Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: welty@lewis.crd.ge.com (richard welty) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: US Fighter Designations Message-ID: <1990Aug7.040836.6826@cbnews.att.com> Date: 7 Aug 90 04:08:36 GMT References: <1990Jul31.223607.6367@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Followup-To: sci.military Organization: New York State Institute for Sebastian Cabot Studies Lines: 91 Approved: military@att.att.com From: welty@lewis.crd.ge.com (richard welty) this is going to be a little hard to follow. Duane Mantick originally wrote stuff which is indented with * "As I mentioned next week in my talk on reversible time..." (no name given) then responded with stuff which is indented with **** In article <1990Jul31.223607.6367@cbnews.att.com>, As I mentioned next writes: *From: wb9omc@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick) * *P38: Lightning, Lockheed. Maybe also thank you Kelly Johnson?????? * Twin boom "boomer" that the Germans called the "fork tailed * devil". HEAVILY armed; in the pacific was the aircraft * that shot down Adm. Yamamoto's plane. **** Also the plane that Richard Bong flew. He was the US top Ace of WWII. much more highly regarded in the Pacific than in the ETO; they developed a better grasp on how to use it in the Pacific, where its long range and its durability/reliability were important. it might have been useful for long range bomber escort in europe, but they developed a bias against it early. *P39: Airacobra, Bell Aircraft. Sold lots to the Soviet Union during * WWII. Unique design, never horridly impressive. **** Heh, heh. This was an interesting one. Had it's engine in the middle if **** the plane and a long propellor shaft through the cockpit. Was turbo-? **** at first until the government got a hold of it, i think. now i remember; it is Chuck Yeager who still defends the P-39 as having been a good aircraft that got a bad rep early. the russians got decent versions of it, and really liked it a lot. the P400 versions that got used by the Cactus Air Force on Guadalcanal were hurting aircraft, though, due to the turbocharger omission in early export versions. *P61: Black Widow, Northrop. **** Know why it was called the Black Widow? it was so hard to fly. I think **** it was an attempt at a night fighter. it was a night fighter, and a moderately successful one at that. *P/F80: Shooting Star, Lockheed. Thank you Kelly Johnson. **** It was also the first Jet that the Thunderbirds flew. Commissioned at **** the end of WWII, I don't remember it ever seeing combat until Korea. **** Anybody know any better? Educate me. there were a very small number in Europe in 1945; they never encountered the ME262. according to Chuck Yeager, the ME262 and the P-80A had nearly identical flight characteristics, and they would have been very, very evenly matched if they'd ever met in combat. *F100: Super Sabre, North American. Nasty airplane at first but once * the bugs were worked out, our first fighter to go supersonic * in level flight became a very good aircraft. the bug was that the vertical tail wasn't tall enough, causing instability problems with high angles of attack, as i recall. *F105: Thunderchief, Republic. **** This was supposed to haave been developed as a nuclear strike bomber. **** Was a b**ch to fly, and if I remember, the Thunderbirds had one of **** their worst accidents in this bird due to its unforgiving nature. as i reported in this group once before, the Thunderbirds/F105 accident was due to a gross screwup by a maintenence depot; the F105 that failed had been involved in a horrid mid-air refueling accident, and had suffered MAJOR structural damage to a wing. the paperwork got separated from the aircraft, which should have been retired for parts, and the aircraft got issued to the Thunderbirds instead. it was only a matter of time till the wing came off. this story is related by Jack Broughton in _Going Downtown_. richard -- richard welty 518-387-6346, GE R&D, K1-5C39, Niskayuna, New York welty@lewis.crd.ge.com ...!crdgw1!lewis.crd.ge.com!welty ``Don't close your eyes for the crash; you'll miss the best part'' -- Bruce MacInnes, Skip Barber Driving School instructor