Aircraft that never lived up to their promise

"Kevin Brooks" escreveu na mensagem
om...
All in all, the most
that can be said for Carter's short journey into idealistic export
policy is that the French may owe him a medal for taking the US out of
play for some fighter procurement deals.


Example: Our Air Force, back in the beginning of the '70s, bought Mirage
IIEBR's as the US wouldn't sell us the F-4's our AF had pointed out as the
aircraft of choice. The American offer at the time was the F-5A, which was
far below what was needed. OTOH, Brazil bought F-5E's later on ... Same for
many other Latin American countries.

Now our aging Mirage III's will be replaced (should have been a long time
ago, BTW) and by Feb 10th 2004 our government will probably announce that
its replacement will be the Mirage 2000BR (-5), mostly due to political
reasons and to the strong relationship of our national aircraft industry and
the French, which own 20% of EMBRAER. Unless something really unexpected
happens, our AF's dreams come true and they get the Su-35's they are eager
for. The US offered the F-18 and the F-16. The F-18 was discarded in the
very beginning of the process due to its price. The F-16, though regarded by
all as an excellent aircraft, is considered too short-legged. Also, there
are restrictions to the sale of BVR missiles and AFAIK the missiles would be
kept in storage in the US and sent to Brazil only in case of need.
(!!!??!!!). We would receive only the "training missiles". The Russians have
no kind of restriction in terms of weapons sales and technology transfer.
Same for the French.

Many aircraft did poorly in ther intended roll only to become stars in
the roll they wound up in. An example is the F-111, it was to be the
air superority ground attack fighter for the Navy and the Air Force,
It wound up being one of the best ground attack aircraft in the USAF,
and never even made Navy service.

The F-105 was supposed to be the fast nuke bomber of the 60's but
became the workhorse of Viet Nam.

I am not at all sure the F-104 was a success, the USAF sure didn't
like it. NATO bought a bunch, but it's not clear that it would have
done well in Europe had it been necessary.

I guess its all in how you look at it.

No, that would actually be more *inaccurate* in terms of location. The
Bomarc unit in question was technically assigned to Langley, IIRC, but
it most definitely was not located at that location (my Dad spent
about thirty years working at Langley on the NASA side of the house).
It was located between Jefferson Avenue (Rt 143) and I-64, just north
of Rt 17-- part of it was later taken over by the city as the home for
its school bus maintenance and operations (ISTR seeing the old alert
status board still standing by the entrance when the busses moved in).
I spent many an hour tromping through the woods behind the bunkers
hunting squirrels and sitting on a deer stand, and it was one of the
few places where us suburbanites could go and do some target shooting
(interesting exchange with the local Politzei occured once during that
activity). Those bunkers are now part of the Oyster Point business
park, IIRC; before the park developers decided that they could be an
amenity (made nice storage buildings), my old employer and I did a
survey of them to determine the feasibility of performing demolition
with explosives to remove them. FYI, just up the road another mile or
two was another Cold War relic--the Nike Hercules complex which was
located at (what was then) Patrick Henry Airport (it later picked up
an "I" in the designation after a couple of charter flights to Mexico
flew out of it--sort of a joke at the time), now known as Newport
News-Williamsburg Regional Airport IIRC. Pat Henry had another
interesting historical sidenote affiliated with it--I can recall
walking through old barracks buildings which were still standing in
the early seventies that had housed German POW's during WWII.

Brooks


It's interesting how times have changed. Unless you happen to live by
a base you wouldn't even know the US *has* a military. Most of their
exercises and training seems to be in the middle of BFE. I think I've
seen tanks on trains twice in my life and military vehicles driving on
the freeway maybe three or four times. I live in northern Utah and
the place has it's share of bases but even still I moved fifteen miles
from the airbase here and nadda. As far as old buildings go there's a
failry large business park in what use to be a NAVAL base in WWII.
All the buildings are made of wood because of the need for steel for
the war effort.

"Kevin Brooks" wrote

Those bunkers are now part of the Oyster Point business
park, IIRC; before the park developers decided that they could be an
amenity (made nice storage buildings), my old employer and I did a
survey of them to determine the feasibility of performing demolition
with explosives to remove them.

A few of those now house small businesses. One is a lawyers office, and
another I believe is a software consulting firm.

3 or 4 have been flattened in the last couple of years to accomodate new
business construction.

Pete

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...

It's interesting how times have changed. Unless you happen to live by
a base you wouldn't even know the US *has* a military. Most of their
exercises and training seems to be in the middle of BFE. I think I've
seen tanks on trains twice in my life and military vehicles driving on
the freeway maybe three or four times. I live in northern Utah and
the place has it's share of bases but even still I moved fifteen miles
from the airbase here and nadda.

As you say, a function of where you live.
I live 30 some miles from Fort Knox and will occasionally see the
odd tank (as in "what is under that tarp") on a flat-bed on the interstate.
It's not very unusual to see one to a half dozen military vehicles on
the interstate on a weekend drive out of town: I assume Guard &
Reserves for the most part. Though I know when the Strikers were
working up at Knox they went on at least one road march making a
big loop on some of the major highways in Kentucky.
Back around Desert Shield I saw train loads of armor on the sidings
but other than that, just the rare ones & twos on trains.

If you fish the forest lakes on weekends, you'll see a low level fighter
one a month or so. Helicopters about the same frequency following
the Ohio River.

If you fish the forest lakes on weekends, you'll see a low level fighter
one a month or so. Helicopters about the same frequency following
the Ohio River.



I just remember during the first Desert Storm thinking "where the hell
do they keep it all" ? Like I said, if you live within four or five
miles of Hill AFB you see planes all the time, but move six or seven
more and nothin'. I saw a few Apaches fly by down here several years
ago and then there was the incident where a B-1 boomed the hell out of
the Wastach Front.

If you fly much in New Hampshire, especially at 2900 feet, you will
meet ONE A-10 Warthog sooner or later.

And you will remember the meeting, because Hogs always travel in
pairs, and you really gave your neck a workout, looking for the other
one.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 16:46:53 GMT, "Ed Majden" wrote:


"Alan Minyard"
Oh, now I see, the demise of the CF-105 was an evil plot by the nasty
'Mercans
to keep the industrial might of Canada from taking over the defense
industries.
What a loon.

Perhaps you should take a course in English comprehension. The CF-105
was cancelled because Canada was in the middle of a recession, there was a
government change, and Sputnik was launched making some to think that the
manned bomber threat was no longer an issue. The Arrow was a Liberal
project and the new Consevative government hated anything Liberal so they
stupidly cancelled the program. The U.S. apparently offered to fund some
CF-105's for the R.C.A.F. but it was too late. Even though the U.S. would
not buy the Arrow for the USAF it was an Canadian decision! Do some
research!


You will note that my post contained something called "sarcasm". Sorry
that you are unable to comprehend this routine literary tool.

Al Minyard

"Gregg Germain" wrote in message
...

I've often wondered about the Aircobra:

What if it had a supercharger like the ones fitted to the P-38? What
would it's hi alt performance have been then?

Same for the P-40, I suppose.


The XP-39 did have a type B-5 turbocharger, but there just wasn't room in
the P-39 or P-40 for a supercharger installation like the P-38's. One of
the reasons the P-47 was as big as it was was to accommodate the
turbocharger and intercooler and all the ductwork they required, and that
was an aircraft that didn't also require a coolant radiator. The
turbocharger was deleted from the P-39 primarily because the Army didn't
think it needed a point-defense interceptor, so the plane was adapted for
low-medium altitude work. That decision has been criticized since the war,
but had they chosen to develop the installation the same way they did the
P-38 they'd have had to get by with fewer and even lower performing
airplanes in the early war years and have had a short-legged airplane that
hauled little armament. The airframe was just too small.

In article %TKyb.541322$9l5.366272@pd7tw2no,
"Ed Majden" writes:

"Alan Minyard"
4. Given the range of the CF-105 and the size of Canada, you would have
huge holes in
your coverage.

66 Voodoo's sure didn't plug these holes! Nor did the Bomarcs at two
eastern bases. Most airports used for dispersal have supplies of jet fuels.
The U.S. had cruise type missiles and I expect the Russians had their own
versions. Don't forget, the Bomarc was used until the early 1970s where
weapons were much better. By the way an Arrow could be equipped with a Geni
as it had a large weapons bay.

Actually, the CF-105 was intended to intercept bombers penetrating
Canadian Airspace at Mach 2/50,000'+. The RCAF's and DND's own
studies showed that conventional launch/control of teh CF-105s from
their proposed bases resulted in intercepts occuring over Boston,
Massachusetts, Albany New York, and Gary, Indiana. Not much good for
protecting Canada. (ANd that was launching after they'd penetrated
teh Contiguous Radar COverage of teh Mid-Canada Line.
The Arrow did have decent supersonic endurace, for its day, and a good
climb rate. That's only a factor though, if the bomber is coming in
at more than Mach 1.5. For the Mach 0.85/40,000' targets that did
turn out to be the threat, the Arrow had no advantages over the F-101
or F-106. The Arrow's weapon system (MX-1179 Radar/FCS, and Falcon
Missiles) was exactly the same as the F-101's. ASTRA was an adject
failure, and Sparrow II just wasn't going to work with 1950s
technology. There's no point in developing a completely new and
expensive platform to carry the same weapons with the same
effectiveness. All that would have accomplished is the total
bankrupcy of Canada. The Arrow's weapons bay wasn't particularly
large, either. It was about as long as that of an F-106, a bit wider,
and much shallower. IIRC, the maximum depth was about 20". There
wouldn't have been enough space for internal carriage of a whopping
big rocket like the Genie.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster