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I wonder about Canada's licence to build Northrop F-5. It didn't offer much capability to an airforce already operating the F-101 and F-104.I'm sure you are right. Northrop also got caught on bribery dealing with South Korea.
Beautiful aircraft. One of my favorites and one of two I would have loved to fly, the F-8 the other. Unfortunately all were in the Air National Guard. This plane will go supersonic with wing tanks. It could also supercruise.
I'm not picking on you but NOT TRUE! The F-5 was a wonderful aircraft - easily flown, cost effective to maintain and operate and the CF-5s had an avionics suite similar to the F-18 in their later life. Drop bombs or dogfight, the F-5 could do both well. I worked on CF-5s that were given to the Botswana Defense Force and they were clean, well maintained machines.I wonder about Canada's licence to build Northrop F-5. It didn't offer much capability to an airforce already operating the F-101 and F-104.
What options did Canada have over the F-101?
I imagine had we held out a little longer with the Canuck we'd have F-4 Phantoms, at least for NORAD if not in the CF-104's nuclear strike role. Meaning we'd likely never get the F-18A in the early 1980s and instead join the British, Germans, Greeks, Japanese, Israelis, etc. operating the Phantom into the 1990s. Maybe we'd replace the F-4 with later F-18 variants.
but back in my RAF days we used to joke that the Jaguar had 2 engines so that if one engine failed the other engine could ensure the aircraft reached the scene of the crash.
From what I've read pilots loved the F-106. I'll look for your post.I've posted on other threads about my father in law's experience flying this aircraft, he loved it. During dis-similar aircraft combat exercises he bagged an F-15!
The one Canadian jet fighter I would have liked to have seen a replacement for was options for a non-A-4 Skyhawk successor to the McDonnell F2H Banshee.
Assuming, and that's a big if, that a fleet defence fighter role was deemed necessary in this ASW era of the RCN, I'd opt for something supersonic yet compact......
I know, though to be fair the RCN of the 1960s was much larger than it is today. This site is a great resource on the RCN and all things battleship, etc. Canadian Navy of Yesterday and TodayYou need a fleet to need fleet defense. And with no carriers after the 60's a replacement for the Banshee would have been a non-starter.
Sorry, until some of the modernization programs in the 1990s and later, no F-5 could operate either the Sparrow or the AMRAAM - if they even could after the modernizations!As for the F-5, it is an inexpensive, reliable, low maintenance, low operating cost, fighter, quite capable of holding its own against more expensive contemporary fighters such as the F-4 in typical day VFR, conditions, in combat. In addition, when operating with Sparrow or AMRAAM missiles, it has all-weather capability. It also has a potent air-to-ground capability. A good buy for the money made it a very successful aircraft.
There's a curveball here. In its early years, the F4 was a carrier based Navy aircraft, USAF came later. The F4 was the heaviest, fastest fighter the Navy's flight decks had seen to date, with the attendant loss rate. It didn't have the luxury of operating from two-miles-long runways. Apples to oranges comparison. So, many of those losses could be attributed to other causes than the reliability of the twin engine configuration. For a nugget fighter pilot, it was a really big step from the TF9J in advanced training to the F4B in the RAG squadron. In the early days, only experienced pilots were transitioned into the F4, as existing squadrons changed over their aircraft types, and the loss rate wasn't too, too bad. Then they started getting nuggets straight out of flight school, and the accident rate went up dramatically. In the end, they wound up modifying a few planes to give the aft cockpit a set of flight controls for initial transition training. At least that's the way it was told to me by the career Phantom jocks in the RAG, which confirmed what I'd read in Aviation Week back in the day.F-106, despite being single-engined, had 15 losses in first 90.000 hours, compared to 17 for the F-4. In the first 213.000 hours, it had 26 losses, compared to 44 for the F-4. It can be seen that the more complex F-4 had worse loss rate than the F-106 despite having two engines, and while F-106s loss rate improved, F-4s grew worse.
Sorry, until some of the modernization programs in the 1990s and later, no F-5 could operate either the Sparrow or the AMRAAM - if they even could after the modernizations!
You must also remember that the 1960s F-5s (F-5A, F-5B) WERE ground-attack primarily, with very minimal air-air capability... their simple radar lacked any air-air mode whatsoever. It was not until the F-5E of 1972 that there was an F-5 with a real air-air radar - and that was designed for only guns and WVR (AIM-9 Sidewinder) missiles!
Yeah, this would take more analysis, primarily looking at loses due to single engine failures alone. Having grown up about 2 miles from the approach end of RW 7 Sherman field, Pensacola NAS, I had been immersed in Naval aviation (SNJs used to scare me when they flew over the house, which was all the time). After the war and into the '50s, Naval aviation had a horrendous reputation for aircraft safety, it seemed that every time the Antietam or the Lexington went out for carrier quals a plane and pilot would be lost. As you said, up until about 1970, the Navys advanced trainer was the TF9F of Korean war vintage. Quite a jump to an F-4. In the 1950s, when the AF advanced trainer was the WW2 era T-33, the AF recognized this problem and developed the T-38 specifically for the century series fighter. The T-38 flew final between 155 and 170 kts, depending on configuration and weight, the F-106 flew final at 178 kts, a few knots faster than the F-104. The Navy has sensed cleaned up its safety performance.There's a curveball here. In its early years, the F4 was a carrier based Navy aircraft, USAF came later. The F4 was the heaviest, fastest fighter the Navy's flight decks had seen to date, with the attendant loss rate. It didn't have the luxury of operating from two-miles-long runways. Apples to oranges comparison. So, many of those losses could be attributed to other causes than the reliability of the twin engine configuration. For a nugget fighter pilot, it was a really big step from the TF9J in advanced training to the F4B in the RAG squadron. In the early days, only experienced pilots were transitioned into the F4, as existing squadrons changed over their aircraft types, and the loss rate wasn't too, too bad. Then they started getting nuggets straight out of flight school, and the accident rate went up dramatically. In the end, they wound up modifying a few planes to give the aft cockpit flight controls for initial transition training. At least that's the way it was told to me by the career Phantom jocks in the RAG, which confirmed what I'd read in Aviation Week back in the day.
Large angled decks, mirror landing systems, steam catapults, zero/zero seats, (all British innovations), enhanced flight sims, NATOPS standardized procedures, tech school rather than OJT for support personnel, standardized maintenance control, all have contributed to the safety improvements over the years.The Navy has since cleaned up its safety performance.
When I got out in 1974, nuggets in the attack pipeline were finishing up Advanced in TA4Fs and J's, but fighter types were still reporting to the F4 RAG out of TF9s.up until about 1970, the Navys advanced trainer was the TF9F of Korean war vintage.