100% agreement, Dan. The CF104 (I'm Canadian don't forget) was a compromise from the start. They knew that a quantum leap in jet engine technology was a couple of years away and they needed something to fill that gap. They went with a small, lightweight, minimalist design that extracted every drop of power out of that single engine. It was very good at what it was designed for and it's long service life and adaptability to jobs it was not designed to do is a testament to it's designers.
Yeah, the intruder was one ugly aircraft. Almost as ugly as the Warthog - but not quite. Sexiest, most beautiful propeller military aircraft ever? Corsair is up there. To my eye the Spitfire is the one. Downright sexy! :-) Cheers, frank On 12 February, 2014 10:10:50 AM EST, "Daniel J. Matyola" <[email protected]> wrote: >Every aircraft has to be judged by its function and service era. The >Starfighter F-104 was an interceptor designed to climb quickly to high >altitude and fire missiles at incoming bombers. That mission was >taken over by ground based missiles almost before the Starfighter came >into service. The USAF tried to use it in Viet Nam, but it was >totally unsuited to the climate and mission. It was, however, one of >the sexiest designs ever. > >The Vulcan was a heavy bomber, designed for the type of air-ground >missions that fortunately were never required. It was an innovative >machine with a unique, memorable design, and served many nations quite >well. > >The F-4 Phantom II was one of the most versatile aircraft ever made, >fulfilling several functions over a long period of time. Its Mach 2 >speed and ability to carry almost any weapon, made it the vehicle of >choice in the West for several decades. I always though it a >beautiful aircraft, with its coke-bottle fuselage, dihedral wings and >anhedral horizontal stabilizer, but I guess beauty is in the eye of >the beholder. <G> The other airplane in which I flew, the A-6 >Intruder, is what I consider to be an ugly bird: >http://www.veteran.com/content/a6a-intruder >http://www.veteran.com/content/a6a-intruder-vma%28aw%29533-nighthawks > >For sheer beauty, my favorite military airplane is the gull-winged >F-4U Corsair from WW II: >http://www.aviation-history.com/vought/f4u.html >That was a very tough plane to land and take-off, from what I have >heard, but in the air, it's distinctive shape is unforgettable. >Dan Matyola >http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola “Analysis kills spontaneity.” -- Henri-Frederic Amiel -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
