Blackbird From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (4 years 9 months 3 days 12 hours ago) and read 6180 times:
-Which is faster? (Maximum Mach)
-Which is more maneuverable? (Turning arc, maximum instantaneous/sustained-G's, roll-rate, etc)
-Which has the longest range (I'm pretty sure the F-100 would come up on top here, but I'm not sure)
KC135TopBoom From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 11708 posts, RR: 52 Reply 1, posted (4 years 9 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 6171 times:
Faster = F-100
Maneuverable = F-100
Range = F-100
The F-8 was a very good airplane, but, because of the heavier carrier capability (landing gear, bulkheads, and the weird pop-up wing system), was a very heavy airplane. But, the F-8 was the USN's last true gunfighter.
EBJ1248650 From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 1932 posts, RR: 2 Reply 5, posted (4 years 9 months 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 6075 times:
I would have never thought the F-100 would have been more maneuverable than the F-8 Crusader.
I agree. When the F-100A came in to service, the Air Force evaluated it and found that it lacked a lot when it came to air-to-air combat and that was the main reason the later F-100C and F-100D Super Sabres became fighter-bombers rather than air superiority fighters. That's not to say the F-100 couldn't mix it up with enemy fighters, but it wasn't well suited to doing that.
Ragarding the F-8 manueverability, I would have thought it had a lower wing loading than the F-100, hence better manueverability. Does anyone have the wing loading figures for these two fighters?
Timz From United States of America, joined Sep 1999, 6468 posts, RR: 8 Reply 7, posted (4 years 9 months 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 6050 times:
You remember the F-100 set a (US?) speed record at 822 mph-- the F8U moved it up to 1015 mph or some such thing. Those were both at altitude, as I recall.
Blackbird From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 10, posted (4 years 9 months 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 6006 times:
474218,
So he dove and fired while flying supersonic... the bullets flew a few miles while going at a downward angle, ran out of speed then fell even faster... the plane kept going and eventually the bullets fell into the plane?
Thorny From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 13, posted (4 years 9 months 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 5978 times:
Quoting Sovietjet (Reply 11): Why was the F-11 only in service for 6 years?!?
Same thing that killed a lot of early jets... a cranky engine. Grumman tried re-engining it with a J79, but by then the superior F8U was in production and the Navy didn't order it.
SlamClick From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 10062 posts, RR: 71 Reply 14, posted (4 years 9 months 2 days 2 hours ago) and read 5903 times:
Quoting Blackbird (Reply 10): he dove and fired while flying supersonic
I remember this when it happened. The wiki description is not real clear. If I remember right he had been on a climbing line - perhaps more or less parabolic. He began to push but when the burst was fired he was nearly level or perhaps still in a slight climb. The bullets arced according to their trajectory but he pushed the nose down farther and accelerated straight ahead, overtaking the burst from below as they fell on their arc. They met up only a few seconds after being fired.
Throughout their path the bullets were slowing and responding to gravity. The plane, with the wings unweighted in the pushover probably accelerated quicker than you'd expect for a jet of that vintage.
I also believe that the F-8U was the plane that flew formation with a 16" shell from a battleship and got film of it in flight. Anyone got a link to that?
Quoting Sovietjet (Reply 11): Why was the F-11 only in service for 6 years?!?
As N328KF said that was pretty common. The first jets were flown in the 40s and were outperfomed in many ways by prop fighters. The research on supersonic flight was begun after the war with Mach 1 being reached in 1947, Mach 2 in 1953 and Mach 3 in 1956. But those were research aircraft. Fighter design lagged behind that. So a jet would be designed for current operational needs but by the time its acceptance program was finished there had been so many advances in high speed aircraft design that it entered service already somewhat obsolete.
Add the Korean War where debriefings indicated that the Soviet MiGs outperformed our jets in important ways and the fact that the war in Korea was just a hot spot in the wider "cold war" and you can see that the US defense establishment had a lot of emphasis on finding and keeping an advantage.
When the X-15 program started flying in 1959 it had the effect of defining realistic limits for airplanes intended to fly in the earth's atmosphere. By the time of its last flight in 1968 it had broken Mach 4, 5, and 6 and flown above the sensible earth's atmosphere and returned safely. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that data the X-15 collected was still being analyzed. Anyway, from shortly after that program, fighter and bomber designs all over the world more or less stablized - most of them below Mach 2. New research tended to go toward weapon and countermeasure systems which did not require whole new airframes, and later, on stealth capabilities.
It did have the effect, though, of making airshows of the 1950s really interesting. Lots of different aircraft as opposed to just a few today.
Happiness is not seeing another trite Ste. Maarten photo all week long.
RaginMav From United States of America, joined May 2004, 372 posts, RR: 1 Reply 15, posted (4 years 9 months 2 days ago) and read 5884 times:
Quoting SlamClick (Reply 14): I also believe that the F-8U was the plane that flew formation with a 16" shell from a battleship and got film of it in flight. Anyone got a link to that?
SlamClick From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 10062 posts, RR: 71 Reply 16, posted (4 years 9 months 1 day 22 hours ago) and read 5865 times:
It has been many years [long before the internet] since this happened and I don't really remember whether I saw movie or stills of it.
I have seen artillery shells in flight a couple of times. Looking from above and behind the battery, along the gun-target line, and knowing where to look when you hear "Shot! Over!" helps, still it was a rare sight.
As kids we used to shoot our .22s along a curving, concrete bridge surface and see the ricochets if not the actual bullets.
Happiness is not seeing another trite Ste. Maarten photo all week long.
Blackbird From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 17, posted (4 years 9 months 1 day 13 hours ago) and read 5791 times:
A 16-inch shell! Wow that's fast...
What altitude was the plane flying alongside the shell at (if you don't know exact figures, would you guess, high, medium, or low-altitude?)?
Also, what model Crusader was used -- the F8U-1, or F8U-2 (The latter has a pointier nose a slightly wider intake and an intake just in front of the engine nozzle while the former does not)?
SlamClick From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 10062 posts, RR: 71 Reply 18, posted (4 years 9 months 1 day 11 hours ago) and read 5768 times:
Don't know much about the 16" guns but I'm pretty sure they are subsonic.
As for the altitude, well an artilleryman could tell you that better than I. There are formulas for that but I skipped that day of training. In fact I skipped the whole course. In fact, in those days, before pocket calculators I believed the math to be better left to others. Anyway they will shoot somewhere around 26 miles so there's the starting point.
Happiness is not seeing another trite Ste. Maarten photo all week long.
474218 From United States of America, joined Oct 2005, 6340 posts, RR: 10 Reply 20, posted (4 years 9 months 20 hours ago) and read 5648 times:
Quoting SlamClick (Reply 18): Don't know much about the 16" guns but I'm pretty sure they are subsonic.
Quoting Blackbird (Reply 19): Nah, those shells are definetly supersonic...
There are lots of variables (charge size, elevation, etc). However, when shot a 40 degree angle the projectile would travel 40,000 yards (22.75 miles) in 80 seconds. That works out to a little over 1000 miles per hour.
Blackbird From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 21, posted (4 years 9 months 19 hours ago) and read 5639 times:
That's it's distance it traversed over the ground... however if you counted the fact that it was climbing at a 40-degree angle, it's true-airspeed would be way higher than 1,000 mph (If I knew math a bit better I probably could have given you an exact speed). And the figure you derived was an average speed... which means it's TAS and Ground Speed was faster the instant it left the barrel, and slower when it struck it's target.
I'm not sure exactly at what point the Crusader intercepted and flew along the projectile...
Additionally, to the best of my knowledge those guns had a range of at least 32 miles (maybe nm since the Navy rarely measured in statute miles to my knowledge), at least that's what my father told me (who was obsessed with guns) told me.
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