MiG,

Continuing in the vein you are will do everything to confirm your lack of knowledge and understanding of this subject.

The point you are making, that the MiG 25 is a better fighter than the YF-12 is totally irrelevant. Yes it probably was, but its is not relevant to the YF-12 programme.

If we do some time line research we will learn that the YF-12 programme started in 1961/2 with a mock up review in May 1963. This lead to the first flight of a YF-12 in August of that year. Note that by then the A-12 was beginning to reach its full performance envelope and the SR-71 programme was already underway.

By early 1965 the YF-12 was reaching M3.2 and beginning weapons trials.
These were continued thro 1965 into 1966.

The entire YF-12 programme was formally canceled in Jan 1968, with a formal instruction in Feb 1968 to destroy all the tooling, jigs and drawings for the entire Blackbird line (A-12/ M-21/ YF-12B and SR-71).

Lets look at the known MiG 25 timeline shall we?
The first recorded instance is in 1961, leading to the flight of a prototype aircraft in March 1964 (very impressive, but it was the recon version that flew first..). The interceptor variant flew in September 1964.

The record breaking flights staged during 1965 ,66, and 1967 certainly raised the profile of this aircraft’s performance. But it was in 1969 that production of the service standard aircraft commenced. The recon variant was introduced immediately, whilst the interceptor variant was introduced in 1972…three years later and some 5 years after the cancellation of the YF-12B programme.

It was only in 1976 that the real capabilities of the airframe were defined after examination of the Belenko interceptor.

Lets look at the FX programme shall we as well…..which emerged from a mass of options in the early 1960s. By 1965 it was clear that the emerging proposals would be unable to fight the then current war in Vietnam….as the fast, big and heavy fighters being used there were being defeated by the likes of the MiG 17…..this began a realignment of the spec, reinforced by the the records being broken by the Ye 155/166 and 266 airframes. By 1967 it became clear that the FX was going to be pitted against this new generation of airframes as well.

The McD proposal for the FX was declared the winner in 1969 and first flew in 1972, the B version entered service in 1974 and the first combat ready A models entered service in 1976.

If we look at the overlap there are a few years of overlap between the three programmes. However the important part of the overalp is missing entirely.

By the time the MiG 25 programme started the A-12 airframe was already ready, the RB-12 programme running and well as the YF-12 programme. Clearly its is challenging to design an airframe to combat an aircraft that does not yet exist, but allowances could have been made for this.

By the time the initial prototypes (recon) of the MiG 25 flew th YF-12B was already in weapons testing phase. Whilst the record flights of the Ye 166 in the period 1965 to 1967 certainly raised its profile there is little doubt that the Blackbird team did not regard these as a threat to the performance of its airframe.

It is interesting to note that the FX programme in this period was undergoing a massive realignment, taking notice of the inability of its current crop of fighter aircraft to deal with the existing threat.

So one could in theory understand that the emerging threat, when applied to the YF-12 programme could cause production funds to be vetoed.

But what about out friends the F-102 and F-106…lets look at some time lines there shall we?

Opps; the first flight of the F-106 (nee F-102B0 was in 1956… but problems revealled during testing delayed its service introduction until 1959.

It served all through the 1960s with gradual upgrades and modifications, regardless of the ‘threat’ posed by the new generation of Soviet aircraft, entering a ‘major’ upgrade program in 1972, some 8 years after the first flight of the MiG 25 and some three years after the awarding of a new generation of US fighters. Indeed it served until 1981 as a front line USAF interceptor…it left US manned service in 1988.

So here we have a potted history of the aircraft that the YF-12 was designed to replace with a fleet of 350 airframes (compared to the 93 F-12s planned). It managed to maintain its front line status for the entire period we are talking about, regardless of the potential threat from the MiG-25… it soldiered thro the FX development cycle and beyond the introduction of both the F-15 and F-16 fighters.

So what does that tell us of the cancellation of the YF-12 being related to the F-15. It tells us clearly that the role of the F-106, for which the YF-12 was the designated replacement; was not threatened in the mid 60s by the FX programme.

If for some reason it had been deemed necessary (and likely) for ADC fighters to tangle with MiGs do we not think that the F-106s would have been amongst the first to be replaced by the F-15? Say in 1976? The fact they were not and it took until 1981 for sufficient F-15s to be avaliable to fulfil this role (in addition to its pure fighter role) is an indication that whilst it was a possibility that the ADC fighters would go to ACM with MiGs it was improbable…it would have required all of the ‘fighters’ to have been defeated (in one fashion or another) for this to occur.

It remained throughout its life a dedicated interceptor, a single role aircraft. for the same airframe to survive the era of the F-4 without it’s exisitance being challenged in the name of flexibility or communality is remarkable…or it was right for its role and that the additional expense was unjustified.

So if we ‘reasonably’ eliminate the lack of suitability for its intended role of the YF-12; as evaluated by the life and performance of its intended replacee, we must therefore look to other reasons for its cancellation.

I think that far more telling and revealling is the short-time between the formal cancellation of the YF-12 programme and the order to destroy ALL of the Blackbird infrastrucutre. This suggest that political rather than military reasons underly the cancellation. This is further supported by the length of service of the remaining SR airframes…

So MiG, get your head out of the details, look to the context in its entirety and then evalutate what you are proposing. Its too easy to dismantle your opinions and thoughts.

Schorsch,
No problem…

Thanks again for helpful posting.
Boyd indeed – and I guess even more so the so-called fighter mafia – focused on numbers rather than supreme technology fighters. The E-M Theory is in my opinion not really connected to this approach, but it potentially helped to show which technologies are unnecessary to build a good fighter in terms of flight performance, which is still affordable.

The fighter mafia certainly supported greater numbers of simpler fighters. Boyd was the catalyst for that through his E-M work. E-M primarily defined a measure of performance to achieve a task….so if it took XX to achieve it yet YY was being proposed did that additional performance/ ability/ etc really deliver increased usefulness. In that way he demonstrated that the ever increasing use of technology was unnecessary to achieve the goals stated. He demonstrated there were other options.

E-M most dominantly showed the drawbacks of weight, so reducing weight became primary mission, which in its course killed swing-wings (originally planned for F-15), adjustable inlets and lots of other unnecessary stuff (in the book the talk is about the USAF wants to add a 40lbs ladder for maintenance, Boyd and his team showing the USAF that this ladder increases overall aircraft weight by 250lbs).

This is the classic case, but it is merely a symptom of the world Boyd was fighting.He questioned why the USAF required a support function ot be integrated into a fighting function…what did it add to the task…and why should it be done.

I also think that Boyd’s theory and his briefings were part of the change that took place in fighter procurement, he was by no means the initiator. I guess if Vietnam hadn’t happened (with US air power showing weak spots), today there would be noone to report about him.

Absolutely. however he was the initiator. He was the voice to be heard. Th Vietnam war silenced the technology driver roar and in the resultant quite his voice was the only on. Without that conflict he would not have been heard that is true, but without him the US would have ‘lost’ far earlier….

MiG,

I see you whole point, and far more..

On the F-15 note you are factually incorrect.

The F-15 as we know it is the direct result of Boyd’s work. The initial proposals to teh spec. as agreed by the USAF was for a much larger, heavier swing wing a/c.

Look thro the enitre design process of the various programmes that lead to the F-15. They start off with these beasts, indeed there are Lockheed proposals which are clearly A-12 derivatives.

He got to work on the basic spec and whilst he did not achieve his aim of going from a M3+ BVR ‘fighter’ to an F-16 style fighter in a single step he managed to get a couple of major improvments… such as no VG, much larger wings and hence a much lower wing loading, and increase in the installed thrust and a change from turbofans to leaky turbojets.

A bubble canopy, a gun, a four pack of AIM-9s….and most important of all a very large pair of horizontal and vertical stabs to throw the plane around the sky…

What Boyd’s math’s did was completely the opposite of what you state. They were not general statements, they were detailed and definitive measures and they derived a set of graphs that permited designers to compare what they were proposing against the reality of what was needed.

He gave the designers a precise yardstick of repeatable, quantifiable datum points against which to compare their proposals. This, regardless of what you think engineers knew, had not been done before.

Everybody ‘knew’ that power was need to make an agile aircraft, but how much power, how much flight control authority was needed to give that agilty and hence how much installed thurst. Where was it need in the overall speed, weight, altitude curve, how did the proposed engine and airframe work together to provide what was needed.

None of this had systematically been documented and reduced to graphs and formulas. These were not ‘general’ statements, but engineering tools. they were not a base for agility principles, they were the principles….they were the base line from which one could quantity the agility of the proposed designs.

Raise your sights….avoid specifics and look for the underlying why. If you continue to look at details the magnitude of his work will escape you and you will miss its importance, being limited to sees effects and not causes.

Oh and try to clear up some of the pretty unexpected statements you have made.. it might help understand where you are coming from…

Quote from MiG-23 MLD-

“use his mathematical formulas and you will see the YF-12 was not the best aircraft to fight the MiG-25 and that is the reason Boyd demanded an agile fighter every thing is basicly acceleration related to force either in angular velocity or vertical turning”

This demonstrates MiG why people think you are hijacking the thread…

Let me explain.

1) Boyd’s theories served a purpose, they were not an end in themselves. He was convinced that the trend towards more complex, higher tech, faster, heavier etc fighter aircraft was not the way forward. But he knew that the only way was to provide a ‘quantifiable’ way demonstrating the qualities he had found were needed.

Your purpose is to create a hypothetical scenario where two disparate airframe meet in a combat situation. This scenario ignores the prevalent doctrine on both sides and applies retrospective experience to the scenario.

What is sad is that despite this the answer you come up with is correct. The YF-12 was not as agile as the MiG-25, but that fact was
a) not known at the time of the cancellation,
b) air to air combat with other fighters or interceptors was not considered a primary consideration in the original spec that lead to the F-108, the YF-12 being an opportunistic stand in….
c) the doctirne that lead to the spec was based on missile technology, not a turning ACM style of combat.

2) You are trying to use a detailed approach to prove a hypothesis. However the inital hypothesis is unsound. The two aircraft are different, one designed as a strategic optical recon platform and modified to other roles, the other designed as an interceptor of that platform and modfied to other roles.
With that in mind and hopefully you understand the vastly different design drivers of the two roles it is inevitable that the purpose deigned airframe will have the upper hand on the modified one.

Was the SR-71 or A-12 a better recon platform than the Mig 25R…you bet. It was faster, had a longer range in the cruise, had a greater recon payload and variety of sensors and provided a more stable platform with better results as a ‘take’. Does that mean the Foxbat was not good. Of course not. It gave a very impressive platform an additional role and life and provided an additional capability, but it wasn’t as good as a purpose designed one.
The comparison that springs to mind is ‘is this orange painted apple as good as the real orange? Not its not , but its a better apple.’

3) Your approach to the arguement is ‘dogmatic’. There is not pragmatic view, only dogma. This is exactly the underlying problem that Boyd sought to debunk with his E-M thoery. He felt, thorugh his experience, that moving away from the agile, simple fighter was motivated not by experience and demands, but by dogma and ambition, not war fighting necessities. Your approach is to show that becuase the numbers, selectively used, can support your arguement that you are right. It allows no room for the why, no room for the unknowns, no room for the intelligence.

It is this rigidity, this focused vision that Boyd fought in the later half of his career. Trying to demonstrate that the pragmatic approach has to be taken into consideration. The best example is his advice to the Officers analysing the result of the weapons testing on the Bradlet fighting vehicle. It passed all of the specified tests, it was ‘great’… and yet when he reviewed the tests in detail he swa the tests (and hence the numerical evidence used to support procurement of the Bradley) were designed specifically to underline its strengths and to ‘conceal, by omission any of its weaknesses. The prime example of this was the of AP shells against the hull. No AE…no penetration followed by fire. This simple test demonstrated that whillst the hull could resist the initial impact, it was unable to survive a fire….effetively meaning it was disabled by the inital AP round, which by merely considering the results of the AP round test would not have been seen.

You are doing the same, using numbers to shore up an arguement that if one is to look beyond its shown to be irrelevant.

So use your knowledge and interest in the subject to see beyond the facts and figures and equations and understand why they might be relevant and important.

Having an agile MiG 25 is great, but its no use if its still on the ground because your EW system has not given you enough time to launch or returning to ground having been hit by a long range AIM 47 during its climb out….

Martinez,

I can assure you that Boyd’s flat platting a F-100 was never taught at Top Gun, the USN never being a great follower of Boyd and not flying the F-100.;)

But sadly for you its not my interpretation. Boyd’s aim was to push the envelope, irrespective of difficulty. And the reality was you know is that the real difficulty of ACM is intelligence, knowledge and experience. His aim was to codify the experience and knowledge and provide the data for intelligent use of the aircraft. His point in using the ‘rapid’ change of AoA and subsequent change in airspeed demonstrated an advantage and that this tactic demonstrated that agility and ability to rapidly change speed and attitude was useful. The absolute numbers are not relevant, the relative numbers are and even tho poor they were sufficient of the Super Sabre to best its US contempories. I disagree with the notion that it was slow to regain airspeed.. he admits to dumping the nose to regain energy…not relying on the engine…he was also able to enusre that his opponent was in front….so his own state did not increase his vulnerability…

Its interesting to see again how the details are clouding the basics….

Boyd did not ‘hate’ the F-111 (it was bomber so he didn’t consider it) nor the YF-12…He disliked the dogamtic approach to procurement, with its belief that more technology, more speed, more this, more that was the solution. He wanted a more holisitc approach to defence/ offence, mixing all aspects of combat, from pre-conflict intelligence to the tools the men who fought the fight. He felt that many steps were being ignored and with foresight and intelligence many of the technological risks and demands could be avoided. His work had provided him with a good case that the real weapons that win wars are often those not in the hands of the fighters… but in the hands of those who buy the weapons. In order to get the fighters to have the right weapons one had to provide the purchasers with the right options at the right time….

Whether or not the transonic drag rise is greater in the F-16 or the MiG 23 is a detail and to argue about it is to miss the point. Argue as to why the designers chose to go down different routes is far more important and relevant.

The architects’ certainly didn’t use the design anywhere else…just lazy ad makers taking a short cut.. and somebody’s view it was a furturistic building…

MiG

Just for you to know that you have totally missed the point of the F-14 and its multi role capability.

As designed, envisaged and flight tested the 14 was both an A2A platform and an A2G platform with a long reach.. in terms of taking the missile far from the carrier group with minimal tanker support, being able to carry a heavy missile and being able to carry a heavy bomb load to the beach…

The requirement for ‘dgofighting’ with other fighters was limited as its two prime areas of operation were either blue water against bombers…or in operations such a Vietnam where interdiction against defended targets meant avoiding A2A or having cover from other assets.. like fighter configured BVR toting 14s on a CAP….the A2A capability at the time of conception was in excess of any realistic opponent…the ones which had a clear parity or were better only appear in the form of the MiG 29 and the Flanker. The USN didn’t give monkeys about the F-15’s A2A ‘superiority’, it couldn’t, as designed, carry 6 Phoenixes, it was not carrier compatible and their actions with regard to the F-15 were justifed when the McAir proposal came back with very similar figures to the then flying F-14. An F-15N would not have been an F-15A or C….

(PS the Iranians purchased the F-14 because in their words… ‘its agility and performance in the low speed manoeuvering demonstrations exceed the performance demonstrated by the F-15’. McAir protested that Grumman cheated in that demo…no, they stretched the rules as McAir had done for themselves earlier with the Streak Eagle, making implications that this was the ‘Eagle’ rather than a suitably modified version destined for records alone…..;) )

Remember also that at the time twin engines were viewed as essential for a blue water air group..so lightweight single engined comparisons are irrelevant.

The only fragment of reasonable arguement you put forward is that there are alternatives to the F-14 currently on the international market place which can take on some of the roles the F-14 was able to perform some 30 years ago….but that does not equate to the arguement that the F-14 was in some way lacking or deficient….

Bager,

Thanks for the heads up.. I meant Tomcat; Intruder and Hawkeye..not Sentry.

As for your listing of the actual CAG it is correct…but the intended Air Wing for the planned big deck carriers proposed additional F-14s tasked with A2G rather than additional A-7s (scrapped when the F-14 unit price increased after the bankrupcy issues and the B model was scrapped) a Hawkeye/ Greyhound derivative in the ASW role rather than the Lockheed Viking (it would still ahve been called Viking…This common airframe was the evolution of the S-2 Tracer/ C-1 Trader/ WF-2 line which had inhabited carrier decks previously.

This left the Sea Kings as the only non Grumman product….As you pointed out it didn’t come true but it was the intention.

Remember at the time the US operated two distinct carrier types.. the Essex (no F-4s) and Midway classes which were unable to have the F-14..and the ‘super carriers’ Forrestal/ Nimitz classes (Enterprise being a single ship class) which were intended to have all the whistles and bells. The retirement of the Essexes was delayed by the Ops required in support of the Vietnam War and in the end the speed of procurement of the nuclear ‘Forrestal class’ was slowed down such that the Midways had to remain in service much longer than expected.

The mix of 4s and 14s was never intented, it was a result of the financial issues in the 14 programme.

With an all supercarrier fleet all CAGs would have been equiped with an all Grumman Air Wing….

But in the late 60s/ early 70s when the F-14 was the centre of so much attention that was the overall paradigm that prevailed….and it gives the perspective in which to try to understand the importance of the F-14 programme to the overall US military picture, and why when the ‘Admirals Revolted’ they were listened to and when Grumman went back to the DoD asking for more money to remain solvent they actually got what they needed…but they ended up paying a very heavy price for that action…one which had nothing to do with the performance of their products.