SchorschI have a tendency to look at and follow how and what the Israeli Air Force do!
Not for any specific reason, apart from the fact that they have seen more constant air-to-air combat than almost any Air Force since WWII, and in battle of do or die!
The Israeli’s have continuously disproved all the Super Powers analogy of how air-to-air combat is going to be fought time and time again!
With both NATO and Warsaw Pack take great note of these out comes and instilling changes within their own Air Forces and doctrine!
The Israeli Air Force has and is still very cynical of the likes of Sparrow and Aim-120 AMRAAM. They instead to this day rely on the likes of a good cannon(s) and the likes of the Python series of SRAAM’s for their air-to-air combat.
One of the reasons the trend of all-aspect attack, off-boresight Air-to-air weapons – the likes of Aim-9X, Aim-132 ASRAAM, R-73 (AA-11 Archer) came about, not to mention the return to the trend of high manoeuvrability designed and built air superiority fighters has had a lot to do with Israeli Air Force continues combat experience, as opposed to the wet dreams of academics and technology freaks, who often dream these things up as opposed to putting the actual uniform on and learning reality.
Note: Not everyone may like or approve of Israel, but they are shore happy (and if smart!) take on board what they learn the hard way!!
The Israelis can be exemplary in some regards, but in many not.
The Israelis never faced an opponent with nuclear weapons.
The Israelis (at least in the wars ’67, ’73, ’82) exclusively fought at day and in good weather conditions.
The Israelis could take a few hits, Israel is small indeed, but it is bigger than the USS Enterprise.
The USN had a totally different opponent: cruise missile armed long-range bombers, with 200kt warheads. These could attack in any weather and around the clock. Sending Mirage IIIs with AIM-9Bs and 30mm cannon after them wouldn’t help much.
Although early (post 1960) weapons of the F-4B had shortcomings, they still allowed the aircraft to fulfill its primary mission with much higher effectiveness as an aircraft limited to the arsenal of the IAF until the early 70ies.
Even in fighter A2A combat these weapons were useful, although designing an aircraft with these weapons when pure fighter A2A is envisioned does not make sense.
In short: when you need a fleet defense fighter, use radar guided missiles, even if they’re unreliable, clumsy and heavy. If you send these fighters for other fighters, well, don’t expect too much.
If you design a fair-weather day-fighter to engage other fighters, get rid of all radar-guided missiles.
But fact is: while the fleet defense fighter can fulfill the mission of the day fighter with reasonable effectiveness (the Phantom actually was pretty good), it is not possible other way around. That is why after 1970 basically every aircraft was radar-guided missile equipped, even those of Israel.
SchorschBut I have found it very interesting over the years how many people have hedged their choice of the F-4 Phantom II predominantly due to its all-weather and BVR kill capability, thanks greatly to its Aim-7 Sparrow capability, which the crusader lacked (regardless of the possible Crusader III)
The way that I see it through fact, is that the U.S Navy Cold War doctrine of BVR /stand-off kill was a costly mistake, which it would pay for over the skies of Vietnam.
Stats and figures clearly show that the Aim-7 Sparrow was/is a dud in terms of its tactical limitations (need to have launch aircraft maintain illumination of target aircraft till impact and the lighting up of target, which is warned by its RWR’s that there is a threat), reliability issues – how many Sparrow’s have been launched in combat only to fail, as compared to the ones which have worked successfully in engaging their target? (This was not just the case in Vietnam!)
The Sparrow wasn’t a dud. Sure, it was unreliable and often missed. But that is true for all radar-guided missiles of that time (look at what the Russians had). Even the AIM-120 would fall far short of its promoted Pk as pilot’s would use it to gain a tactical advantage – even when they are clearly outside the engagement envelope (which computers today calculate in a split second, in the Phantom the pilot needed to take an educated guess).
What the Sparrow offered was:
– head-on engagement capability
– extension of the engagement envelope to up to 15nm
– a significantly more lethal warhead
The Sparrow was never intended as dogfight-missile (the AIM-9 actually wasn’t, either). It was however used as such. And of course didn’t perform that well. But it offered its user many more fire opportunities, even against fighters. It is always of advantage to put a missile in the air and I would think that quite often a failed Sparrow shot was followed by a successful Sidewinder kill, as the target lost energy evading the Sparrow (or breaking the radar’s lock).
Sparrow in the 1960ies was useless without second crew member (many technical advanaces were necessary before the F-15 could be build with only one guy).
Question: There is the famous question of CVN-65 with the two nuclear cruisers doing the world round trip, look here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/TaskForce_One.jpg
On that picture it has a complement of F-4, F-8, A-4 and A-5 (plus auxiliary aircraft). Was this the typical large aircraft carrier’s wing through the 1960ies and early 70ies? When did the A-6 arrive and who had to go?
Compare that picture to the Russian aviation of that time, who had problems to put a supersonic fighter with radar guided missiles in the air at all.
SchorschThe US had a cracking dog fighter with with the Sabre (lower range, more agile), as proved in Korea, then spent the next 20 or so years by not following the concept at all until the likes of the fantastic F-15 and F-16.
I can’t agree with the F-104 being a good fighter either, very heavy workload and definately not agile.
I understand why they wanted fast nuke delivery trucks for TAC, but it was almost like the need for a small agile fighter was completely ignored for a long period, Korea and Vietnam seem to bookend that era quite nicely.
It seems the USN were more into the small fighter types, Fury, Skyray, Cougar, and Tiger all being in that class, but again they were 1950s designs.Sens you might be surprised, if the same question were asked in Historic I don’t think there would be many warbirds in the answer!
My answer would still be the same though!
I for my part did never claim that the F-104 was a particularly good fighter, but it was a very successful aircraft in its role. It was a very useful point-defence interceptor (compare to that the flawed Saunders-Roe SR.177) and became a useful and affordable strike aircraft. The F-104 could be deadly in the hands of an experienced pilot, but the skills required were apparently much higher and not all pilots mastered it (while even the F-4 or the F-8 lost simulated combats versus the MiG-17 on a regular basis).
SchorschIf the lightning was strange then surely the F-104 was bloody surreal!
F-104: 2575 build
Lightning: 337 build
Of course, the success was only due to
– the fact it was American
– the bribery of Lockheed
– the evil Americans in general
– the Germans couldn’t tell a jet from a prop and bought the Starfighter
By the way, the Starfighter was never officially specified.
Fun fact: despite being less than half the weight, the Starfighter did match the Lightning performance-wise, actually exceeded it in number of weapons carried and ferry range; was inferior in high altitude maneuverability.
SchorschThe F-104 had one of the best Specific Excess Power for its era, due to quite a lot of thrust and pretty low drag when not stuffed with stores. When loaded with wing tip missiles or tanks, the lift over drag ratio didn’t suffer that much.
What the Starfighter really couldn’t do well was turning, the wing produced excessive drag for high lift coefficients (like most 1950ies supersonic aircraft). The high SEP allowed for many possibilities to disengage or surprise an enemy. However, the Starfighter required not only good piloting skills, but also good tactical skills: you couldn’t just merge and turn until you’re on the 6 o’clock of somebody.
If flown correctly the Starfighter could outfly basically anything until the F-15 cam along.
Schorsch, I can see that you’re a Phantom fan, but I’m not comparing the SV to the Phantom, which I already have said is the best fighter IMO.
Nor does the Phantom have small wings, I was drawing on F-8 and generalising about similar period land based aircraft.
I still don’t buy that supersonic is always best, if you have the advantage of agility in a dog fight, you are better off, numbers of aircraft engagged in any scrap is important to.The original list of best ’60s naval fighters is basically a top of the tops of American fighters, most of which were poor as fighters, but good as very fast delivery platforms. It is good to consider other nations products, nothing has been mentioned of the Etendard IVP which was also a good fighter.
The Sea Vixen was probably a good compromise between fleet defense and fighter. Looking at the alternatives, they were rare.
If we look at the best subsonic naval fighters, I would rank the F4D quite high.
And yes, basically all designs are American, but the USA had a clear lead over all nations in fighter design in the 1950ies. The British had some good engines, but unfortunately specified rather strange aircraft (Lightning).
SchorschTrue against fighter-sized targets, but in the back-up fleet defense role that I was envisioning, the Sparrow would have been very useful against bombers. There were in fact quite a few single-seater fighters with SARH missiles in the early 1960s: Demon (AIM-7 Sparrow), Draaken (AIM-26B Falcon), Mirage III (R530), Crusader (R530), not to mention the Russian types. And of course, the Super Crusader would have had Sparrows.
Early SARH missiles were often pretty much crap. They used beam-riding guidance or required very complex homing. There purpose was mainly to engage a well defined (means: somebody else has to identify it) target head-on. Only the Sparrow III (or AIM-7E) was useful, but we know extensively about its shortcomings. If no head-on engagement was necessary, armament with IR-AAM and guns was the best until the late 1960ies (at least for single seat fighters).
SchorschWould love to hear you explain why you think that. What made the F-104G so special for low-level nuclear strike?
– high wing loading
– avionics equipment
– range
– high subsonic cruise speed without reheat at sea level
SchorschFor the worst case scenario the ship based defences were still at hand.
It had with the RR Avons the most economical engines of its time. No AB and the best cruise was at 800 km/h at 12000 m. Here it did its CAP missions before vectored to a threat. A naval task force did stay more than 200 km from every hostile coast-line, whenever possible and was out of reach from low to medium level closing fighters like the MiGs and Sukhois of that time-scale.
200km is enough for a hostile fighter to engage. Versus any fighteer the Sea Vixen is a sitting duck, and therefore dubious if you want to occupy the limited carrier with single mission aircraft.
The Sea Vixen has proved to be extremely agile at near supersonic speed and at altitude were most of the small wing types tail off.
One of the reasons it was chosen to go up against modern RAF Typhoons in combat tests was because of its excellent manouverability at high transonic speed.
Speed is always good, I don’t think so. Being able to perform well in a stand off firing situation with high level transonic bombers, and still being agile enough in a dog fight is important, no good getting somewhere fast if you can’t effectively use the capability.
As Sen has said the CAP would already be patrolling in high and low level groups, so getting somewhere at supersonic speed wasn’t too important for FAA fighters.
Speed wasn’t that important for the Skyhawk, probably the best close in fighter for the USN at the beginning of Vietnam, or the Harrier for the Falklands.
“small wings type”? The wing loading of Vixen and Phantom is basically the same. The Phantom is able to cruise quite OK (it is not the best cruiser ever conceived), and it is fairly agile if flown with sufficient airspeed. Of course, versus an MiG-17 at 300 KIAS it can’t compete, but the Sea Vixen would be meat for the MiG at any speed/altitude.
The Skyhawk wasn’t the best close-in fighter. It was relatively agile for not being a purpose-built fighter. Still, it lacked thrust. Speed is no issue as long as your opponent doesn’t have more. Speed gives you the ability to disengage, something the Phantoms used frequently in Vietnam.
Important is that the ability to fly supersonic is not payed for in subsonic cruise efficiency. The Phantom pays a price while it is relatively economic (for a 1950ies design). The next logical step was the F-14.
SchorschInteresting you mentioned Vietnam, as that surely showed how wrong footed US fighter design was in general. They were very good at laying down a nuke at high speed and low level, not so good at lower speed one to one engagement.
The two man crew worked well, with the Observer using the AI.18 kit to guide the aircraft to the target, before switching the Feranti sighting system over to the pilot for the close in targetting.
You are right, in that it would have been better to have seated the crew tandem style, so that the Obs could help in a dog fight scenario (and better for him in emergencies), but all out top speed wasn’t that important, it was agile at its upper speed range which was.
As for the then bombers in service in numbers, I would think the Vixen had sufficient speed, and more than able in the handling at height.
How you come to the conclusion it was any better in maneuvering than the Phantom? It has dramatically less thrust but the same wing loading. It would be a sitting duck versus a MiG-17.
For a fleet defender a speed advantage is not in need, because it has to reach the best firing position of its much faster AAMs. The task-force commander had used all his sensors at hand to position the Sea Vixen in front of the approaching threat. At that time-scale the Tu-16 was a typical one, when the limited number of Tu-22 could do a supersonic dash high-up only. Just the ASMs could be faster, but were dumb and predictable robots in general. Till 1970 the British had retired from East of Suez and the “slower” Sea Harrier did replace the F-4 and Sea Vixen.
That’s surely valid in 95% of all missions, but what do you do with the remaining 5%? Bet the carrier?
The move of the British from F-4 towards Harrier was triggered by the fact that Britannia didn’t want to fund full carriers any more, rather stick to flat-deck cruisers for submarine hunt in GIUK gap, where air cover could be provided by the RAF.
Speed is always good.
I also doubt the Sea Vixen was such an economic cruiser.
SchorschPlease see the sticky at the top of this forum
The State Prosecutor going to get a detailed report this week.
That’s the news.
“We” (= general public) might get nothing.
If the case is obvious, one or two weeks of analysis are sufficient to determine the nature of the crash (loss of orientation, or whatever), it might not be enough to identify the root cause.
SchorschThe thread is very slanted towards American types, so forgive my input.
Nothing to do with patriotism, or else I wouldn’t have listed the Phantom first.
The Sea Vixen was a transonic type, but out and out performance isn’t everything in fighter interception, especially in the ‘stand off’ weapons age. It was extremely agile, especially for its size, one of the reasons why the RAF contracted in the last remaining flying example to go up against Typhoons in combat tests.
It’s range was far superior to just about any fighter of its day, let alone naval types, and the two man crew meant a lesser work load for the pilot.
Twin engines and excellent handling at both ends of the speed range helped in the safety of the type.Where I would agree with you is that it was introduced to late, but this was due to official hold ups of almost 12 years, The Americans seemed better at making a choice, sticking to it, and delivering an aircraft on time.
British fighters really lost ground in the early 1950ies at a very fast pace. The Sea Vixen – though useful as night fighter and bad weather interceptor – lacked performance to engage other fighters in daylight. The clumsy arrangement of the two men crew didn’t even allow the radar operator to participate in a dogfight. As Vietnam has shown, the early “BVR-Systems” weren’t really up to the job when it came to fighter-sized opponents.
The Sea Vixen didn’t possess any speed advantage over possible jet bombers that could attack the fleet.
SchorschI’m not sure why you’re bringing up the Phantom. There was always a real need for single-seat fighter/attack aircraft well into the 1960s, as proven by the fact that over 2,000 Crusaders and Skyhawks were ordered in parallel to the F-4 Phantom. Partly this is because it took years to deliver the Phantom throughout the fleet. Partly because the Phantom was much more expensive. Partly because the Essex carriers couldn’t operate the Phantom. But even aboard the large supercarriers, you could still find Crusaders and Skyhawks in the mid-1960s!
My argument in favor of the Super Tiger is two fold:
– First, the USN could have saved itself the money it wasted on the last ~150 Demons, which were so limited that they only flew for 4 years 😮
– Second, compared to the (mostly) single-role Crusader and/or Skyhawk, the USN had an opportunity to go for a fully multi-role airgroup, with Super Tigers at the low-end and Phantoms at the high end. This added flexibility would have significantly improved their carriers’ ability in both A2A and A2G, as needed for any given day’s mission tasking. The wisdom of multirole capability being demonstrated by the stellar service of the Phantom and Hornet… 😉 Now of course, the Navy could have done the same with the F-8E, but it didn’t come until 1963, and even then it didn’t have drop tanks so was very short-legged. Weight gains also made the F-8’s carrier suitability even more marginal. So the F-8E wasn’t really in a position to take over the A-4’s role.
As for pure A2A capability, as I said the Super Tiger was superior to the F-8 in terms of speed, climb rate, endurance (thanks to its drop tanks, which the F-8 didn’t have until much later with the F-8E) and maneuverability. The Sparrow capability and same radar system as planned for the early F-4 Phantoms were the icing on the cake. Remember that the Super Tiger won technical evaluations in Canada, Germany, Japan and Switzerland against the F-104 or Mirage III, so its overall fighter performance was quite good. None of these countries even considered the Crusader! :p
I’ll admit that my argument hinges on the Super Tiger being able to perform integrate Sparrow capability and also carry A2G loads without massive weight gain and impact on carrier landing characteristics. Grumman seem to have been confident that this was possible, since they were advertising Sparrow capability and a maximum of 9,000lbs stores on 7 pylons (plus 2 dorsal Sidewinders). I’m hoping to clarify this with Tailspin Turtle on another website, since he’s a real Grumman expert…
The win against the F-104G is no surprise, at least when the mission is that of a pure fighter (in the role actually intended for the F-104G in Germany, the Super Tiger would have been a massive and epic FAIL).
Grumman boosts its design, and like so many, these unfinished prototypes always seem to be the best ever conceivable (like F-4 Super Phantom, Super Tomcat, F-16XL, F8U-3, YF-12).
Sure, the Super Tiger had its ups. But I fail to see any noticeable advantage above the F-8/A-4 combination. For a single seater A2G work either is profession or it is fail. Letting a fighter pilot with a 1950ies aircraft do A2G demands quite huge targets. Vietnam was the perfect example (today with smart bombs and CCIP the world looks different). The A-4 is a perfect bomb truck with very small logistical footprint. Replacing a complement of F-8/A-4 with J79 equipped F-11 hardly seems of advantage. And you cannot train aircrew to be professionals both in A2G and A2A. That became apparent even with the F/A-18. Generally, aircraft of the 1950ies could have limited multi-role capability (i. e.: able to carry missiles and drop bombs), but aircrew generally couldn’t.
The Sparrow missile proved to be a failure on F-4B against fighter sized targets. Without the second crew member an F-11 would hardly gain any advantage from it, it would just add weight and complexity. It might extent its missile envelope slightly, but the percentage of out-of-envelope shots and duds was about 90%* for the Sparrow in Vietnam.
In the end: the F-11 would have replaced one interim by another interim.
————————
*”90%” of course simplifies the tactical situation, where a fired missile might change the situation in advantage of the shooter, finally allowing him to achieve a kill with another weapon or to evade a possibly dangerous situation. Although many … most … basically all … Sparrows didn’t hit, they surely scared the **** out of the people who got targeted, if they knew of course.
SchorschThe A380 seems to be an aircraft that stands out in passenger comfort.
Sure, they are all fairly new and therefore cabin interiors are up-to-date and not worn out (an early 1990ies Delta B767-300 can look like a trash can with seats inside). And airlines are selling a different product with the A380. But it seems passengers consider flying the 380 in economy to be notably better than any other aircraft. That is interesting because normally people can’t tell one plane from the other (especially as they all look the same … for laymen).
SchorschQuite a subjective question as one mans good flight on a certain aircraft with airline A will be different another mans on airline B. Looking at it just from an aircraft point of view I would say
[…]
A340: Poor takeoff and climb performence and just an underwhelming plane to fly on.
Quite interesting that passengers rate the comfort on the climb performance.
Fun fact: the A340 needs only a few minutes more than the A330 (if both are operated at the same route/payload).
A319/20/21: Mundane. Probably flown on too many now, but they seem to lack that certain something. I’m sure there good from an operators piont of view but they have no soul. Guess I’m something of a Boeing fanboy.
Hmm, maybe that “certain something” can be retrofitted?
If you prefer B737, than the direction seems to be less space and 1950ies design?
SchorschMy best are.
1) L1011 (Smooth, comfertable and still should be flying)
2) 737-800 (Nice aircraft to fly on especially the Thomson ones)
3) 757-200 (Best take off sound there is)
4) 777-200 (Nice roomy modern planes)
5) A330-200 (Nice large aircraft)My worst are
1) A300 B4 (Very cramped)
2) A321 (Never will be the 757)
3) 767-200 (Too cramped and badly layed out)
4) md83 (Too long and too thin)
5) 767-300 (The 2-4-2 on charter flights is awfully cramped)
Rather say “best & worst airline & cabin flown on”.
The passenger experience depends largely on factors that are totally independent of the particular aircraft. You can make a cabin very roomy, you can also make it very cramped. Noise-reception depends on how you felt that day (so a shortened sleep the night before might get the aircraft a bad reputation).
Some facts are there:
B737 is more cramped than A320 (at similar pitch and seat design).
Some aircraft are not very good in some configs, so as
B767 in 2-4-2
B777 in 3-4-3 or 2-5-2 (at least for the guys in the middle)
A330/340 in 3-3-3
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