Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Favorite Jet Fighters:

Yep.

In my late teens, I got to see one real close. My neighbor (eight years my senior) was an Air Force Academy grad and jet jock. He would fly into our area, buzz his family home, land at the nearby airbase and they'd go pick him up. This was before cell phones...

On this day, I was running my Dad's 930 Case tractor, pulling a 15" Terrain King cutter, clipping a pasture. My bud saw me and lined me up with his Mom's house. He let the F-100 slip in from behind me and when he was over me, hit the afterburner. I about had a laundry incident...!!

I remember seeing a "large" red exhaust with heat waves. Now, you know he was pretty low... He then did an 8 point vertical roll, pealed out and headed for the air base.

I recently was thinking about him and thru the Air Force Retired Officers organization hooked up after many years. He put in 20 yrs., retired as a Lt. Col., had a fancy job with a major aerospace manufacturer, retiring again. He lives in Tuscon and was very interested in local neighborhood news, who was still alive, etc. We had a nice visit.

One of his sons, also an Air Force Academy grad, is a Brig. Gen., commanding a major air base. Another son was head of the Fed Swat team that pulled the remaining Boston bomber out of that boat.

Interesting folks, Cajuns nonetheless.

DF

Galland said the engines were only good for 14-20 hours before overhaul. It was the early days, after all.

Glad they didn't have those things operational in '42.

From that era, don't forget the British jets..

The Gloster Javelin had lovely lines and in many respects was a head of its time



And then there was the de Havilland Sea Vixen

no sir. Pure fighter with significant interceptor capabilities, but a FIGHTER in the truest sense of the word. The F-4 in turn was an interceptor, with average fighter qualities. Bit don't mind me, I'm just a VS puke...

Super KOOL! and plusses for the name!

You can run but ya can't hide...

No sure it would ever win any beauty contests, but the English Electric Lightening was another amazing Cold War era interceptor.





Faster than even the Star Fighter or the later F15, the Lightening was one of the very few jets that could successfully intercept the U2..

In trials against the U2, successful intercepts were made up to 66000 feet, although test pilots had flown the Lightening up to altitudes of 88000 feet...

Yeah, I'm a sucker for the look of the Me262, too... in many ways it reminds me of the absolutely gorgeous German sports cars of the 50's, especially the Mercedes Benz 300SL.

The Tomcat, at least those with the big motors, were actually quite capable dog fighters. Get those wings out and the big flat airframe generated a lot of lift at slow speeds. I was fortunate to fly for a year and a half with a guy who was very good. This was the days prior to air-to-ground so all we did was air-to-air. In that year and half we fought hundreds of dogfights against every type of aircraft (F-15C, F-16C, F-16N, A-4F, F/A-18C/D, and others) and he lost only one engagement in that entire time. For reliability purposes we had a limitation on using the flaps during training dogfights, but if you did use them we could turn inside every other fighter once the speeds dropped after the first turn. It was impressive.

Butch, I have fond memories of the F-80/T-33. I flew the AT-33, which was a hybrid model. Think of it as either an F-80 with two seats or a T-33 with bomb, rocket, and gun capability. It was crude even compared to the 60s-era jets I trained in to get my wings. But it was an honest airplane with few faults - but two of those could get you dead pretty quick.

One fault involved the tip tanks. On takeoff, they were so heavy and you had so little aileron control that if a wing dropped, you had to be damn quick on rudder and aileron to keep from going in at a 90° bank. By the time you got flaps and gear up, it wasn't so bad, but it still took a lot of heavy pressure to roll with the tips full.

The second was that huge centrifugal compressor engine. The compressor was so big and heavy that it was VERY slow to accelerate. It could take up to 15 seconds from idle to near full power as the compressor disk laboriously sped up. Pull the throttle too soon on landing and if you needed power after that, you were SOL. We learned to keep at least 80-85% power all the way through the pattern, until the flare. The slow windup also meant you had to keep pace with the throttle and not advance it too rapidly or else you'd flood the combustion chambers with excess fuel and overtemp the engine. You could even burn through the engine walls in extreme cases. No "flooring" that beast!

FA18 Hornet. The fact my brother builds them helps as I've never flown a jet. Closest was a P-51 Mustang I got 1/2 hour flying time in.

I think all of us who did/do fly envy you for that, Jim.

looks like they borrowed some design features from various Migs

Not to be a name dropper but I have been fortunate enough to have several extended conversations with Gen. Chuck Yeager in the past several years. He told me that there was no question in his mind that the F-15 was the best fighter plane built to this point in time.

RS

Not sure about that as the very early concept dates back to 1946.. A little later but still in the early design phase, they brought in a British pilot who had flown F86's and asked for his input..

It was actually nearly cancelled (like so many British products) but it was the success of another English Electric design, the Canberra light bomber, which helped justify it. It seems the Canberra's service ceiling of 50,000 feet turned enough Government heads to prove the need for a high altitude interceptor..

Concur. But when the F-14B (A+) & D came out with the engines they were supposed to have and coupled with the extra set of eyes in the cockpit, I'd pick the Tomcat..

Since the F-4 isn't fighter

The super-model of fighter aircraft; F-104 Starfighter




Best looking fighter today; F-22



Best looking fighter the Russians ever made: SU-27 Series

DING, DING, DING..........we have a winner!

They pretty much are ALL hard not to love...but we each still have our favorites... I love the lines of an F 100, along with the F 86 and just like the P 51, North American sure knew how to build a good looking fighter....

I grew up around F4s.... Love them, they looked badasssed from day one, but never thought they were as good looking as an F100.

And as brought up, the F 106 was also another wonderful and good looking plane....

Good reason it was called the Golden Age of Military Aviation, kind of like Aviations "Muscle Car" era....defintely a wonderful time to be in the Air Force....

and no intention of leaving out the great birds the US Navy employed either....

side note for Pete E.... might be the time I lived in England, but the Lightning was THE fighter plane for the RAF during those times... and a good looking bird on its own. I always considered it another favorite...definitely the "Spitfire" of the 1960s Cold War period.

I tell ya, growing up on Air Force bases in the 50s and 60s wasn't a dull or boring childhood, that's for darn sure... I know Digital Dan can attest to that...he was an AF Brat also...