On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 21:31:25 GMT, "Tom Cooper" wrote:

Great comments Tom (damn, if we keep this up, RAM might become a
military aviation newsgroup again instead of a he-said/she-said troll
roost!) Some snipping (hopefully without losing context) and responses
below:

Ed,

(As an aside, how does size of the radar or "paletts" for the Phoenix
result in a larger cockpit? Gotta say the F-105 cockpit was the
biggest single-seat office I ever saw and the F-15 operator station
isn't cramped, either.)

Then, let us not forget that the AWG-9 is not only a radar: I'm sure you
know better than me that it's actually a whole weapons system, _including_
the AWG-9 radar.

So, while the cockpits of F-105s and F-15s are certainly not as cramped as
that of the MiG-21 (quite on the contrary: that of the F-15 was definitely
the largest in a one-seat fighter until the appearance of the Su-27), they
are still neither as long nor as wide as that of the F-14. One of the
reasons was the need to squeeze all the 30+ "black boxes" (and these also
include no less but four large displays put into the cockpit) of the AWG-9A
into the airframe: these were distributed ahead, around, and - of course -
inside the cockpit. The AWG-9A simply had a much more volumen (and
capabillities) than the APG-63, and it needed the second crew-member to
operate it.

There is the rub, the second crew-man. The Navy had a dedicated RIO
cadre and seemed to have a lot less difficulty with the two-man
concept than the USAF. The abortive attempt to put pilots in the
stick-equipped back seat of F-4s had left a terrible taste in the
figurative mouth of the AF and the orientation was strictly for a
single seat airplane.

Now, given that, I'll have to argue that the state of the ergonomic
art at the time was that an effective single seat cockpit could be
designed to manage the sensor/weapons suite. Certainly the success of
both the Eagle and the Viper seem to confirm this.


Only
the shock from the appearance of the MiG-25 caused them to let the F-15
become as large as fast as it become, in order to be able to intercept
Foxbats.

Hardly. The Eagle planform was heavily governed by the size of TabVee
shelters. The footprint of the aircraft fits very closely over the
footprint of the F-4. Intercept of the Foxbat was clearly a missile
matter and not one of aircraft performance. Early detection, long
range weapons and good intercept geometry were paramount. The speed of
the F-15 both initially and in the end product closely parallels the
top speed of the existing front-line fighters--just a bit over M-2.

The footprint was of course to fit that of the F-4. But from what I read
about the history of F-15's the original idea was rather to get something
about the size of the later F-18, and certainly not planned to fly Mach 2.5.
These requirements were not the specifications that can be found in the
original FX. They were added after the Demodedovo '67, when at some stage
calls became known for the FX to become capable of Mach 3, in order to
directly match the Foxbat. Only resistance from the group that was running
the project kept the dogfighting capability as one of main requirements.

Certainly there were mods to the specs and a capability like Foxbat
would cause some concern. But, there was also the "high/low" mix
debate going on in the bowels of the Pentagon. Some were arguing for
high tech sophistication in small "force multiplier" numbers while
others were supporting the F-5 simple, agile, low cost, deploy in
large numbers concept. Clearly the Eagle went high tech and the
results over the ensuing years support that position. While the F-5 is
everyman's sports car, if you want to go to war for real, take the
F-15.

Ed, hell, you've been the you know better than anybody here how much
attention was the USAF paying to air-combat being a part of the syllabus for
its pilots in the late 1960s - and also most of the early 1970s. The
interest was actually 0. Even such immensely important projects like
"dogfight Sparrow", Combat Tree and the AIM-9J were only half-heartedly
done....

I'd have to debate the priorities a bit. The speed with which the AF
brought ECM pods, ARMs, RWR and Weasels to the table makes me think
that a lot of stuff was on the front burner. Ditto for PGM
development. The air/air stuff was coming quickly, but arguably might
have taken a back seat to the air/mud because (despite the losses to
MiGs) there was less of a threat from aircraft than SAMs and flak.

AIM-7E-2, the "dogfight Sparrow" was available in '72 when I checked
out in the F-4 and guys had been flying the AIM-7E with interlocks out
for several years already. Tree was deployed for Linebacker and
J-birds were on most of the air/air tasked F-4s. Also, first
production run TCTO-566 LES/TISEO airplanes were showing up in the
summer of '72, so there was some emphasis.

Also, if you don't mind, but if the long-range weapons were one of the
matters considered "paramount", then the F-15 armed with AIM-7Es (F was
still a distant future at the time) was definitely an underdog compared to
both, the YF-12 and the F-14. Actually, until the APG-63 was improved the
F-14 could fire even AIM-9s from a longer range than the F-15...

But, of course, the YF-12 and F-14 were both interceptors and
certainly no one will consider the -12 to be a dog-fighter.

The F-14 was optimized for fleet air defense. It was designed for the
interceptor role. The F-15 was designed as a tactical fighter for air
superiority. There is a considerable difference in the detail of the
two missions. It shouldn't be construed as a question of service
rivalry.

Besides, while the final result of the F-14 became a plane "optimized for
fleet air defense" - this was foremost so by purpose, i.e. how the USN
intended to use it and how it trained its Tomcat crews, not by design.
Originally, the F-14 was designed as a dogfighter, and - despite all the
explanations around - even the F-14A with its nifty TF-30s was superior in
maneuver to the F-15 at anything but high-subsonic speeds.

"anything but high-subsonic speeds" is ruling out where all reasonable
dog-fighting is done! If you aren't doing it at "high-subsonic" speed,
you're going to die in short order. The Tom, just like the F-4B and J
before was typically tasked to take off, proceed to a CAP and orbit
120 miles from the boat waiting to be directed by an E-2C to a threat
inbound. With the Phoenix added to the weapons suite, the air defense
gained the capability to defend against anti-shipping missiles like
Kelt and Kitchen.

Certainly the Tom had a good close in combat capability. I remember
the first encounter I had with one in the Med. I was running against
America at very low altitude and watched the Tom come in against me
from eleven o'clock. As always I was fast and had just told my WSO
that he was no threat and was going to overshoot big-time when the
wings came forward, went all white with condensation and the
bat-turned into my six. I was impressed!

Over the years while I was running exercises for the NATO Southern
Region at USAFE Hq, I handled a lot of USAF/USN exercises and the
outcome of Eagle-vs-Toms was always the same. The Toms got the
long-range intercept credits and the Eagles got lots of video of Toms
with pipper-burns.

(From discussions with pilots that flew both planes, however, it appears
that the F-14 was not as easy to fly successfully in the dogfight as the
F-15 (even if the weapons system of the original F-15A had quite some
problems with the man-machine interface, when compared to the F-14), and
this, as well as different subsequent upgrades in the Eagle cockpit is what
then "made" the F-15 being "accepted as a better dogfighter".)

Tactics were esssential to getting the F-15 success rate up. I was
aware of a distinct difference during the period I was in USAFE Hq
between the Bitburg and Soesterburg units. Bit was very tentative in
their employment while the 32nd TFS was aggressive and creative in
their tactics.

Ditto a couple of years later when I got quite a bit of DACT with the
Eagles while I was flogging an AT-38 at Holloman. While an Eagle 1-v-1
would always best the Talon (or for that matter, an Aggressor F-5E),
when we went 2-v-2, the 49th Wing's restrictive tactics made it easy
for an experienced pair of Talons to get regular kills. (Barring, of
course, BVR Sparrow credits.)

Sorry, but no. The F-16 (actually the lightweight fighter competition)
was to build a replacement for the F-4 fleet. The F-15 air superiority
fighter did the air/air mission and from its inception the F-16/F-17
programs were designed for ground attack. The "complex avionics" of
the CCIP conventional weapons release system were incorporated in the
first production A models.

The CCIP was included in the original weapons system, no dispute. But that
was not what I was talking about. As first, eiher the USAF never completed
separation testing for the Mk.82/83/84s on F-16s, or it never revealed the
results of this to quite a few of its foreign customers. Don't know what was
the reason, but I've heard several Israelis and the Dutch complaining they
had to complete the job (and this as late as the late-1980s).

Don't know what their problem was, but with the Mk 80 series LD/GP
bombs being the primary conventional munition and with the expressed
preference in the period for "smart system/dumb bomb" technology, I
can't see that being possible. In fact, Osirik was 1981 and the
Israeli seemed to do OK with Mk-84 dumb bombs coming off cleanly!

As second,
what I meant with "complex avionics" was certainly not the CCIP-mode: that's
something even the F-14A has got almost 20 years before any kind of
"Bombcat" thinking became known within the USN. "Complex avionics", IMHO, is
such stuff like APG-66-modes enabling the support of AIM-7s, and then
especially the LANTRIN, HARM-compatibility etc...

No question there, that AIM-7 capability and the LANTIRN suite were
complex capability enhancements.

Bear in mind, Ed, that most of the youngsters today run around thinking the
F-16 was originally designed as what such versions like Block 40/50/60 are
today - which was definitely not something ever dreamed about in the early
1970s.

Gotta agree 100%. Of course, I also can't imagine running around with
everything you say and do being recorded on video from start to
shutdown....coulda been embarrassing!