Octaflugeron? Is that what happened to me on my first T6 solo ride
when I tried my first loop, way ahead of the syllabus? It was going
well until the amount of back stick I was holding disagreed with the
amount of airspeed left and suddenly I'd completed a very abrupt and
uncoordinated immelmann involving about ninety degrees of ehading
change.
BTW multiple targets in the 104A were no problem - if it was chaff the
bogey was up at the front of the parade. If there was more than one
airplane you took them in order. Note that the bird and its weapons
were optimized for stern attack, and it could catch anything flying
back then. It was not a completely IFR interceptor but it was amazing
how well it coped with thin clouds. The missile seekers were
boresighted with the radar so they would growl when they saw enough IR
- all you had to do was boresight the radar on the target - that is,
have it painting a complete circle in range track mode, and the AIM9
seekers were lined up on him. In addition, if the viz was anything at
all, the IR scanner would show a cross and the intersection was where
his tailpipe was. on a multi-jet, in close, you got a vertical strobe
where each engine was, in close. Only 4 on a 52 because it couldn't
resolve the paired exhausts. Using the IR scanner you could shoot a
blacked-out target at night because all you had to do was fly the
pipper onto the intersection of the strobes and with a radar lockon,
check the range (in guns it read out in feet; in missiles, miles) and
shoot. Well thought out, simple, reliable, accurate. Why did we not
clone Kelly Johnson?
Walt BJ