Lucky13
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I knoooow....Draken, with THREE months! 
The best fighter of the 1950's.
- Thread starter Soren
- Start date
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Dragon, is there a site (or book) that covers the F105 in Vietnam? Especially the Air To Air stuff. I didn't know there were guys who got 2 in one flying the Thud. Thought they were rare one here, one there.
drgondog
Major
The 102 was a dog, the 106 was a major mod to incorporate Whitcomb Rule fule fuselage plus extend the fuselage somewhat forward of the exhaust inlet and upgrade the engines.
The 106 was a super manuever fighter that was only finally defeated by the F-15 (from the USAF inventory) and very fast in level flight. It had the same WL as a P38, 50% better T/W than the F-104 and was a Mach 2.3 ship with 1300mi operational range, 1600 mi normal ferry range..
Initial climb about 42,800 f/m - one 20mm M61, 4x Falcons, 1x Genie. This and the F-14 were our best interceptor until the F-15 arrived.
I just looked up the Lightning on wiki.
It cites 2.27M vs (2.31 for 106) and 50k/min intial climb but strangely the WL is 87+ (vs 52+ for 106) and T/W is .63 (versus .65 for 106) and ceiling of 60k (vs 53K for 106) - which leads to a little head scratching
It sounds like the Lightning was a little cleaner and the engines performed better at high altitude - otherwise the 106 should climb faster.
drgondog
Major
I knoooow....Draken, with THREE months!
And F-4, even though first flight was '58
I voted MiG 21, before I read the thread, Duh. MiG 21 is obviously the most successful but the reports from British and US test pilots featured in R P Beaumonts book Testing Early Jets seems to put the Lightning at the head of the list as the best in terms of a pilots aircraft, one USAF test pilot dscribes as 'as hot as the F-104 but handles like the F-86 followed by excited excalamations of its sheer brilliance that I can't remember the exact wording of. The Lightning was also described as the only pure fighter in the Western arsenal and the fastest climber until the arrival of the F-15 in service, both pretty impressive claims so that would seem to give it the edge from the mouths of people who flew it.
An article penned in the early 80's and published in an RAF yearbook also has a Lightning pilot claiming that while he wouldn't try to turn with an F-16, it didn't scare him and he could defeat it with his Lightning quite happily. Sheer bravado? Quite probably, but the old girl sure was loved!
Also, it wasn't the F-106 that introduced area rule, it was the F-102A as the previous YF-102 model could not exceed mach unity in level flight.
An article penned in the early 80's and published in an RAF yearbook also has a Lightning pilot claiming that while he wouldn't try to turn with an F-16, it didn't scare him and he could defeat it with his Lightning quite happily. Sheer bravado? Quite probably, but the old girl sure was loved!
Also, it wasn't the F-106 that introduced area rule, it was the F-102A as the previous YF-102 model could not exceed mach unity in level flight.
kool kitty89
Senior Master Sergeant
F-102 was much slower though. Thrust/weight doesn't seem much different, though it's also a lot lighter. (106 has much more powerful engines) Wingloading's lower for the 102 though.
I din't know the F-106 was that good a dogfighter, kind of figured with the Delta wing (low AR + elevons, tailed deltas like the MiG 21 avoiding the latter issue) it wouldn't be that great. I know delta's have the weird, super high AoA characteristics thing, but I would have though the high parasite drag in such conditions woud limit utility in a dogfight. (too much loss in speed)
I din't know the F-106 was that good a dogfighter, kind of figured with the Delta wing (low AR + elevons, tailed deltas like the MiG 21 avoiding the latter issue) it wouldn't be that great. I know delta's have the weird, super high AoA characteristics thing, but I would have though the high parasite drag in such conditions woud limit utility in a dogfight. (too much loss in speed)
davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
Soren said:
I'm voting for the F-8 just because it has always been my favorite jet.
Drgondog said:
It was greased lightning on the deck!
As Waynos stated, the F-102A was a "coke bottle" airplane, I believe, the first. But it certainly was a dog, relatively speaking.
drgondog
Major
Brestal got 2 on 10 Mar 67, the 355th TFW got 5 on 19 Apr 67, the only a/c that topped that was three wings of F4's on Jan 2, 1967. The F-105s shot down the second higest total (32) of any aircraft in the US. The 355th had a 2:1 air to air ratio better than most US fighter wings. (I was wrong about two doubles)
The 355th (21) shot down more Migs w/105s than all the F-8 USN/USMC Air Groups in the combined (14). Only the F4 shot down more (70) spread across 5 AF wings and the USN.
The 8th TFW (Olds-F4) killed 20, the 355th shot down 21 making it the single top MiG killer wing of USAF and USN.
Go Thuds!!! Little known fact of Viet Nam. One helluva aiplane which dropped more bombs from just the 355th than any BG in 8th AF (202,000 tons) and maybe more than even any Lanc Wing (I don't have the numbers)
But NEVER designed as an air superiority fighter or strategic bomber - but it did ONE HELLUVA JOB!
drgondog
Major
Dave I don't believe the 102 was the first area rule fuselage. My data has the 106 design as a direct result of huge disapponitment with F-102A! The F-102 B was a radical redign from the F-102A and led to the F-106
Flyboy2
Senior Airman
Actually I think he might be right. From what I've managed to scrape up the 102 was the first aircraft to operationally use the area rule in its truest form. Aircraft such as the Tu-95 Bear were modified to take advantage of this by adding fuselage buldges but they weren't truly designed for the Area rule... It was actually first patented by Junkers in 1944.
As for the best aircraft, I'm going to have to say on combat record with usage and longevity its got to be the MiG-21
But I've always loved the F-8 and the Sabre so I think I'm voting Crusader
parsifal
Colonel
is the A-4 classified as a fighter or a bomber? I ask this because even though it was designed as a bomber, it was used ooperationaly bysome of its operators as a fighter
Lucky13
Forum Mascot
Area rule??
Lucky13
Forum Mascot
From the Wiki....
"A USAF comparison study of the accident rate of all the Century Series, F-4 Phantom, A-7, and F-111 aircraft over 750,000 flying hours showed that the F-100 Super Sabre led the table with an accident rate over double that of the F-104 (471 accidents for the F-100 versus 196 for the F-104) which had the second-highest rate, closely followed by the F-102 Delta Dagger. It should be noted that the F-104 figures in this study were taken over 600,000 hours since that type had not reached 750,000 hours at the time."
How many of the '104's accidents was due to the aircraft itself, as in construction, manufacturing etc.?
"A USAF comparison study of the accident rate of all the Century Series, F-4 Phantom, A-7, and F-111 aircraft over 750,000 flying hours showed that the F-100 Super Sabre led the table with an accident rate over double that of the F-104 (471 accidents for the F-100 versus 196 for the F-104) which had the second-highest rate, closely followed by the F-102 Delta Dagger. It should be noted that the F-104 figures in this study were taken over 600,000 hours since that type had not reached 750,000 hours at the time."
How many of the '104's accidents was due to the aircraft itself, as in construction, manufacturing etc.?
Area rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
G'day FB2. Did you happen to read that from the Wiki site above?
Seems an odd statement (Wiki) as from what I understand they're not "Kuchemann Knuckles" as seen on the Convair 990 but a box fairing for the undercarriage. This prevented having to cut into the highly stressed wings and was first(?) seen on the Tu-16, which does look to be area-ruled...
...and the Bear followed suit. It was elongated (Item No.71) on latter versions but there is no proof that this was for aerodynamic reasons...
Lucky13
Forum Mascot
Thanks Graeme...gave me a headache though!
renrich
Chief Master Sergeant
Good book on VN and F105s called "Thud Ridge" I read it perhaps 20 years ago. Have a friend who flew the Thud in VN, was later a Braniff pilot. Is in his seventies and still flies a twin. I talked with him about flying in general but never asked him about the Thud specifically. For ACM, I picked the F8U.
davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
I think it is pretty obvious in the attached picture. Note the added bulges at the exhaust exit area.
Attachments
drgondog
Major
Dave - you are correct. It was the redesign of the YF-102 to the F-102A that resulted in the Whitcomb Area Rule change to fuselage because of disappointing speed performance of the YF-102.
The F-102B was a further and major redesign of the A and became the basis for the F-106 because the B was so significantly different.
drgondog
Major
Area rule??
Google "Whitcomb Area Rule"..
the theory behind it is complicated but the resulting cross sectional areas as you move aft of the cockpit must be reduced at the wing/body intersection to achieve necessary wave drag reductions.
The effect of adding wings to a cylindrical (straight) body added approximately 2x Wave Drag.
These two images show the evolution of the F-102 to accomodate area rule. Ther first one from 1955 describes the F-102A but illustrates the YF-102 as the images of the update were still secret, the second picture is from the 1956 edition when the images were released. Incidentally, I read that the Lightning 'accidentally' benefitted from area rule by the addition of the belly tank, which may have been the first CFT's in the world, despite what Lockheed says when they try to sell you an F-16
