Military aircraft

[308Mike]

F-14 Tomcat, the beautiful & sexy plane built around a killer missile system.

[AZMARK]

This is of course the aircraft the was the face of and practically defined the Navy for so many years and have left generations of former, current and future Naval Aviators in tears that they will no longer have the opportunity to fly it...

And a legion of AT/AQ/AO/AE/AMS/AMH/AME/AD'S jumping for joy.

[tcourtplayer]

First off, to Aegis I apologize I didn't even see that comment at the end of your post. You are a smart man based on those choices

And a legion of AT/AQ/AO/AE/AMS/AMH/AME/AD'S jumping for joy.

I never said the maintainers loved it, in fact I know of their hate for it because of the long maintenance hour issues (one of the main reasons the navy moved away from it and onto the new line of hornets.) But lets face it the generally accepted view of the beauty of a plane is often determined by those using it, not fixing it. If the later was the case not many planes would have been loved until about the 21st century. Just ask the maintainers what they think about the Prowler. Apparently they were/are quite the pain in the ass to fix as well. (This from an airframe guy that worked on both the Prowler and the Super Hornet)

[Scott Free]

The de facto last of the Century series (there was a hideous F-107 prototype built and flown and an F-108 was on the board) was a hemorrhoid with wings -- but as Wrenchbender and SouporMan said, this particular aircraft was my hemorrhoid.



You can wax on about how sleek and dangerous and sexy a -14 looks -- and to a large extent, it is -- but, baby, you just can't beat the lines of a Six when its airborne. Sorry. It even on the ground, it just screams "SPEED" -- which is apropos considering that it has held the world's record for a single engine turbojet for 48 years!

But as gorgeous as it was in the air, Sweet Jabba the Hut, it was maintenance pig that just wallowed in its own feces when it hit the ground. The -14 was mustered out because (according to a History Channel show that I watched) its man-hours for maintenance was deemed too high at about 45 per flight. I just had to ROTFL 'cause the Six had to be at least that just in my specialty, weapons control.

When the Six was in the twilight of its career, the -14 and the -15 had just come on line, so I knew that they were much more reliable with all them newfangled microchips throughout the weapons system. However, I figured that anything built prior to them (e.g., the F-4) would be a lot closer to the Six. I went to Field Detachment Training for a little extra learnin' and ran into a guy that worked on the F-5 (which the Air Force never adopted). Yeah, the F-5 was simpler and a few years newer but it had embraced the newer technology.

What it meant in practical terms was that this cat said that his aircraft typically ran 40 -50 flights in a row in Code One (no faults, no write-up) condition. Our squadron record -- that had only been accomplished once -- was six flights. I'd never seen a plane go Code One beyond three flights in a row in my entire enlistment. As you could tell, vacuum tubes weren't the way to go as far as your fire control system went. (The F-5 appeared to be the upper end of reliability as far as the period aircraft went but the average fighter of the day was at least 3 or 4 times as reliable as America's "first line of defense" against bombers.)

To twist Mike's reverie about the -14, the Six was a beautiful aircraft built around a hopelessly inferior set of missiles. (The MB-2 Genie nuclear rocket, however, was another story... )

[drice]

Okay, this board is getting far too little use, so I have decided to resurrect an old thread from the previous forums.

What's your favorite military aircraft? More than one answer is perfectly acceptable.

I'm sticking with the F-14 and the F-4U Corsair, myself.

So many great choices, but I will admit that the F-4U is one of my favorites. I have flown many different R/C F-4's, and love them all. The real one was a badass.

I love the A-10. I dig it because it's form was dictated by it's mission. And it does it's mission exceedingly well. That makes it beautiful.

[SoupOrMan]

Oh, I've got love for the Tomcat and Lancer. I.Y.W.D.S.Y.A.S. and all that. Though the link provided earlier about the F111-B's tests on the Coral Sea was incorrect in one thing. It says that the F-111 proved too unwieldy for carrier duty. This is incorrect.

The F-111 was just too much awesome for the carrier to handle. Still, though, they had the F-14 and that counts for a lot.

[clyde621]

One like this?

[drice]

Yessir. Just like that. A buddy of mine has a 1/4 scale version that I just LOVE to fly. I've flown thousands of r/c aircraft, but that 1/4 scale F4-U is my all time fave.

[Darrell]

While visiting El Paso in '94 for the annular solar eclipse, I visited an air museum just west of town, at Santa Teresa, NM, I think. The guy had the most amazing collection of aircraft in one place I've ever seen--an F4U Corsair, four P-51s in matching "Ghost Squadron" paint jobs, an all black P-38 with chrome or stainless props and nose cones, a Hawker Fury, a P-40 Warhawk, and much much more. The guy even had an A-26 out back, he was gonna restore it, IIRC. Ah, here it is:

http://www.war-eagles-air-museum.com/

[308Mike]

Oh, I've got love for the Tomcat and Lancer. I.Y.W.D.S.Y.A.S. and all that. Though the link provided earlier about the F111-B's tests on the Coral Sea was incorrect in one thing. It says that the F-111 proved too unwieldy for carrier duty. This is incorrect.

The F-111 was just too much awesome for the carrier to handle. Still, though, they had the F-14 and that counts for a lot.

I don't think the F-111's landing gear would have stood up to regular carrier duty. Try putting one of those down on a pitching, rolling deck that's wet - trying to land that thing in foul weather. You've seen how they slam those things on deck. If you beef up the landing gear to take that abuse, how much does that eat into the available payload or fuel capacity?