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#1
July 23rd 03, 11:54 PM
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"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message ... Gotta suggest that there were a number of "Marks" of the Spit produced and the later ones were clearly superior to the 109. Sure. Early Spits were roughly comparable to Me-109 and late Spits were roughly comparable to F-190/P-51/F-6s. The Spitfire was not revolutionary, in the sense the Fokker Eindekker or the Me-262 was. I'm looking for revolutionary, not 'good'. Fokker Eindekker Agree--one wing and low drag. And guns firing through the propeller arc. I believe that was a very big deal. 
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#2
July 24th 03, 12:07 AM
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In article ,
Emmanuel Gustin wrote: "Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ... Albatros (not clearly better than a Spad) It was in service a few crucial months earlier, however, and its advantage was extended by the initial low production rate of the SPAD. Fokker Eindekker The Eindecker could be claimed to be the *only* fighter of its time. However, in terms of performance and handling, it was a rather mediocre aircraft, and its time of superiority was fairly short. Me-262 A contemporary with the roughly equivalent Meteor. F-4 (clearly better than the Mig-21 and the Mirage (maybe)) Not in a dogfight. I admit that it could carry more bombs :-) I think one aircraft that might be a good candidate is the Polikarpov I-16, a revolutionary aircraft for its time, and far ahead of anything until the first Bf 109s entered service. I'd go for the *just* post-war aircraft, if only because their competition had been removed! Neuport Nightjar or perhaps Fairey Flycatcher post-WW1, maybe De Havilland Vampire or Gloster Meteor IV (a big advance on the wartime Meteor) post WW2. Not. on paper, perhaps a huge advance on the wartime types, but with all the bugs worked out, better performance (enough!), better agility, and familiar enough for available pilots to make the most of them. Outside those limits, the i-16 is a good choice - a revlutionary design, and sofar ahead of the competition from other nations as to be ridiculous. The only trouble was figuring out WYF to do with it, and even the Soviets weren't that sure, as witness the flip- flopping back to biplane designs with the I-15bis and the I-153. Without any way of really testing it there was no way of knowing they'd really, really got it right - as they had. Now, with not-fighters the answer is easy. EE Canberra.. Still peerless, though admittedly as a recon. platform.. -- Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/ Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)
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#3
July 24th 03, 01:00 AM
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Duh? Here's where those qualifications come into play. While the F-14
with its programmed wing-sweep and well-BVR weapons had some advantages over the F-15, when you get to close engagements, the Eagle is considerably more agile than the Tom. Well, not actually. The F-15 has sufficiently superior T/W to the F-14A that through careful energy management and skill, the F-15 will win the engagement ... but in terms of instantaneous turn, pitch rate, etc, it's not quite the equal of the Tom. Put the F110 engines in (F-14B/D) and it's quite different. T/W is almost equal and the F-14 has an advantage throughout much of the envelope. I think the F-15 weapon's system is superior in most environments ... obviously so when AMRAAM is in the mix (personally I think those individuals that denied the F-14 the AMRAAM ought to face charges). My opportunities to engage the Eagle in the Turkey were somewhat limited, but when gas was not an issue (ie: I had a tanker and the use of A/B) I had little difficulty in gaining a pipper-on guns position. OTOH, while in a Phantom, I found myself quite helpless. I think the only thing I could do where I might have had no disadvantage was to depart the jet. The single seat A-4 (as configured for adversary work) often frustrated the "superior" F-15.\ To return to the topic, I'd cast a vote for the F-8. Best air superiority fighter in the US arsenal for its era (mid-50's competing with century series, etc). Best kill ratio in real world combat (Vietnam). Best ramp strike rate ... oh well. R / John
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#4
July 24th 03, 05:38 AM
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"John Carrier" wrote in message ... snip To return to the topic, I'd cast a vote for the F-8. Best air superiority fighter in the US arsenal for its era (mid-50's competing with century series, etc). Best kill ratio in real world combat (Vietnam). Best ramp strike rate ... oh well. R / John What about the Sea Harrier FRS.1 in the Falklands, with 20+ kills and no Air to Air losses? Operating when outnumbered with about 5 Argentinian combat a/c for every Harrier in service. David
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#5
July 24th 03, 04:19 PM
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"John Carrier" wrote:
Duh? Here's where those qualifications come into play. While the F-14 with its programmed wing-sweep and well-BVR weapons had some advantages over the F-15, when you get to close engagements, the Eagle is considerably more agile than the Tom. Well, not actually. The F-15 has sufficiently superior T/W to the F-14A that through careful energy management and skill, the F-15 will win the engagement ... but in terms of instantaneous turn, pitch rate, etc, it's not quite the equal of the Tom. Put the F110 engines in (F-14B/D) and it's quite different. T/W is almost equal and the F-14 has an advantage throughout much of the envelope. I think the F-15 weapon's system is superior in most environments ... obviously so when AMRAAM is in the mix (personally I think those individuals that denied the F-14 the AMRAAM ought to face charges). The voice of experience is hard to disagree with. My impression had always been that the Eagle was considerably more agile, but the AIM-54 and TWS ability to engage multiple targets simultaneously made the Tom a very dangerous airplane. I'd have to look at the performance charts and find some Ps corners to compare. Regardless of outcome, I'll stand by the original challenge regarding the Tom having distinct superiority over the Eagle. My opportunities to engage the Eagle in the Turkey were somewhat limited, but when gas was not an issue (ie: I had a tanker and the use of A/B) I had little difficulty in gaining a pipper-on guns position. You've said a mouthful there. If you can't have full reheat available in every engagement you're distinctly handicapped. OTOH, while in a Phantom, I found myself quite helpless. I think the only thing I could do where I might have had no disadvantage was to depart the jet. The single seat A-4 (as configured for adversary work) often frustrated the "superior" F-15.\ My first encounter with a Tom while in a Phantom (an exercise in the Med against America around '77) was to be intercepted during a low (very) altitude attack on the boat. The -14 got vectored against me from the left front quadrant--I picked him up visually at 10 o'clock with about 150 degree heading crossing angle. Because I was (as usual) very fast, I told the WSO--"no sweat, he's going to overshoot big time" --followed immediately by an absolutely amazed, "holy ****, did you see that" as the Tom did an incredible bat-turn into firing parameters. And regarding F-15s--I was often quite successful against Eagles when working 2-v-2 in the lowly AT-38, provided the ROE was VID and the Eagles were driven by relatively inexperienced guys. With a high-time wingman and operating in fluid attack, we could run out of film taking high angle gun shots. To return to the topic, I'd cast a vote for the F-8. Best air superiority fighter in the US arsenal for its era (mid-50's competing with century series, etc). Best kill ratio in real world combat (Vietnam). Best ramp strike rate ... oh well. Kill ratio for the F-8 is the highest, but the numbers involved reduce the stat to irrelevance. Not enough kills to be statistically significant. Still, had there been enough of them and had the war been one of air superiority, it sure would have been nice to have a whole herd of F-8s. Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (ret) ***"When Thunder Rolled: *** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam" *** from Smithsonian Books ISBN: 1588341038
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#6
July 25th 03, 05:50 PM
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Ed Rasimus wrote in message
My first encounter with a Tom while in a Phantom (an exercise in the Med against America around '77) was to be intercepted during a low (very) altitude attack on the boat. The -14 got vectored against me from the left front quadrant--I picked him up visually at 10 o'clock with about 150 degree heading crossing angle. Because I was (as usual) very fast, I told the WSO--"no sweat, he's going to overshoot big time" --followed immediately by an absolutely amazed, "holy ****, did you see that" as the Tom did an incredible bat-turn into firing parameters. Been there seen that! I did have one fight where my flight of Phantoms (Chiefs out of S-J), with the help of a couple of Marine Harriers out of Cherry Point, waxed a pair of Turkeys off some boat in the Atlantic. Med alt head on setup, ROE was BVR but no Phoenix, we ran in in tac spread (in mil power on our diesel J-79s) with a Harrier tucked in tight on each Phantom. Just outside AIM-7 R-Max (I think), we chaffed and did a 180 and dragged, smoking all the way, while the Harriers split vertically to the bottom of the block. As planned, the Turkeys glommed on to us and chased us, giving the Harriers simultaneous, unobserved,low to high vertical conversions to Aim-9 kills followed by some guns tracking (Amazing how Marines love shooting at the Navy). At this point we had pitched back, called the Harriers off, and blazed in for a high speed F0X 1, FOX 2, Snap shot to a separation. Poor Turkeys never got a shot off. God it was fun! Kirk Stant WSO (Ret)
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#8
July 26th 03, 12:04 AM
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#9
July 26th 03, 12:24 AM
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#10
July 28th 03, 04:26 PM
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Ed Rasimus wrote in message Great story. My comments--you can get away with that in training ACM,
but if it were for real you'd have to have "cojones al piedra" to pull the trick. Assurance that your R-Max is the same for the bad guys based pm intel takes a lot of confidence. Second, I'm surprised that a Harrier can stay with a Phantom "in mil power on our diesel J-79s". Third, I don't think I'd have the faith that my staunch Marine allies would make the vertical conversion in a Harrier against a Tom in full blow pursuit of the Phantoms. Finally, your pitch back, acquisition and rapid FOXing shows a bit of befuddlement from the Nasal Radiators, since they should have been face shooting you at the same rate. All that said, it sounds like a bold plan well-executed. My own experience in low-tech vs high-tech ACM often did the same thing--a vertical rather than horizontal split of the element. Seems that young aggressive warriors fixate on the first target and only sporadically search for the second (despite the training artificiality of knowing all the players). They search in sweep for the remainder, but seldom scroll up and down to find the other threat. Well, it was a while ago - and as any good story, has gotten better in the retelling - but the gist is correct. The reference to "Mil Power" was that we didn't go to Idle/Min AB to kill our smoke on the run-in, instead ran in at a tactical speed that the Harriers (fast little AV-8Cs not big slow Bs, I think) could stay with, leaving a nice big smoke trail for the Toms to see! But you are absolutely right about this being a "training ACM sortie" kind of thing - the whole point was to find a way to get the Harriers into the fight unobserved, tie up the Tomcats in a turning fight, then play 7th Cavalry and save the day. That day the plan worked. I always felt that a lot of our ACM missions were wasted (probably unavoidably) on canned setups, predictable 1V1 or 2V2, etc. Good for practicing basics, but no relation to the real thing, as described in all the Red Baron reports, WW2 books, etc. Then once and awhile (usually during some exercise like Cope Thunder or Red Flag) a fight would develop that would be uncannily similar to "the real thing". And it usually didn't involve any fancy tactics, just (surprise!) being at the right place at the right time and catching some guy looking the wrong way. Case in point - A Cope Thunder in the mid 80s, huge furball off the coast West of Iba, and we are coasting out from Crow Valley after dropping some inert Mk-82s on rattan targets. No real tactics, just stay low, skirt the outside of the furball, and shoot an F-5 that pops out in front of us. Then back to the deck and beat feet for home, low on gas as usual. Hardly had to turn at all, just a quick stab-out lock up and a couple of Fox-1s, then sweating out the illumination period. When things get complicated and messy, the fancy tactics are the first things to go. Then it's a matter of SA, systems knowledge, crew coordination, and luck - not necessarily in that order! I guess it reinforces what Dudley has already mentioned extensively here--the training, experience and quality of the driver will often compensate for the technology of the system. ABSOLUTELY!!!! Kirk
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