Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire most "flyable" cold War transonic jets?

I agree, and I like 106’s too. Very sleek and fast!

It wasn't until years after I graduated from pilot training that I learned that the T-38 Talon was designed to have near- F104 landing characteristics - which were eye watering. The theory was that if you could land the T-38, you could fly anything the Air Force had. Giving a plane that hard to land to student pilots may have been a bit ambitious, but all of us who got that far in training survived it. If you look at a T-38 you can see the resemblance: long sleek fuselage and itty-bitty wings. Yeah, it was a rocket to fly.



If I remember correctly, you held about 85% power on final and 190 knots, and it touched down/stalled at 165 knots.

I’d like a A-4 Skyhawk. Small , nimble , and simple. I remember the Blue Angels flying them when I was young.

Wasn't it a T-38 that one of the astronauts used to eliminate himself and another astronaut from the program (and life) as well as taking out part of a hangar in St. Louis?

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the F105 Thunderchief.

If I remember correctly the landing problems of the F-100 and F-104 had to do with landing speed and stall speed being so close together. The plane response was mush at landing speed so inputs were vague and response slow. It was very easy to get the plane turning way too much and bleeding airspeed. A couple of over corrections and your airspeed dropped past stall speed and the plane dropped out of the sky.

I always kind of liked the A-5 Vigilante. Huge plane, remember one crashed into the island of the Forestall in the Tonkin gulf.

It was. NASA still flies T-38s as astronaut trainers and taxis. And as photo chase planes at Edwards.

T-38s are about to be phased out from pilot training, or already have been. They had a 50+ year run at that job and the airframes are getting pretty tired.

Somebody up above asked about the F-5 and F-20. The F-5 was a single-seat version of the T-38, with some basic weapons capability. It was used as an export fighter to Vietnam and some other smaller countries but never adopted here. The F-20 was a single-seat and single-engine version of the same, with much improved performance, better weapons, and a decent radar. It was never bought by the AF at all and they only made a few demonstrator copies. You can WIKI both of them for more detail.

I had a 1500+ hours flying mostly ACM in three versions of the A-4 and it was a lot of fun. The cockpit was a little tight for “fat a$$e$” but it was agile and had simple systems. We normally launched with a 5800 lb fuel load and landed with less than 1000.

Of the a/c I flew the F-14 was by far the most complex as far as systems go. Lots of system interfaces that could get you in trouble if you didn’t know your stuff. The TF-30 engines were known for being prone to compressor stalls especially if you tended to be a little ham handed with the throttles. Flying the Tomcat around the ship was less stressful than in the F-4 because it carried more fuel and didn’t burn it as fast. We normally launched with 20,000 lbs of fuel and would land with 3,000-4,000 depending on what ordnance we were carrying. IIRC max endurance fuel flow was 2400-2500 lbs/hour per engine. It’s a huge a/c but at the same time pretty agile. It was hard making it look nice coming aboard the boat because all the control surfaces were moving at the same time. That’s why you’ll sometimes hear it called “the Turkey”.

I think my favorite though was the F-4. I had over 1000 hours in three versions (N’s, J’s and S’s) and it wasn’t as agile as either the A-4 or the Tomcat but there weren’t many “gotchas” in the systems as in the Tomcat and the J-79 engines were just about bulletproof. We were practicing night landings at Cubi Point, Philippines and happened to suck one of those huge bats (as in Crocodile Dundee) down the right engine. After we shut down and were getting out of the jet one of the plane captains yelled, “what did you hit sir?” He put his flashlight down the intake and there was a big bat wing stuck on the front of the inlet guide vanes. The rest of the bat had gone through the engine 😳. When the mechs borescoped it....no damage! The later versions (J79-GE-10-B’s, IIRC) weren’t smokers and the F-4S’s had maneuvering slats and a much improved weapons system,, radar, etc..Mach 2 was doable if you executed the profile precisely with no tanks or pylons.

I think I learned more about operating around the ship in the Phantom than in all the others because we were always sweating gas on a 1 + 45 cycle (launch to land). We normally launched with 18,500 lbs of fuel and max landing weight was 3000-3500 lbs depending on our ordnance load which was usually 2 Sparrows and 2 ‘Winders. Max endurance fuel flow with that load was 6000 lbs per hour or 100 lbs/minute. At night if we were working blue water ops (meaning no divert available) we were “trick or treat on the ball” so if we boltered we went right up to the recovery tanker to take a little more gas and try again. If you didn’t learn all the little tricks to manage and save your gas you could get in trouble really quickly and have some rather unpleasant conversations with the captain of the ship and/or the CAG.

Fascinating! I cannot even imagine doing any of that.

If money was no object it would be a Phantom or a Tomcat. I want to leave big greasy streaks in the sky.

My understanding on the F-104 Starfighter is that it was a fairly dangerous airplane. In fact, when the US sold some to the German Air Force, a part of the deal was that some of the systems had to be made in Germany and that gave rise to the company whose systems (one of which) I support. I find that interesting because one of the first model airplanes I ever built was an F-104C. I always thought it was the toughest looking jet ever. At any rate, the German F-104 program became quite controversial because it seemed to kill a pretty impressive number of German Air Force pilots.

I saw an F-104 take off at NAF Sigonella one day in about 1979, and holy mother of g*d, that thing wade the most impressive jet roar I have ever heard. The thing got airborne, pointed its nose at the sky, and was out of sight in about 30 seconds. MOST impressive!

If I could buy a Cold War era jet to fly around, I think it would be an A-4 Skyhawk. I saw one doing snap rolls at NAS Memphis back in 1976 and it made a lasting impression.

Truth is, I don't know [bleep] from shinola about flying any of them. I'd probably ask one of the naval aviators here if I inherited a few million dollars to do whatever I wanted with.

I think I learned more about operating around the ship in the Phantom than in all the others because we were always sweating gas on a 1 + 45 cycle (launch to land). We normally launched with 18,500 lbs of fuel and max landing weight was 3000-3500 lbs depending on our ordnance load which was usually 2 Sparrows and 2 ‘Winders. Max endurance fuel flow with that load was 6000 lbs per hour or 100 lbs/minute. At night if we were working blue water ops (meaning no divert available) we were “trick or treat on the ball” so if we boltered we went right up to the recovery tanker to take a little more gas and try again. If you didn’t learn all the little tricks to manage and save your gas you could get in trouble really quickly and have some rather unpleasant conversations with the captain of the ship and/or the CAG.

I flew as a Huey crew chief for almost 13 years. If we used 600 lbs an hour we had a hungry bird. It was usually closer to 550 lbs an hour and we could get 2.6 hours out of a 211 gallon bag of JP8. Our top gross weight was 9500 lbs. I have been as high as 10,000 feet MSL but we typically flew at 1000 fee AGL.
kwg

6000 lbs. of fuel an hour.......Wow, that’s hard for my feeble mind to comprehend.
Thanks to you guys for your service and your stories. Being a fan of military aviation, I’ve really enjoyed this thread.

And... in afterburner it’s 1400- 1500 pounds PER MINUTE.

BAE Hawk. Seems like a sensible plane for civilian ownership.

No pilot here, but, I always likes those A-6's. Lot of weapons and/or electronic stuff on those. Just look cool a heck. Someone got a pic of those? Warthog would be cool as fugk also.

Who mentioned sensible? We want fun!!!