Great Navy fighter

I was curious about this figure and found this site which claims that 517 were lost through enemy action or accidents with 493 ejections. One squadron alone, VFP-63, had 60 ejections!

http://gator.crouze.com/chapter7.html

That list of survivors alone makes the figure of 88% wrong since there are over 200 hundred survivors on there rather than less than 150 that this article says would be left.The Wiki crusader page lists 89 F8D, 136 F8E, 87 F8C and 61 F8B as rebuilt, so perhaps a plane had a major crash and gets rebuilt so looks to have been written off when it hasn’t. Indeed I think some planes could be crashed and written off twice.

Just as a comparison the ‘ADF Serials’ site for the RAAF Mirage shows that aircraft had crashes so bad that they were rebuilt only to crash later and be destroyed. Others crashed and while not destroyed were deemed beyond economic repair and converted to components.

Interesting.

On a different tangent I read today that 1106 of the 1261 Crusaders were involved in mishaps, some 88%, the article stated that these were all destroyed. But I don’t think this is correct, surely some accidents were repairable otherwise the USN would never be able to maintain any squadrons on strength, they’d be all destroyed.

I was curious about this figure and found this site which claims that 517 were lost through enemy action or accidents with 493 ejections. One squadron alone, VFP-63, had 60 ejections!

http://gator.crouze.com/chapter7.html

Eagle was the first British Carrier to have a Phantom launch from, in 1969. I had been lead to believe that Eagle that had been given a major refit, new island, radar, air con etc etc was in far better condition than Ark Royal and could have been conversted to full Phantom operation far quicker and at far less cost than Ark Royal, it was also fitted for and fitted with some items that Ark Royal was only fitted for after her refit.. It was a question of upgrading some of the arresting wires, water cooled jet blast deflectors and bridle catchers basically, this would not have kept the Devenport Dockyard busy for too long, David Owen, Foreign Secretary was MP for Devenport at the time so it was decided to place Ark Royal in a major refit, although not as major as the refit that Eagle had undergone in the early 60’s. I believe it was planned that Eagle after the Phantom refit would serve till the 1980’s which gets us into Falklands campaign discussion area…

The Phantom could have operated from the Eagle, and her rebuild would have taken her to the early/mid 80s, but this was not taken up; due to political factors. What’s more I still don’t know what a 2 seat Crusader will do. AFAIK it only had the same radar as the F8E, which was operated by the pilot, so what is the back-seater doing?

On a different tangent I read today that 1106 of the 1261 Crusaders were involved in mishaps, some 88%, the article stated that these were all destroyed. But I don’t think this is correct, surely some accidents were repairable otherwise the USN would never be able to maintain any squadrons on strength, they’d be all destroyed.

Well………I doubt Buccaneer could have been operated with adequate safety margins off the French carriers (Hermes had problems with them, she really wasnt big enough) The three Invincibles started out as cruisers that then morphed into through deck ASW/command ships……..they really werent designed with Harrier in mind.
But, once again, the choice of fighter aircraft the RN made was really irrelevent as far as the carrier force being cancelled was concerned, in the early 70s when the concervative govt had a chance to revive RN carrier air power……they chose not to spend the money on it. Clemy sized ships simply wouldnt have made a difference. Remember, the Invincibles werent even refered to as aircraft carriers until 1980.

The problem for carrier aviation was that it was viewed through the prism of East of Suez. In 1966 the government chose the F111K to provide air power East of Suez, and cancelled CVA01, then in 1968 decided to pull out East of Suez, and cancelled the F111K order.

Of course there is far more to naval air power than just East of Suez, and it was to provide air cover in the North Atlantic that the Sea Harrier was developed in the early 1970s. The Navy’s problem in 1970 was that it had one carrier which could operate the Phantom, and no prospect of any more, An aircraft such as the
F8 could have operated from Eagle, Ark Royal and Hermes, and off a carrier in the 35 to 40,000 ton range. Given that three 20,000 ton carriers were built, I cannot see why two medium size carriers could have been built instead, but there was never any prospect of resurrecting a CVA01 size carrier. Thus, the choice of the Phantom as the fleet fighter turned out to have doomed British naval aviation.

Well………I doubt Buccaneer could have been operated with adequate safety margins off the French carriers (Hermes had problems with them, she really wasnt big enough) The three Invincibles started out as cruisers that then morphed into through deck ASW/command ships……..they really werent designed with Harrier in mind.
But, once again, the choice of fighter aircraft the RN made was really irrelevent as far as the carrier force being cancelled was concerned, in the early 70s when the concervative govt had a chance to revive RN carrier air power……they chose not to spend the money on it. Clemy sized ships simply wouldnt have made a difference. Remember, the Invincibles werent even refered to as aircraft carriers until 1980.

Killing the CVs was a political descision. Weather the RN bought Phantom or Crusader was irrelevent.

The decision made in 1966 was to buy 50 F111Ks rather than CVA01, which were in turn cancelled in 1968. However, it is a fact that in the 1970s the Royal Navy developed the Sea Harrier and built three carriers. In going for the Phantom, the Admiralty ensured that it would be too expensive to build a carrier big enough to operate them, but Clemenceau sized carriers could have operated a very worthwhile air group built round the Buccaneer and F8.

Killing the CVs was a political descision. Weather the RN bought Phantom or Crusader was irrelevent.

I don’t think it was cost in a small way, ie the cost of individual ships or planes, but cost in a big way, ie the overall cost of defence that caused the govt decision to forgo fixed wing carriers. If it was about individual ships the Eagle would have been Phantomised and the Ark Royal not refitted to serve until a planned date in 1972.

This is why I don’t think that if the F8 was bought the govt would have kept building carriers, it saw the entire FAA as a luxury that could be ditched wholesale.

CVA01 was cancelled in 1966 because the government was persuaded that 50 RAF F111Ks would provide air power cheaper East of Suez. However, that did not mean that carriers were scrapped there and then, and Hermes was still in the fleet until 1984. Choosing the Phantom meant that only ships the size of CVA01 made sense, and they could not be afforded, but as I said, we did develop the Sea Harrier and built three carriers in the 1970s. If the fleet fighter had been the F8, carriers the size of Foch and Clemenceau would have been viable, and, more importantly, affordable. If we had kept conventional carrier aviation through the 80s and 90s, then it is quite conceivable that the Eurofighter would have been navalised from the start, and would now be flying from Royal Navy carriers, and we would not have had the F35B/F35C/F35B fiasco, nor had to suffer a ten year carrier gap.

I don’t think Crusaders would have saved the RN’s bigger carriers, common sense was entirely absent and stupid politics was rampant in that array of decisions. Even the Conservative decision to save the FAA was only very half-arsed since they didn’t reinstate the Eagle’s refit or keep the FAA up to aircraft strength.

What happen to the French Crusaders??? Are they in storage or scrapped or what???

The Mirage III and the F-8 were contemporaries… Australia considered both before choosing the Mirage. If upgrades similar to the French F-8E(FN)s were made, it would have done fine.

The quartet of four 20-mm cannon was retained, as well as the ability to carry four fuselage-mounted AIM-9B Sidewinder missiles. However, provision was also made to accommodate the French-built Matra R530 air-to-air missile, which existed in both infrared and semi-active radar homing versions. One R530 was carried on each side of the fuselage on rail launchers. Often, an infrared-homing R530 would be carried in one side of the fuselage, with a radar-homer on the other side. To accommodate the R530 in its radar-homing version, a Magnavox AN/APQ-104 radar was fitted, together with a modified AN/AWG-4 fire control system.

However in the missile age shooting down migs has been one of the rarest missions a fighter pilot will undertake and most fighter losses have been to SAMs and ground fire. Between 1968 and 1972 the US didn’t venture into mig territory, so its a waste to have F8s in the theatre to combat a threat that does not exist when they can be profitably employed attacking ground targets.

i like this convo.. very interesting topic..
would the F-8 prolong the life of ark royal? if it did, would the F-8 still be useful in teh Falklands?
the French used the F-8 forever!

the X-32 is the only thing today thats close to a modern day F-8

I don’t think it was cost in a small way, ie the cost of individual ships or planes, but cost in a big way, ie the overall cost of defence that caused the govt decision to forgo fixed wing carriers. If it was about individual ships the Eagle would have been Phantomised and the Ark Royal not refitted to serve until a planned date in 1972.

This is why I don’t think that if the F8 was bought the govt would have kept building carriers, it saw the entire FAA as a luxury that could be ditched wholesale.

How would the 2 seat Crusader be better than the Phantom for the RN, other than having guns and better turning performance? It would be slower, shorter range, have less capable avionics and carry less weapons.

The West Germans did not use sparrow on their f4s did they? Whether that was due to concerns over the limitations of semi active missiles or penny pinching I know not.

Spey engined twosaders on 4 carriers beat phantoms briefly on one in my book.

Our predecessor interceptors did not have long ranged aams so we would not have been taking a backward step. I wonder how long it would have taken to come up with a CW illuminater in a fuel tank (as mooted for Shar) or passive or active homing sky flash if Twosaders had become our fleet fighters?

How would the 2 seat Crusader be better than the Phantom for the RN, other than having guns and better turning performance? It would be slower, shorter range, have less capable avionics and carry less weapons.

Because in 1966, Britain had four carriers, none of which could accomodate the Phantom without modification. It would have cost £5 million to Phantomise the Eagle, and £30 million was spent Phantomising Ark Royal, at a time when £3 million bought you a frigate.

If Britain had opted for a fighter such as the F8, which could operate from all of its four carriers, then the cancellation of the CVA01 project need not have led to the end of British carrier aviation. After all, in the 1970s Britain did develop the Sea Harrier and built three light carriers, so money could still be found for naval aviation, just not for ships the size of CVA01. Two or perhaps three ships of 35 to 40,000 tons could well have been built, if only the Admiralty had been prepared to compromise. I would rather have seen a new generation of carriers operating a smaller fighter such as the F8 than one carrier with the F4, which was out of commission by 1978.

How would the 2 seat Crusader be better than the Phantom for the RN, other than having guns and better turning performance? It would be slower, shorter range, have less capable avionics and carry less weapons.

I dont think buying the Phantom was what killed British CVs………it was a political descision.

The only 2-seat F-8 Crusader ever made was demonstrated to the RN, and since it had the J57 (which was larger than the J79), installing the Spey (which was smaller than the J57) would have been easy… and would have provided more thrust for better acceleration.

Looking at this discussion from the British point of view, it is clear that the Admiralty wanted the F4, and bet the farm on it. Let us suppose the Admiralty had been less dazzled by the F4, and decided to buy the cheaper F8 instead. All four modernised carriers, Eagle, Ark Royal, Hermes and Victorious, could have carried a decent number, along with the Buccaneer. There would have been no need to spend a huge sum Phantomising Ark Royal if we were not buying Phantoms, and all four carriers would have remained viable throughout the 1970s. The cancellation of CVA01 would not have had to mean the end of British carrier aviation, and without the need to be built for Phantoms, new carriers could have been more the size of Hermes or Victorious, and thus much more affordable. As so often happens, the Admirals wanted the latest and most expensive new weapon, but we ended up with nothing.