Posted on 08/07/2017 8:08:55 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
I’d say the Lockheed F-104.
Also, the swing wing was not like an F-14 which could move and change automatically along with the conditions of the fight. The 23 pilot had to manually select the wing configuration.
And there's the MiG-15 Faggot.
[mass formations of MiG-23s would use their superb acceleration to zoom in, launch their air-to-air missiles and zoom away]
Some say the Viet Cong were so protective of the Mig-21’s they used the same tactics.
Not the viet cong. It was the North Vietnamese AF. The rest is true. They used slash and dash tactics to keep their fleet intact. Robin Olds messed up that tactic with Operation Bolo.
Yeah, I kinda lumped them all together. I probably should have included their Russian mercenaries.
Some reports showed the same apparently against the IAF — they’d be in some dogfight and the MiG-21’s would come in, fire off Atoll’s and keep right on going.
I’ll have to go back to see what battle(s) it was.
Oops didn’t see that last part.
I was about to mention Robin Olds.
I think the interceptor role of the 104 was well proven by the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force, which used the aircraft to counter intrusive Soviet aircraft from the '60s until the '80s.
The F-104 wasn’t really a fighter, but rather an interceptor. It was designed to go very fast in a straight line, thus the stubby wings, among other design choices.
I got to look over the one they had in the TS “museum” at Nellis. It was the full-blown monkey version, all the markings were in English and German and the hard points were reversible. Rotate one way for Warsaw pact munitions, the other way for NATO.
The story they told us was that the early MiG-23 prototypes were experiencing engine shock stalls at transonic speeds so they decided to copy the intake ramp from the F-4 Phantom II. When the west finally got their hands on one, they also discovered there’s a wire cutter in the narrow gap between the engine nacelle and the fuselage. They put one there on the F-4 so if you use the crash barricade, the wire cutter keeps the net from pinning the canopy closed. Except the Soviets didn’t have any aircraft carriers so there was never any intent of operating them from carriers or potentially having to use a crash barrier.
Their explanation was that the Soviet engineers probably didn’t recognize the wire cutter for what it was but figured if M-D had taken the pains to add it to the F-4, it must have had some material benefit, so they’d better put them on the MiG as well.
Dunno if that was true or just a Cold War joke at the Rooskies expense, but we all got a chuckle from it.
BIG TIME...(bolo)
I agree. It was to put missiles onto Soviet bombers.
Plus, one of them caught up with the NCC-1701 Enterprise.
Too bad about that tractor beam.
A friend of mine owns not just one but twelve Mig 23’s, he bought them in Poland, had them shipped to Borger, Tx and brought mechanics from Poland to assemble six of them. There they have sat for years. He had a wild idea how to use them but it never worked out.
So if anyone wants a Mig-23 I can hook you up.
Um ... F-111 (Aardvark) from ye olde days of Robert “Whiz Kid” McNamara. So called “variable” sweep-wing.
I saw first hand what the F-104 could do at NAS Jax. One had landed from Patrick AFB, ahead of a hurricane evacuation. The pilot rolled halfway out the hangar, hit his afterburner and went straight up. It was out of sight in 5 seconds!
That’s great...never heard about that. Reminded me of the job they did in replicating a B-29 that had been interned in WWII. “Down to the last bolt...” they say...:)
The F-111 turned out to be a very capable platform, and many pilots loved it...not the worst fighter ever (as a proxy for saying it was a piece of crap airframe)
I spoke to an Aussie at Oshkosh on year, and he raved about the plane, of which they had a bunch.
It just wasn’t a good air superiority fighter, but it was a fine platform.
IIRC the F-104 was the first plane to break the sound barrier flying straight up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.