Lars Larson Trying to Help OR NG home for 2 weeks of leave.

"Bill Shatzer" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 7 Mar 2004, Brian wrote:
"Bill Shatzer" wrote in message

This is true in a perfect SAGE environment with the waves of bombers
heading
your way straight and level.

In what other mode would you suppose enemy bombers might be invading
the
skies of Texas?

The Oregon ANG mission has been intercept for over 30 years....but for
some
strange reason, they still practice close in dogfighting skills.

Do you suppose they genuinely expect to intercepting Bears coming over
the pole?

No, but they are still practicing it.

The F-102 was designed for one thing and one thing only and certainly
wasn't capable of anything resembling a "dog fight". They tried 'em
in Vietnam for a couple monts and quickly withdrew 'em.

So it must've been easy, eh? Not much harder than the private aircraft you
flew?

I doubt the Texas ANG spent a lot of time practicing dog-fighting
with its F-102s. Not that the Delta Dagger was much capable of
dog-fighting in any event. Iffen it couldn't pop 'em with it's
AIM-4s at five miles, it better run for cover 'cause a dog-fight
is NOT where you want to be in an F-102. Hell, the F-102s didn't
even have a gun and the Hughes AIM-4 Falcon was notoriously
ineffective
against aircraft smaller than a Bear which were actually capable
of manuevering.

Just because the mission is intercept doesn't mean you don't practice
other
stuff. Our own Oregon ANG flys out twice a day and usually does training
on
intercept and dogfighting. Why would they do that if all they really
need to
worry about is a wave of bombers?? F-14's mission was pure intercept but
since it's fleet intro, they've been putting the thing into dogfights.
I'm
sure in 30 years your offspring will be saying President X wasn't really
a
pilot because he only flew F-14's and everyone knows the pilot barely
flew
them.

Iffen an F-102 was an F-14 or F-15, you might have a point. It wasn't
so you don't.

So F-102's didn't practice ACM?

Flying an F-102 was but slightly harder than flying a Mercury capsule.

So why did they train a pilot to fly it? I mean c'mon! It flew itself right?