Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnews!cbnews!military From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: SUPERTOMCAT/ATF Message-ID: <1991Feb9.035048.5737@cbnews.att.com> Date: 9 Feb 91 03:50:48 GMT References: <1991Feb4.071106.22819@cbnews.att.com> <1991Feb7.021044.4709@cbnews.att.com> <1991Feb8.021343.21013@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 38 Approved: military@att.att.com From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: gordon@meaddata.com (Gordon Edwards) >It is interesting to note that the F-4 was a Navy development that proved >quite popular with the Air Force. Only after they were pretty much ordered at gunpoint to buy F-4s instead of F-105s. DoD under the dreaded MacNamara felt that the F-4 was much more useful in a non-nuclear war, and insisted that the USAF buy it. Why this worked while the Navy F-111 didn't is an interesting subject; three very important considerations were (a) the USAF has no special mission constraints analogous to carrier compatibility for the USN (which make dandy excuses for rejecting an aircraft that the service doesn't want); (b) the general characteristics of the F-4 were compatible with the USAF's concept of its primary missions (where a heavy, sluggish, missile- laden F-111 interceptor was very different from previous Navy fighters, which had always been part dogfighter); and (c) the F-4 was already operational, so its performance was established fact that was difficult to argue with. The difference was fairly striking: the first USAF F-4s had a bare handful of modifications from the Navy ones -- wider tires for softer airfields, bulged landing-gear doors to match, and USAF radios and oxygen systems were about it -- while the Navy F-111 ended up having only a family resemblance to the USAF one. (Just to be impartial :-), it didn't always work that smoothly. The USAF adapted the A-3 Skywarrior as the B-66, for various special missions like electronic warfare, but modified it so much that it probably didn't save them anything over designing a whole new aircraft.) -- "Maybe we should tell the truth?" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology "Surely we aren't that desperate yet." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry