The reason for drop tanks is more for CAP endurance.

According to the F-8J’s SAC (http://www.alternatewars.com/SAC/SAC.htm), with 2 Sidewinders the tanks doubled loiter time at 150nm, and increased range by 20% despite being only 75% full due to maximum gross weight issues.

The drop tanks were never used operationally though, even on the F-8J. I don’t have time to find the source, but should be easy to find. It has something to do with the risk of the drop tanks hitting the tailplane when jettisoned.

I’m curious as to why you’d think a single-engine, single-cockpit design would have poor maintainability in comparision to the F-4. Also, I could understand the “limited A2G” if looking at weapon stations compared to the F-4 but I wouldn’t consider it poor on an absolute scale. It did have underwing pylons as I recall.

Here’s my source on the F8U-3’s poor maintainability and poor A2G, from a book on the F-4 Phantom. It also highlights the F8U-3’s flying qualities, so seems pretty balanced. By the way, underwing pylons didn’t show up on Crusaders until 1962 (F-8E), and they were never operationally capable of carrying drop tanks (drop tanks were “qualified” on the F-8H/J in the late 1960s but operational restrictions prevented squadron use).

“Engineering the F-4 Phantom II: parts into systems”, by Glenn E. Bugos

Vought encouraged BuAer to give Raytheon the prime contract to modify its missile control system to the F8U-3. The Raytheon Aero IB AMCS included the APA-128 injection system and a slightly different Westinghouse APQ-74 radar. The nose cylinder, for instance, was too narrow, so Vought wired together modules from around the airframe.

(…) The pilots also rated the aircraft qualitatively, on maneuverability and control (the single-engine F8U-3 was sprighter) and on potential structural weaknesses (like magnesium on the F4H). The F4H cost more to operate during the trials because two engines consumed more fuel. But the F8U-3 required more maintenance time, because Vought had buried its engine deep in its fuselage and failed to federate its electronic equipment. The F4H could indeed carry a variety of weapons on its three hard points, while the F8U-3 had only one.

By 10 September the NPE trials ended with both aircraft easily satisfying their contract guarantees. Again Spangenberg urged the CNO to buy both aircraft , though the F8U-3 flew slightly better: “NPE results indicate the F8U-3 control system to be one of the best yet devised, and the flying qualities to be excellent.

Spangenberg told the CNO, however, that the slightly better speed of the F8U-3 did not outweigh the reliability of the two-seat, twin-engine F4H. Twin engines were, technically, only 20 percent more reliable than one, but Spangenberg thought they enormously boosted morale. Spangenberg Spangenberg more strongly advocated the two-seat concept: “The single seat era is dead, and no more should be initiated. The correctness of this conviction can only be ascertained by getting service experience with truly competitive types. The cost to do this is only 8%.” That is, the cost to purchase 382 of the F8U-3s purchased 8 percent fewer (or 352) F4Hs.

The F8U-3 is not only the highest speed aircraft yet produced for naval use but is the best in overall flying qualities. The performance of the contractor in beating his time schedule for development, and in correcting deficiencies as they appeared in flight testing has been outstanding. The F4H-1 development has been less spectacular, but its schedule has been met. Its performance is excellent and flying qualities satisfactory. The requirements decision made in 1955 that a two seat airplane was necessary appears controlling. A single seat airplane offered advantages in cost then, and does now. But with a single aircraft to be produced, it is necessary to procure the design which can do all the jobs which must be done at the time.

Sorry if I was curt with my previous reply, H_K, I should have explained rather than snap. You are applying current operational doctrine to the different reality that was the 50s and 60s.
During that period of the cold war, the U.S. and certainly Germany which would be ground zero in any nuclear war, operated under the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine. This calls for massive nuclear retaliation to any attack. There are only two types of aircraft needed for this scenario, one type to prevent the enemy from delivering their nuclear ordinance to your position ( a point defence interceptor ), and a second type to deliver a single special weapon ( that’s what nuclear was called in the 50s/60s ). Since the chance of intercepting their aircraft are slimmer and the hope is to prevent an attack in the first place with retaliation capability, you may as well have more delivery aircraft than interceptors. You’ll note that even the U.S. didn’t have any other types than interceptors and strikers until the 70s.
The F-104 fit the bill perfectly for smaller air forces, not so much for USAF which needed a long range interceptor ( quest for F-108 ) and long range delivery, read heavy and costly. For Germany and the other nations who bought the F-104, it provided a low level, stable and fast delivery vehicle as well as an excellent pint defence interceptor. Under their doctrine they had no need for a ‘dog-fighter’. The only aircraft, if any, that did the job as well were a lot heavier and thus more costly.
Up until 1968-1970 Germany was developing F-104 replacements which were optimised for low level delivery, such as VJ-101 C/D/E, VAK-191B ( see the size of those wings, makes F-104 look huge ), and other developements leading to MRCA. The shift from MAD to graduated response finally dawned on the U.S. about 1965 when they drafted the requiremnt that led to the F-15, after hard learned lessons in Vietnam. A few years later Germany and the rest of Europe followed suit.
The F-104, designed by Clarence Johnson to the operational requirements of the time was the smallest airframe possible which met all performance requirements, and as such was cost a effective solution for many air forces ( although not so much for U.S. who wanted longer range ), and the reason so many were sold.

No worries. 😉 I was mostly jumping at your claim that the F-8 Crusader had good landing characteristics, which I don’t agree with. Also, IIRC adding 600lbs extra thrust (going from the J79-GE-3 to the J79-GE-7 for example) would typically have a major impact on performance, particularly climb rates and acceleration. Certainly did for the Super Tiger.

I agree with your analysis of the doctrine of the time and why the F-104 was well suited to it. Though IMHO this doctrine was obsolete shortly after 1959, when Soviets fielded IRBMs, and only became more so as the Soviet ballistic missile fleet gained numbers and intercontinental range. The writing was definitely on the wall for tactical nuclear strike – I don’t understand why the USAF felt a need later on for the FB-111… :confused:

The F-8 Crusader hard to land? There are several documented instances of the Crusader taking off and landing on a carrier with its wings in the folded position.

And your point is? Sorry, but each of your comments on this thread only serves to further highlight your lack of understanding of how fighters operate. The F-8 had a ton of landing issues, including poor lateral stability, high stall speed so low stall margin & poor wave-off characteristics, nose gear bounce etc. Check this report for part of the story:
http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~durham/2002-71.pdf

The thrust to weight ratios quoted for F-4, F-104 and Super Tiger are misleading because they use thrust at standard (sea level press and temp) conditions. as you gain height and speed, the more efficient multi shock intakes of the F-104 would give it a thrust advantage over the Super Tiger. Grumman was pleasantly surprised by the M2 capability of the two Super Tiger prototypes as they onlyexpected M1.4. See American Secret Projects: fighters and interceptors 1949 to 1975.

Right. Show me the evidence that the F-104’s intake design gave it a thrust advantage in the Mach 1.5 to Mach 2.0 range. :p

The reality is that the F-104 intakes were temperature limited to Mach 2.0 (though one F-104C with modified intakes for a record attempt did reach Mach 2.37). By comparison, the Super Tiger was able to reach Mach 2.0 with 2 underwing Sidewinders, so pretty similar. Clean, it had earlier reached Mach 2.04 with the weaker J79-GE-3 engine (15,000lbs instead of 15,800lbs on the J79-GE-7 that would have been on production aircraft, which is a big difference). Its intakes had some interesting boundary layer devices that seem to have worked quite well.

As far as I know, and I’ll admit it was a special stripped version, no other aircraft from that era, neither F-4, Lightning and certainly not the Super Tiger could zoom climb to 104,000ft like the F-104. That should imply something about its T/W ratio and its wing.

Agree that that’s very impressive. However, the actual T/W ratios and climb performance give a more accurate picture of its operational capabilities than some super high altitude record attempt.

IMHO the F-104C had a slight raw performance edge over all other American jets of the time (don’t know how it compared to the Lightning). I don’t think that this edge carried over to the F-104G. And I certainly don’t think it outweighed the F-104’s numerous issues, including dangerous landing/engine flameout characteristics, poor maneuverability, and so-so tactical capability.

A very important quality for carrier aircraft is flat take-off and landing attitude. The only aircraft that excelled at this was the Crusader with its variable-incidence wing.

Unfortunately, AFAIK the Crusader actually turned out to be rather hard to land on carriers. Despite having good visibility, it had a fairly high approach speed, which got worse through time as it gained weight, and also its gear/tailhook assembly led to the nose wheel slamming into the deck. This led in large part to the F-8J/H reconstructions.