Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6V8kvI6vrA

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Gotta' love that PW J75! In Love

I never knew the ventral fins could retract to the horizontal.. Learn something new everyday on this site.

Tim wrote:

I never knew the ventral fins could retract to the horizontal.. Learn something new everyday on this site.

That'd be some tall a$$ landing gear if they didn't. Laughing

Tim wrote:

I never knew the ventral fins could retract to the horizontal.. Learn something new everyday on this site.

The YF-12 Blackbird had one too Wink

Nice pics of the Blackbird Thumb

While we're looking at retractable ventral fins, I thought I'd mention that the MiG-23 has 'em too Wink

And the ''X'' type solution...

Just drop it.

What goes up must come down.

amazing the similarity in design between the Zipper and the X-15. Both had one purpose, go fast. If the Crusader III was faster and more agile than the Phantom, then why did the navy go with the F-4? Electronics?

Notice the lower half of the ventral on the X-15 is jettisoned before landing. Later in the program, they tried flying without the lower half. Worked fine.

Oh wow! I missed that! Thats neat.

sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:

If the Crusader III was faster and more agile than the Phantom, then why did the Navy go with the F-4?

Versatility. The Rhino could carry a heavier, and more diverse weapon array than the 'sader. The 'sader III could not perform an AG mission.

The Navy also saw the difficulty in a pilot flying an intercept, operating the radar, and launching an AIM-7. The F-4's RIO solved this problem.

There was also a perception that the era of the "gunfighters" was over. Of course, this was a lesson yet to be learned, but at the time, the F-4 did not have a gun, and the Navy liked its array of AA ordnance.

Plus, there's also the safety aspect of having 2 engines, when considering carrier ops. Granted, a one-engined carrier approach in the F-4 was probably going to be a one attempt scenario, but one chance is better than no chance.

Salute

Yep, TEG, the kick-a$$ motor makes a difference, same as it did for the U-2.

The interceptor version of the Blackbird was kinda neat at the time. Had the prototype Phoenix, pulse-doppler radar and could cruise around and plink at the threat bombers outta harm's way. Could never have built enuf to make a difference, so we stuck with our Voodoo's and sixes.

Parrot-cranium's pics bring back memories. The facility was still closely guarded when I was there, but I got to sit in the cockpit of that same Flogger.

The McNamara era had many bad scenes. Jets with no guns. Multi-role, multi-service flops. Crappy training. Poor strategic and tactical decisions on that pissant war I fought in, and the beat goes on.

Gums sends ...

Gums -

Don't know if you already know about this, but I learned something a while back that was pretty interesting about the YF-12A. You didn't need 4 huffers per engine or one of those neat double V8 start carts for that bird. It had a cartridge starter system that used three cartridges per engine fired sequentially Smile

Did they ever use that in service? I'm pretty sure it was related to the YF-12A/B effort early in the Blackbird program.

sferrin,

No, the Blackbird cartridge starter was only used while developing the YF-12A to be an interceptor. It allowed for a quick, trouble-free way to crank up the engines as would be needed for the mission. It usually used huffers or start carts with the V8s.

Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

XF8U-3 Crusader III video.