brick road.. We knew there was a VC protected inter section just to the south. So I said goodbye to the tanker and let down to tree top level straight down the road doing about
mach 1.1... As I approached the inter section I salvoed the whole 40 flares and pulled straight up and got the hell out of there..

To this day I bet there are some VC who are still going around blinking their eyes. It was my only shot in anger !!!. Chuck Anderson"

and last but not least...

"World's Altitude Record for Launching A Paper Airplane -Test vehicle placed in speed brake well, s.b. pumped shut before start. Boards opened at 50,125 feet indicated; 11 August 1966, F-8D BuNo 147069, between Eglin AFB & Cecil.

Cleanest Bomb Attack On Soviet Vessel - Med, about May 1967. 13 rolls toilet paper (unused) loaded into speed brake well (I liked that speed brake). Hard right off cat, gear up, opened boards over trawler maneuvering to force carrier to turn. No medal, but no hack either. "

courtesy of Welcome to Cloudnet!