One of my instructors in Safety School (Dr Bank RIP) had flight time in Training Command in the F-11. Any of you gents ever fly it? It was pretty much a failure but ties the Vigi for the best looking Navy jet IMO.
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What is (in your opinion) the BEST fighter plane that has EVER served in the Navy / Marine Corps?
- Thread starter TOPGUN1991
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One of my instructors in Safety School (Dr Bank RIP) had flight time in Training Command in the F-11. Any of you gents ever fly it? It was pretty much a failure but ties the Vigi for the best looking Navy jet IMO.
Wiki says...... "The F-11 Tiger is noted for being the first jet aircraft to shoot itself down.[3] On 21 September 1956, during a test firing of its 20 mm (.79 in) cannons, pilot Tom Attridge fired two bursts mid-way through a shallow dive. As the velocity and trajectory of the cannon rounds decayed, they ultimately crossed paths with the Tiger as it continued its descent, disabling it and forcing Attridge to crash land the aircraft; he survived".....
I think some of the new research is a little suspect and the Soviet records are a bit less reliable than US ones. I also think that some of the research into the Korean War aerial kills from the Soviet side has been colored for the worse by some of the intial researchers and authors who dove into that topic. As for RAND, the research paper referenced paper cites Wikipedia and I am not sure it really qualifies as a 'serious' paper after that.
My point? I think there is a little too much eagerness to cut down the USAF claims in the Korean War. A 10 to 1 kill ratio probably didn't happen but I don't see 1.3-1.8 to 1 unless you take Soviet numbers at face value.
That aerial battle also helped the Russians to develop the AA-2 ATOLL because one of the PLAAF MiGs made it back to base with an unexploded Sidewinder stuck up its ass.
Had beers with the Father in Law of one of my Skippers once, a Brit who did the same thing to himself flying a Vampire on an a/g gunnery range in Cyrpus (or maybe it was Crete) and was able to pull up and glide it back to the field that was only a sort distance away. In his case it was a ricochet that fodded the engine
He also had about 2000 of Seafire time and a couple hundred traps in it.
No, the F-11F had just been pulled from from the fleet when I got there in July '58 (reason "legs too short" - insufficient range/endurance). I attended an airshow in Corpus the weekend of my winging, my first ever 'Blues' demo. They put on a great show in their F-11F Tigers. The F-11F & F4D Skyrays were in process of being repkaced by F8U Crusaders & the F3H Banshees by "'da tank" F3H Demons at that time.
Re. the 'Vigi', most beautiful Navy jet ever, their crews had 'balls of steel' over NVN, and did a great job of photo recce. I learned one thing about the Vigi early on - the hard way! You don't want to be lined up for cat launch next behind a Vigi. Fully loaded it required full burners to launch. The fuselage was too long to allow raising the blast deflector. You can imagine the temp/shaking/roar enveloping our li'i Scooter 'til the Vigi went roaring down the track. No fun there!
BzB
Before my time. But I did get to see the Blues fly the F-11. Personally, I thought the Blues F-11s made for the best looking diamond of any other aircraft.
Looking at photos and brochures with the Vigi when signing up as an AVROC, I really thought I wanted to fly the RA-5... until I later learned the reasons why I shouldn't.
Because of the Vigi's problems around the boat, they didn't put nuggets in them – that is until my winging class. The Navy decided to try putting two nuggets in the Vigi as an experiment. So despite the newly designated Naval Aviator's preferences, they took the top two guys and put them in the A-5. Yikes! It would have been me, had I not just busted a check-ride, and my grades slipped, thus giving me an F-4. Better to be lucky than good, any day. Ha! Still a beautiful, if not majestic aircraft.
One of the very few times when a 'blown check-ride' turns out to be your friend, eh?
That little window on both sides was the only visual link to the outside world for the B/N, although he did have a small 'lo def' forward-looking VidCam CRT on the inst. panel. In a way, I guess it shielded him from some of the sheer terror of seeing SAMs & flak enroute from all directions while sauntering along at on a 'photo op' at ~1.8m!
BzB
<<<That little window on both sides was the only visual link to the outside world for the B/N, although he did have a small 'lo def' forward-looking VidCam CRT on the inst. panel. In a way, I guess it shielded him from some of the sheer terror of seeing SAMs & flak enroute from all directions while sauntering along at on a 'photo op' at ~1.8m!
Threadjack!! Hugh ...don't forget the MIGs!
Attached a pic of fellow NavCad Al Agnew (Class 14-61) in the white shirt ...taken out by a MIG 21 while doing a BDA over North Vietnam in an RA-5...became a short time POW ...but lost his B/N.
Another threadjack!! Haven't heard that term in a very long time. USN had me in training for many, many
Never had the "luxury" of a lead computing gunsight. Of course we had an iron gunsight in the F-4 (we called it a gunsight rather than a bomb sight, even though we didn't have a gun.
)Then there was the F-14. It had a gunsight that computed and displayed a "one bullet time of flight" which got a little confusing. Lines and symbols dancing around on the HUD like snakes in a pit. Yikes!
I always liked the Israelis' 'gunsight' – it was fill the whole windscreen with the enemy aircraft before pulling the trigger.
Always wanted a gun camera, so I could record some of the crazy stuff we used to do. .....Ah.... but on second thought, probably lucky I left no filmed record.
Never had the "luxury" of a lead computing gunsight. Of course we had an iron gunsight in the F-4 (we called it a gunsight rather than a bomb sight, even though we didn't have a gun.
We could always grab a grease pencil and draw one on the windscreen.
The navy did have a few p-51s they used for testing to see if they could nasalize it. We even talked about it on here awhile back.
http://www.airwarriors.com/community/index.php?threads/navy-p51-mustang.26058/
F6F/F4U/P-51....6 or a half dozen, all of them near equal in performance but different missions. The stang was a game changer with long range escort. My vote would go to the F-4. Did any fighter serve longer in Navy/USMC service?
Yeah, it's called the F/A-18A-D. 27 and 30 years for the Phantom in USN/USMC service respectively. We are now at 29 years and counting for the Hornet in USN service.....same year of "birth" as me
USMC will have been flying Hornets for as long as they flew Phantoms next year. That's including the service the Phantoms gave purely in reserve squadrons, so operationally, their service life has already been exceeded by the legacy Hornet.Overall service, obviously the Phantom still wins since the AF still uses them as drones, but since you specified USN/USMC
