Best Fighter For It's Time

"Peter Twydell" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith Willshaw
writes



The Meteor Mk 1 certainly had its flaws too but later marks
were much improved and cleared for higher mach numbers.
On June 14 1946 a Meteor F4 set a world record of
990.971 km / hr . The mach limit for Meteor's in squadron service
was set at 0.8 IRC.

Keith, I'm surprised at you. It was 7 September. 14 June saw the death
of John Logie Baird, the launch of the last Sunderland, and a
significant event in our family, especially for my mother and me.


Quite right June 14 1946 was the date of the first trial of the
Martin Baker ejector seat.

Keith

Ed Rasimus wrote in message Great story. My comments--you can get away with that in training ACM,
but if it were for real you'd have to have "cojones al piedra" to pull
the trick. Assurance that your R-Max is the same for the bad guys
based pm intel takes a lot of confidence. Second, I'm surprised that a
Harrier can stay with a Phantom "in mil power on our diesel J-79s".
Third, I don't think I'd have the faith that my staunch Marine allies
would make the vertical conversion in a Harrier against a Tom in full
blow pursuit of the Phantoms. Finally, your pitch back, acquisition
and rapid FOXing shows a bit of befuddlement from the Nasal Radiators,
since they should have been face shooting you at the same rate.

All that said, it sounds like a bold plan well-executed. My own
experience in low-tech vs high-tech ACM often did the same thing--a
vertical rather than horizontal split of the element. Seems that young
aggressive warriors fixate on the first target and only sporadically
search for the second (despite the training artificiality of knowing
all the players). They search in sweep for the remainder, but seldom
scroll up and down to find the other threat.

Well, it was a while ago - and as any good story, has gotten better in
the retelling - but the gist is correct. The reference to "Mil Power"
was that we didn't go to Idle/Min AB to kill our smoke on the run-in,
instead ran in at a tactical speed that the Harriers (fast little
AV-8Cs not big slow Bs, I think) could stay with, leaving a nice big
smoke trail for the Toms to see! But you are absolutely right about
this being a "training ACM sortie" kind of thing - the whole point was
to find a way to get the Harriers into the fight unobserved, tie up
the Tomcats in a turning fight, then play 7th Cavalry and save the
day. That day the plan worked.

I always felt that a lot of our ACM missions were wasted (probably
unavoidably) on canned setups, predictable 1V1 or 2V2, etc. Good for
practicing basics, but no relation to the real thing, as described in
all the Red Baron reports, WW2 books, etc. Then once and awhile
(usually during some exercise like Cope Thunder or Red Flag) a fight
would develop that would be uncannily similar to "the real thing".
And it usually didn't involve any fancy tactics, just (surprise!)
being at the right place at the right time and catching some guy
looking the wrong way. Case in point - A Cope Thunder in the mid 80s,
huge furball off the coast West of Iba, and we are coasting out from
Crow Valley after dropping some inert Mk-82s on rattan targets. No
real tactics, just stay low, skirt the outside of the furball, and
shoot an F-5 that pops out in front of us. Then back to the deck and
beat feet for home, low on gas as usual. Hardly had to turn at all,
just a quick stab-out lock up and a couple of Fox-1s, then sweating
out the illumination period.

When things get complicated and messy, the fancy tactics are the first
things to go. Then it's a matter of SA, systems knowledge, crew
coordination, and luck - not necessarily in that order!

I guess it reinforces what Dudley has already mentioned extensively
here--the training, experience and quality of the driver will often
compensate for the technology of the system.

ABSOLUTELY!!!!


Kirk

F104 in the late 1950s - no competition. Tofferi won the TAC gunnery
meet back then in a C-model. Here's a tale I got second hand from an
'enemy' pilot. He was flying a MiG21 against USAF fighters in a
serious test back in the late 60s. He saw and engaged an F4 - only as
he closed he saw a F104a (Dash 19 engine) zoom straight up off the
F4's wing - it had been hiding on the wing of the F4 and his GCI
controller of course never knew it was there. He told me he thought
'Aw s--t!" and now he had to fight both an F4 which was diving in and
under him and a 104 he'd just lost sight of. BTW the 21 pilot was a
Edwards test school graduate and when I knew him he was 737 chief
pilot for Air Florida. One of my good friends (squadron mate) was
flying the 104. That guy told me they could run both the 17 and 21 out
of gas and stay out of danger while doing it. At full mil in the
Zipper the 17 couldn't stay with them. .97 on the deck in mil (1.05 at
25000) and the ability to climb away from either aircraft while
sustaining 4G was very handy. FWIW a straight wing will always have
better fuel numbers than any swept wing - and the deltas are fuel hogs
with G's on.
Walt BJ

to go along with Dudley and Kirk I reiterate what I always told my
students - in aviation what you don't now won't hurt you - it will
kill you. And in aerial combat you have to have the facts at your
fingertips. 'Let's see now' won't get it. For the same reason frequent
real intensive maximum performance training is mandatory if you have
to be ready to fight at a moment's notice. And you st be perfectly
honest in your critique of your performance and take remedial action
when you find weaknesses. God (fate, chance, karma, Buddha) has a way
of giving you a no-s--t tac eval every now and then and if you screw
up badly enough . . .
Cheers - Walt BJ