Forum: Off-topic

Just wondering: if you took any one or all of the Century series fighters(F-100 through F-106), kept their original airframe designs intact, but added todays technology as far as engines, radar, armament, weapons, etc would there be a substantial increase in perfomance or would the airframe design restrict any gains from the new technology?????????[/b]

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Someone will mention the cost of turning these legacy aircraft into modern fighters and will destroy this thread. I tried this with a post on upgrading the Phantom. People just said it would cost too much and wouldn't be relevant. It's almost as if some people on enjoy destroying threads.

The F-4E used in Turkey and Greece seem to prove the point that they had a lot of life left in their designs if they had been upgraded. The upgrades haven't solved some issues with smokey engines, but they sure make them deadly strike machines. Of all the "Century" fighters out there, I would have liked to see the F-106 spared its retirement and given some serious upgrades for interceptor duty. Maybe even the F-105 would have been relevant in the 90's with upgrades. Really, all of them had more or less some potential but doing so sacrificed getting F-16's and F-15's.

North American F-100 = retired in 1982, long before much could have saved it a mission
McDonnell F-101 = retired in 1982, a nice sized airframe but still not a good time frame to have saved them with an upgrade
Convair F-102 Delta Dagger = retired in 1976
Lockheed F-104 Starfighter = retired in 1975, Italy operated up until 2004
Republic F-105 Thunderchief = retired in 1984, good candidate for receiving upgrades
Convair F-106 Delta Dart = retired in 1988, best candidate for receiving upgrades IMHO

I think the F-106A all rebuilt into F-106F complete with scaled-down AWG-9 and three aim-54 would have been a serious increase in capability for NORAD over the open ocean and the arctic circle. With a more efficient engine it probably could have mounted AIM-7 streamlined to the fuselage or a pair of aim-9 sidewinders under its chin like the EE Lightning. They probably could have squeezed the F101 into the J75's place too for giving it the extended performance. The F-105, another J75 user, could also have also used the F101 to really up its game. The F-105 and F-106 were very streamlined, long range, and held their weapons largely internally. We had to wait for stealth fighters to bring those traits back to en vogue.

P.S. I almost think the F-4 should be considered a century fighter since it started out as an F-110. Smile

btw - F-100, F-101, and F-102 had engine-family commonality. The F-104 and F-4 had engine-family commonality. And the F-105 and F-106, as mentioned earlier had engine commonality. We do know that there were proposals and prototypes of engine upgrades for J57 and J75 users. Was there ever an official re-engine proposal for the F-105/106?

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with your question. Hell, finding common parts that the aircraft rolled off of the line with, and THEN getting the SOB to fly would be difficult enough, let alone modifying one to accept non-standard equipment. I think we'd be wise to save this stuff for a Dale Brown book.

Actually, back in the late 60's-early 70's, the AF did indeed take all that was wrong with the Century Series and the F-4, and gave it the ultimate upgrade. You know them as the F-15 and the F-16.

...and yea, though the Eagle begat the Raptor, and the Viper begat the Lightning II, manned fighters begat the UAV. So sayeth the aviation gods.

No need to go back in time to progress. Many of those jets ultimately did serve a very good purpose, and for that they are either scattered over WSMR or the Gulf of Mexico.

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You pretty much hit the nail on the head with your question. Hell, finding common parts that the aircraft rolled off of the line with, and THEN getting the SOB to fly would be difficult enough, let alone modifying one to accept non-standard equipment. I think we'd be wise to save this stuff for a Dale Brown book.

Actually, back in the late 60's-early 70's, the AF did indeed take all that was wrong with the Century Series and the F-4, and gave it the ultimate upgrade. You know them as the F-15 and the F-16.

...and yea, though the Eagle begat the Raptor, and the Viper begat the Lightning II, manned fighters begat the UAV. So sayeth the aviation gods.

No need to go back in time to progress. Many of those jets ultimately did serve a very good purpose, and for that they are either scattered over WSMR or the Gulf of Mexico.

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Someone will mention the cost of turning these legacy aircraft into modern fighters and will destroy this thread. I tried this with a post on upgrading the Phantom. People just said it would cost too much and wouldn't be relevant. It's almost as if some people on enjoy destroying threads.

See what I mean. No disrespect TC, but is there anyway you could just let us do our thing? It's kind of like people upgrading their old Chevy truck with a new engine or putting more modern electronics into an older electric guitar. Many people like updating old stuff, not flat out replacing it. It's just interesting and enjoyable to speculate on how we would upgrade older aircraft.

I will continue on the topic. Giving the F-105 a new engine, MIL-STD-1553 and Fiber-Channel buses for the avionics, all glass cockpit, HOTAS, and an AESA radar in the nose would make it a good bomb slinger not to mention something that might be able to protect itself fairly well.

I know other countries have updated their F-4s, but I think engineers might be able to cheaply and quickly adapt the F414 for use in Phantoms. It's smaller, lighter, more powerful, more reliable, and more efficient than the J79. And it doesn't smoke.

[quote="discofishing"][quote]
You pretty much hit the nail on the head with your question. Hell, finding common parts that the aircraft rolled off of the line with, and THEN getting the SOB to fly would be difficult enough, let alone modifying one to accept non-standard equipment. I think weThanks Discofishing for your comments..........that was the whole point of my question!!!!!!!!!!!!

A fun and Good question at that.

In addition to an F-111x for obvious starters - perhaps good for Buddy-tanking, Escort Jamming/ELINT, Stand-off strike platform and escort/Interceptor... The F-108 could have arguably been a valid aircraft still operating today as well (e.g., in similar roles as stated above), still worthy of production, albeit perhaps in slightly evolved airframe design (improved RCS, maybe Finless tail, etc). Maybe incl CFT, F-119 engines, say the APG-82 radar, a recessed Litening G4 pod, should about do it. Call it a day Salute

I wondered how the F-105 with an F101 would have faired in the 80's. The turbofan would have given it better performance down low where it operated and it already outran everything down there. Surely it would have been a better bomb truck than an F-16A. No doubt it had longer legs.

I remember the F-111s were slated to get the GE F110 upgrade the replace their TF30s (like the F-14A plus/F-14D). Can you imagine their performance with 40% more thrust!!

I think the retirement of the F-111 was a step backwards for the service. All the suitable airframes should have all been migrated to an EF-111A role and re-engined. The F110 added a lot to the F-14D, no doubt it would have been a benefit to the F-111. The YF-4E, the one refitted with PW1020 engines, flew more like an F-15 after the engine refit. We would have seen a lot of Phantoms running around with PW1020's if Boeing hadn't taken over McDonnell Douglas.

The F-105G seems to be the best of the F-105's. It had the ECM equipment integrated into the body and carried up to sixteen 750 lb iron bombs, plus traded its internal bomb bay for fuel. It could also carry, in the SEAD role, a pair of SideARM's and aim-9's. The turbojet wasn't optimized for low level which is why an F101 optimized for that flight zone would have given it substantial boost in performance, especially in range. No telling what it could have done with a newer radar considering it had both the backseat and the big nose; room for something substantial.

The F-106A was proposed to be be upgraded to two-seaters with a more modern fire control radar. The turbojet really wasn't a bad match for its role, but I still think it begged for an F101 optimized for high altitude like they did originally for the B-1A.

geogen wrote:

A fun and Good question at that.

In addition to an F-111x for obvious starters - perhaps good for Buddy-tanking, Escort Jamming/ELINT, Stand-off strike platform and escort/Interceptor... The F-108 could have arguably been a valid aircraft still operating today as well (e.g., in similar roles as stated above), still worthy of production, albeit perhaps in slightly evolved airframe design (improved RCS, maybe Finless tail, etc). Maybe incl CFT, F-119 engines, say the APG-82 radar, a recessed Litening G4 pod, should about do it. Call it a day Salute

Those look like delta wing A-5s. Must have been a product of North American.

darkvarkguy wrote:

I remember the F-111s were slated to get the GE F110 upgrade the replace their TF30s (like the F-14A plus/F-14D). Can you imagine their performance with 40% more thrust!!

Excellent point you make Vark. To me, THAT is a more realistic question. Rather than trying to resurrect a 50 year old jet with Frankenstein parts, I do like the concept of what might've been with the proposed upgrades to airframes which were still active...but which never occurred for whatever reason.

TC will deal himself in on this hand...ante up!

Cases in point:

The Vark (already mentioned) being re-engined with the F110

The "Super Phantom" (only one was built for Israel)

The YA-7F, with the big tail and the F100

The F-14, had it been able to carry the Slammer

It would have been interesting to see how many more years we could've gotten out of each of those airframes with those proposed upgrades. Of course, we know now why none of those happened.

I don't mind the thread at all folks. I'm just saying keep it real, y'know? Wink

Fly safe!

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I don't mind the thread at all folks. I'm just saying keep it real, y'know? Wink

Actually, I don't want to "keep it real". I want to stay in fantasy land where I can take an F-106 and upgrade it so it can shoot AMRAAMs and have dual pez dispensers in the cockpit. It's fun to talk about.

I agree with discofishing and edpop, that the gist of this thread is not to keep it real. Its to explore the options available.

On a different note, not so sure the F-108 would have been a good operational design. The F-15 was the right choice because it balanced all the possibilities available at the time. The F-108 was more or less a shoehorned design for high altitude interception and really it didn't have the technology to do the job from up there. It was on the drawing board before true lookdown-shootdown modes were available for radar. And the engines were too thirsty, making it an awfully expensive unit to operate for a decade let alone for 30 years.

Forum: Off-topic

Old airframes with new technology