Sorry, the date of the article should have been 1-11-2014!
Glad they mentioned the F-35 at the end.
I trust Pierre Sprey on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw
The article was way to long and not well enough written to keep me reading. I didn’t even see a one though five listing.
Wrong! The author can't even copy-paste material from a reliable source.
Bumping this for later and more detailed response. The guy is full of sh!t on multiple levels in both facts and analysis.
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter earned the unofficial name of “post hole digger” I think in Germany....the story goes the pilots sometimes would auger straight into the ground. IIRC, the problem actually was an on-board oxygen supply system depot level where the oxygen generation systems for supply tanks were located near the exhaust of some other combustion source. Tainted oxygen causing the pilots to black out.
Thanks for the post. Although I think most of the century series were to combat Russian bombers more than to engage in fighter-on-fighter combat
However I would list the Zero as the first which became the worst. The lack of armor, self sealing tanks and some with out radios made them into flying bombs that needed only a few hits to make them explode.
I once heard a Phantom jockey declare that that aircraft was “living proof that with a big enough engine, you can make a piano fly.”
Really? Phantom in dishonorable mention?
Ha!
"The F-4 Phantom. With a smoke trail a blind man could follow it is proof positive that with a large enough engine even a brick can fly."
I just had to look up the Thunderscreech... turboprop?? Seriously, they were designing prop fighters in the mid-50’s? Why??
The promised, more detailed response.
F2A Buffalo: at the time it was ordered it was better than the Grumman F4F alternative. So at the time it was a good aircraft. However the F4F had better growth potential so by the time the US got into the war the Buffalo was obsolescent and on its way out of service. It was put into combat by the US and Dutch as a desperation measure because nothing else was available.
Comparing it to the Bf-109 is a joke. The F2A was designed as a carrier-capable fighter with decent range for Pacific operation. The Bf-109 as a short range fighter designed around European operations. Comparing it to the A6M is a joke - the A6M was something of a surprise to the US, and achieved its initial dominance through massive sacrificing of weight through ditching things like armor and self-sealing fuel tanks. Once the US figured out these weaknesses, they were able to adapt tactics of the inferior F4F (Thatch Weave, for instance) to blow them out of the sky.
The F-101 was not ever, as the writer claims, a “fighter-bomber”. Either in design or in actual use. It was designed as a long-range escort to USAF nuclear bombers, then adapted to recce (which it performed well) and interception for the Continental defense role (which it performed very well).
The F-102 (which George W Bush flew in the TX ANG) was put into service as an interim interceptor as the “ultimate” interceptor (F-106) was being developed. Yes, it had a lot of issues, but it wasn’t designed as anything as a quick gap-filling capability. It did deploy to Vietnam and contrary to the writer’s assertions actually performed pretty well. Especially in the ground-attack role - where pilots were able to take out VC campsites by using their infra-red guided AIM-4 Falcom missiles.
The F-104 was a fast, lightweight point-defense fighter mainly designed to protect airfields from inbound enemy bombers. Go in a straight line (as has already been mentioned) very very fast and shoot down the other side. Yeah, like any fast aircraft with low wing loading it was a real challenge to fly (see the B-26 Marauder), but the Taiwanese and Pakistanis used them pretty well in small scale combat engagements. The Italians only retired theirs a couple/few years ago.
The F-105 wasn’t a fighter, despite the “F” designation. It was (the author seems to admit) pretty much a fast, one-way tactical nuclear bomber. Saying it sucked because it was used in a war (Vietnam) it wasn’t designed at all for is patently unfair. By the end of the war it had actually proven itself pretty adaptable to the SEAD/Wild Weasel role - it was really the first effective dedicated counter-radar platform.
The MiG-23 was a small, lightweight fighter/fighter-bomber (in the MiG-27 version) that used variable geometry wings to convey better short/rough field characteristics. It was the direct successor to the MiG-21. The writer really shows his ignorance here in saying that it was designed to counter the F-14. That’s a massive amount of Barbara Streisand right there. Yes, it was a crappy aircraft - but it was also designed (much like the F-105) to have an exceedingly short lifespan in actual combat in an equation that favored early and overwhelming quantity over smaller numbers of quality. Which pretty much sums up the WarPac vs. NATO paradigms.
As to the “dishonorable mention” category the guy includes the F-4 Phantom???? That pretty much crushes his credibility to dust. The F-111 had some initial teething problems, but really turned into a very, very good interdiction and (for the Aussies) recce platform. The Naval version would have performed the mission it was designed for (air-to-air missile truck designed to take down Soviet bombers as far away from the carrier as possible) pretty well too - but thanks to the experience with Vietnam the mission changed. The Bf-110 (heavy two-engined fighter) and the Defiant (big heavy turret with four machine guns, but no forward-firing guns - stupidstupidstupid) both deserve to be on the actual list, imho. As does the Yak-38 Forger.
Finally, regarding the F-35, I’ll make the point I usually make which is that it is NOT a “fighter”. It’s a stealthy light-strike platform, with a respectable head-on air-to-air engagement capability. It should be seen as the direct successor to the F-117 and A-7 and something of an improvement upon the AV-8B ... but not as a successor to the fighter-side capabilities of either the F-16 or the F/A-18.
A poor article. The F-102 was good at what it was supposed to be good at, which was NOT dogfighting. The Mig-23 was not supposed to be an F-14. The article gives Dishonorable Mentions to the F-111 & F-4. Yet the F-111 turned out to be a decent light bomber, and the stupidity was pretending it was meant to be a fighter. IIRC, F-111s took out more tanks during GW1 than A-10s did. And the F-4 was also never intended for dogfighting. But during the late 80s, the F-4 squadron I was in held its own in air combat against the F-15...not easily, of course, but they were different generation fighters.
Dogfighting is not the end goal of every aircraft with a “F” designation. Interceptors, escort aircraft, ground attack - these are all roles that an “F” designated aircraft can take on, and that provides value.
For the record, my Dad flew P-47s & P-51s, but also flew F-86s, 100s, 101s, 102s, 104s & 106s (and some bombers and helicopters). I was a WSO in the F-4 & F-111.
“The F-111F night “tank plinking” strikes using 500 lb. GBU-12 laser-guided bombs were particularly deadly. On February 9, for example, in one night of concentrated air attacks, forty F-111F’s destroyed over 100 armored vehicles. Overall, the small 66-plane F-111F force was credited with 1,500 kills of Iraqi tanks and other mechanized vehicles...
...Although F-111F’s flew primarily at night during Operation Desert Storm, F-111 aircrews flew a particularly notable daytime mission when two GBU-15 precision guided munitions were used to destroy the oil pipeline manifolds at the Al Almadi pumping station, effectively shutting down the Iraqi-made oil slick in the Persian Gulf and averting an environmental disaster. On 26 January 1991 DIA received details from the Kuwaiti military resistance on the facilities that control the oil flow to the sea terminals (after Iraq released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf). Using this information, two F-111 aircraft attacked the Al Ahmadi oil manifolds the next day and stop the flow of oil into the Gulf.”
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-111-pgw.htm
“Each aircraft was loaded with four GBU-12 500-pound, laser-guided bombs. Each bomb was to be dropped on any tank, APC, truck, artillery piece, command-and-control bunker, or supply dump that crews could find in their box. The two initial sorties were so successful that planners scheduled forty-four more sorties for the next night. They sent two-ship and four-ship formations into kill boxes to fly medium-altitude attacks against the enemy’s field army. This mission was a radical departure for F-111 crews, but it proved so effective that F-111Fs flew 664 successful sorties over twenty-three days...
...For operational security reasons, videotapes of tank plinking never made CINCCENT’s evening press briefings, so the extent of the devastation was not known to the public in the days leading up to the ground operation. In the nineteen days preceding the start of the ground operation, F-111Fs, F-15Es, and A-6s flew hundreds of tank-plinking missions. On several occasions, two F-15Es carrying a total of eight GBU-12s destroyed sixteen armored vehicles on a single sortie.”
http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/1993/October%201993/1093plinking.aspx
Should have included the AV-8A Harrier. Lost several friends/acquaintances to that aircraft.
F7U maneater
I would think any fighter you were shot down in qualifies.
Bump