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The P38 night fighter suggestion upthread was for the cannons to be mounted in the bottom of the central nacelle to reduce flash blindness. This would require a slight widening of the nacelle to make them fit, which should fit with the wider radome that spinning SCR720 antenna would require. This should leave enough room for the radar electronics and the cannon ammo.The P-38 had the guns up there, too, so there was a lot less room to work with.
No, I don't think so. I'll go with four 20s mounted further aft and lower, firing both sides of the nose gear well. Requires a slightly wider central nacelle, which will be needed anyway to fair the SCR720 radome. Aft portion of the nacelle will probably have a "wide jowl" semi triangular cross section a la ME262 to accommodate the cannons. The idea is to hide the muzzle flash under the wing center section. Needs a more extended tailcone with both crewmembers moved aft and nose extended for the radar. IIRC in the P38 pilot seat sat nestled in a notch in wing leading edge, backed against spar center section, didn't it?How about this proposal? That is two .50 cal and a 75MM cannon. Plenty of room in the back for an RO, too
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You mean F86Ds, F89s, F94s, F102s, and F3Hs in the late 1950s weren't all weather fighter interceptors? When we moved off the farm and into town in 1958, our Air Guard was standing NORAD alert 24/7 in F89D hand me downs from USAF, and they were scrambling night or day, rain or shine. I had an AM/shortwave/air/police and fire band radio, (big, clunky, "portable") and I could sometimes catch GCA working the jets down out of the muck when even the airliners weren't flying.Dedicated night fighters didn't start to decline until the late 1960s when standard interceptors acquired the ability to fight in all conditions including nuight and bad weather.
It was all about GCI. I took a couple university summer school courses in the summer of 1964, and there were a couple of longtime Air Guard pilots in my classes, leading to some interesting conversations. Their progression postwar was P47, P51, F94, F89. Apparently the interceptor fire control systems were optimized for only one attack profile, the F94 for a low closure rate attack from six o'clock, and the F89 for a 90° lead computing deflection shot. The "sweet spot" for both attacks was relatively narrow in terms of angles and closure rates, making success dependent on the GCI controller's positioning of the interceptor for target acquisition with the proper geometry.Hi XBe02Drvr,
Yes, the F-86Ds, F-94s, and the like were early "all weather" interceptors. They weren't really very good at it until the smaller sensors caught up with the capabilities of late 1940's radars that had larger antennas. When you reduce a radar's antenna size, you change the signal-to-noise ratio and the detection range is less. I'm thinking that radars on so-called all-weather interceptors weren't really night fighter capable until the late 1960s. That estimate is as an electrical engineer, and I could be mistaken. But I've hear too many stories about early all-weather interceptors from guys who flew them to believe they were all that good at the all-weather stuff. Basically, they made a great contribution to the lifestyles of the pilots, but they weren't really "all-weather" in any sense of the words. They were temperamental and not so easy to read and interpret. The F-94, with a dedicated radar officer, was likely twice as good as an F-86D where the pilot was both flying and trying to interpret the radar by himself.
I remember reading several accounts of guys who were tasked with flying a plane into the air defense zome and being intercepted as a test, only to discover that none of the "all-weather interceptors" could find them. If they did, there was no certainty that they could be shot down. On 16 Aug 1956, a Hellcat outfitted as a drone took off from California. Instead of following the proscribed course, it went elsewhere. It was supposed to have been shot down in a live fire exercise, but instead started wandering toward Los Angeles. Two F-89D Scorpions were launched from Oxnard and tasked with shooting it down. They fired 208 Mighty Mouse rockets at a non-maneuvering WWII Hellcat without effect. Eventually it ran out of fuel and crashed 8 miles east of Palmdale. No one was hurt but there WERE some embarrassed fighter pilots in a couple of F-89Ds who had started several fires along the way with the rockets. Link below, and there are more than just this one to choose from over the years.
The runaway drone that caused a Cold War air battle
Not too sure the 1950s and early 1960s interceptors were all that much better than late WWII airplanes when it came to outright combat effectiveness. They were certainly faster and flashier ... but that doesn't necessarily mean better. Just my two cents worth. Opinions vary. Cheers.
The P(F)-82 did remarkably well in Korea.I recall reading a summary by a F-86D pilot. When scrambled, the typical squadron had a number of airplanes down for maintenance, a number would fail to start (it had an electronic fuel controller that was supposed to manage the start sequence but had to warm up itself), maybe half a dozen would start to taxi, perhaps three would abort during taxi, maybe three would take off, and two would abort after takeoff, leaving one to carry out the mission. For that reason and because it was assumed that a nuclear war would be won or lost in a few hours, the pilots were told to expend their ordnance and then ram.
In Korea, F-94's with .50 cal guns were launched to intercept Po-2's. One F-94 crashed when it stalled while trying to line up behind a Po-2. One F-94 flew through a Po-2. But the F4U and F7F night fighters did much better. That was where we could have used some P-61's; they likely would have been the best of all.
The F-89 jocks called their birds the "B-89" because of the slow speed and said they would likely get only one intercept at the bomber flight.