"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...
In article ZKTUc.25886$Yf6.21127@lakeread03,
"sanjian" writes:
LawsonE wrote:
"sanjian" wrote in message
news:5TFUc.25508$Yf6.18570@lakeread03...
[...]
I'd like to see him survive flying one of the most dangerous
aircraft in US military history.



Not hardly: according to the site referred to, the F-102 was bad
compared to MODERN fighters, but compared to other models from that
time period? It was one of the safest US fighter jet to fly for many
years, at least on average. Given that bit of spin on this site, I'd
take the rest of what it says with a grain or two of salt also.

I'll take the word of the Air Force Colonel who explained the century
series
aircraft to me back in the early '90s. He had few kind things to say
about
the F-102 other than it separates the wheat from the chaffe.

Killfiled LawsonE ages ago, but this made we look up the thread. He's
comparing the F-102 aggregate numbers from the Air Force Safety Center
to, for the most part, the F-80, F-84 and F-86. It should be noted
that indeed, while loss rates for the early jet fighters was rather
high, (but no higher than the recip fighters of WW 2), the numbers for
these aircraft apparently include combat losses in Korea. Numbers for
the later aircraft do not include combat losses. It's comparing
apples to bananas.

That might be, but that was the specific figure that was used by the website
people have been referring to. In the same way, THAT website likely isn't
referring to combat losses of modern US aircraft either since there have
been virtually none in the past 30 years or so (the stats for the F-102
refer to losses between 1953 and 1981 IIRC), so comparisons to modern
fighters' accident rates aren't directly comparable either (and yet the
website referred to made that comparison to make a point about Bush, so
the nyah, etc).

Mind you, I don't think its relevant either way, but it was an example, to
me, of how everyone is indulging in spin (not just Michael Moore) in this
election. The F-102, at least in the website stats I found, had no worse,
and mainly better, an accident record, than other fighter jets of that same
generation, so pointing to its stats as something to crow about regarding
Bush's bravery or lack thereof is kinda silly. He obviously didn't chose to
learn to fly the plane because he thought it was the MOST dangerous, or does
anyone really think that he did?