# A great F105 website



## syscom3 (May 28, 2008)

This is great! Even has audio of some missions!

Craig Baker's F-105 Site, The Awesome Thunderchief


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## Matt308 (May 28, 2008)

Watch "There is a Way". GREAT film. And only a little propaganda. Very touching.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 28, 2008)

Great find Sys!


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## Matt308 (May 28, 2008)

75% of all sorties over North Vietnam were F-105s. Truly an unsung hero piloted by heroes.


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## evangilder (May 29, 2008)

Neat stuff!


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## timshatz (May 29, 2008)

Very cool site.


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## Matt308 (May 29, 2008)

Lots of entertainment there. I still am struggling with the 75% of all sorties by USAF in Rolling Thunder conducted by F-105s. Think about that in modern warfare. If you look at the types and numbers of aircraft lost in Vietnam it is actually quite staggering. Not to complicate matters, but I was under the impression that much more B-52s were lost, just in Operation Linebacker. Johnson and MacNamara aside (pig effers), can you imagine the Cold War turning hot in Europe what kinds of numbers we might have seen? Holy crap. 

Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## pbfoot (May 29, 2008)

The ANG used to fly them here or there being the US but the approach was over head


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## syscom3 (May 29, 2008)

Heres the F105 from the March Air Base museum.


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## Matt308 (May 29, 2008)

She's a beast. And those little intakes for the P&W J75 seem too small for 26,000lbs thrust. Look like T-38 intakes.


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## drgondog (Jun 28, 2008)

Matt308 said:


> Lots of entertainment there. I still am struggling with the 75% of all sorties by USAF in Rolling Thunder conducted by F-105s. Think about that in modern warfare. If you look at the types and numbers of aircraft lost in Vietnam it is actually quite staggering. Not to complicate matters, but I was under the impression that much more B-52s were lost, just in Operation Linebacker. Johnson and MacNamara aside (pig effers), can you imagine the Cold War turning hot in Europe what kinds of numbers we might have seen? Holy crap.
> 
> Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The heaviest lifter of the 105 wings was the 355th. For a long time they were the top MiG killers and by the end of their tour at Takhli, they dropped 202,000 tons (1/3 of all the bombs dropped by all the B-17s in all of WWII).

and they had the highest losses..of all the USAF


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## drgondog (Jun 28, 2008)

syscom3 said:


> Heres the F105 from the March Air Base museum.



a 354FS/355th TFW F-105 from Takhli


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## hunter0f2 (Jun 30, 2008)

I've checked out a lot of the F 105 sites  you are right this is a good! one. The F105 is one of my all time favourite Classic aircraft, along with the Hunter Bucaneer.... They tried very hard to replace Thud with F111 we all know that story.......


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## drgondog (Jun 30, 2008)

hunter0f2 said:


> I've checked out a lot of the F 105 sites you are right this is a good! one. The F105 is one of my all time favourite Classic aircraft, along with the Hunter Bucaneer.... They tried very hard to replace Thud with F111 we all know that story.......



Another 355TFW ship out of Takhli. 357th FS/355th TFW F-105D ~ 1967 inbound to Route Pack 6

Two different missions and the F-111 performed well in missions the 105 was never designed to do... the 105 never had the radar or all weather capability of the 111 - basically the 105 was just a lot faster

The F-105 did a mission well that it was never designed to do (daylight level bombing) and another that nobody though of - Wild Weasel.. 

The specific F-105 that Syscom put up there was the only F-105 that killed three Migs..(two different pilots) - don't know if any specific F-4 or F-8 shot down as many


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## Matt308 (Jun 30, 2008)

Note that last pic contains a load out of 750lb bombs with a .50BMG barrel screwed into the nose to "make the bomb stick". Not sure how that manifests itself in actual real life with 11sec fuses, but I have to imagine that a hardened steel nose would bury that bomb pretty deep.


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## drgondog (Jul 2, 2008)

Matt308 said:


> Note that last pic contains a load out of 750lb bombs with a .50BMG barrel screwed into the nose to "make the bomb stick". Not sure how that manifests itself in actual real life with 11sec fuses, but I have to imagine that a hardened steel nose would bury that bomb pretty deep.



I wonder about effectiveness. 

It looks like you have to a.) depend entirely on the tail fuse, and b.) assume that a 50 cal barrel combined with a 25G impact doesn't fracture the bomb casing?

One of the big problems we had with the early LGB, is that pilots would drop at extreme slant range and the impact angle (low) tended to shear the FMU-81 nose fuse/control case away from nose - and tail fuse had a high failure rate.


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## SoD Stitch (Jul 2, 2008)

Matt308 said:


> Lots of entertainment there. I still am struggling with the 75% of all sorties by USAF in Rolling Thunder conducted by F-105s. Think about that in modern warfare. If you look at the types and numbers of aircraft lost in Vietnam it is actually quite staggering. Not to complicate matters, but I was under the impression that much more B-52s were lost, just in Operation Linebacker.



IIRC, the percentage of B-52's lost per sortie/aircraft over Vietnam during the Arc Light strikes was extremely low, comparatively speaking, something like 2%. Yes, several a/c were lost, but compared to the number of B-52's used during the campaign, and the number of sorties they flew, it was extremely low.


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## drgondog (Jul 2, 2008)

SoD Stitch said:


> IIRC, the percentage of B-52's lost per sortie/aircraft over Vietnam during the Arc Light strikes was extremely low, comparatively speaking, something like 2%. Yes, several a/c were lost, but compared to the number of B-52's used during the campaign, and the number of sorties they flew, it was extremely low.



Even Linebacker II had relatively low loss rates for the Buff's considering the intensity of the Hanoi air defense.. 

But the Thud was going over nearly every day from 65 through 68 as the primary strike weapon up North. It is still staggering to know that just the 355th TFW dropped 1/3 of all the tonnage dropped by all the B-17s during WWII. 

IIRC the 355th lost 179 Thuds over N.Vietnam and Laos due to enemy action. 23 more to Ops accidents around Thailand between April 1965 and Sept 1970.

Curiously this is close to the number of ships lost for the 355th in VietNam as in WWII... and equally curious the dominant cause was AAA (and Sam's)

These numbers include Wild Weasel losses with 10 lost air to air against MiGs, for 21 MiGs shot down and 9 destroyed on ground.

The 354FS/355TFW ship that Syscom posted shot down two MiGs with Brestel and one with Basel and shown as Basel's 'bird' in mid 1967.

The F-105D at Davis-Monthan is represented as same ship.


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## drgondog (Jul 28, 2008)

Wild Weasel mission 5 November 1967 - Wikisource

This is a link to a story about Lt. Col Billy Sparks - one of the USAF great characters and pall bearer along with Gen Earthquake McGoon Bob Titus at Olds Funeral. It was only after Titus finished his eulogy that the rarest of emotions - combined laughter and sobs from each knuckledragging fighter pilot could be heard at the same time and same breath.

Billy liked to think he ably assisted Titus and Olds for their 7+ MiG kills as "dumb bait' in his Weasel and frequently cadged young and old scotch from each whenever possible for their abuse.

A worthwhile read of one of the 355th's great combat leaders.


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## pbfoot (Jul 28, 2008)

I've read where the gun on the 105 was pointed downward at about 2.5degrees for strafing is this fact or fiction


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## Matt308 (Jul 28, 2008)

Interesting question Pb, but with modern electronic sighting backed up by holographic sighting I doubt that the elevation/azimuth of the gun really matters too much in the scheme of things.


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## drgondog (Jul 28, 2008)

pbfoot said:


> I've read where the gun on the 105 was pointed downward at about 2.5degrees for strafing is this fact or fiction



Fiction Pb - the gun was all about 'self defense' not strafing. The wild weasels were only F-105s in flak suppression and the 105s had the most migs (and losses) until the F-4 took the lead in 1971 - all M-61 kills.

When I flew the A-10c simulator back in April, the HUD gunsight computes Point if impact at any range.. the F-105 had similat comptation in the gunsight but two generations behind th A-10 systems.


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## yardbird78 (Jul 29, 2008)

drgondog said:


> The specific F-105 that Syscom put up there was the only F-105 that killed three Migs..(two different pilots) - don't know if any specific F-4 or F-8 shot down as many



The F-4D that Steve Ritchie flew on his 1st and 5th kills wound up with total of 6 kills for the war. It is on display at the Air Force Academy with six red stars on the splitter plate.

Darwin, O.F.


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