For those who love flight - Battle of the X-Planes (1 Viewer)

[BrianW]

I noticed this thread too late and read it in envy knowing that I had missed the episode. But I discovered this past weekend that my TiVo had recorded it as a suggestion, so I got to watch it after all. Even my wife watched it with interest.

Both my wife and I couldn't believe how the Boeing employees went on strike with a $200 billion contract at risk. I didn't know that had happened.

The best thing I liked about the episode is that it reminded me of a really high-budget episode of Junkyard Wars!

 

[Eric Kahn]

there were also political motives behind who won the contract
Boeing, at the time the contest was concluded had billions of dollars in contracts for airliners and Lockheed was basically going belly up without the fighter contract, Lockheed no longer makes any commercial airliners

Boeing's production version (the one without the delta wing) would have equaled the Lockheed fighter in performance and been cheaper to purchase, they even said so in the show but they were to far along with the delta wing prototype to build the other version

the main problem we have with our "fighters" is that they are no longer true fighters, they are multi-roll aircraft and that makes them bigger than they have to be so they can do everything, that also makes them expensive

the last true interceptor aircraft that was made was the F 104 star-fighter, it was small, very fast. very agile, and most people do not realize that it was produced into the 80's.
its drawbacks by "modern" standards are that it could not carry bombs, only had a 30 minute endurance, as originally designed, it was armed with 2 missiles only and it took Lockheed years to figure out how to put a cannon in it.

I think it is funny that the stealth "fighter" is only used as a bomber and not as a fighter at all, it should be the B 117, not the f 117

 

[Eric Kahn]

sorry double post

 

[Michael*K]

most people do not realize that it was produced into the 80's

But it wasn't produced for use by the United States. Add to the drawbacks of the F-104 that it was totally unmaneuverable and was dead meat in any dogfight. That said, it's a pretty sexy aircraft to look at. Love seeing them at air shows.

 

[Eric Kahn]

Michael*k

lockheed actually did tests against the then hot fighters, the F14 and F15, the F104 actually came out on top inmost of the dogfight tests with military pilots because it was more manuverable and faster, what killed it here was the fact it could only carry 2 missiles and one cannon because it was only designed to be a scramble interceptor, not a fly somewhere then fight plane

but if you want to know the truth, the U2 spyplane is an F104 with really long wings, a smaller engine and no weapons

 

[Kirk Gunn]

Food for thought: A friend that is an engineer in the show claims this is the last manned fighter. They've already had an unmanned drone fly from San Diego to Australia and back. They also used an unmanned drone for recon during the recent DC Sniper attacks.

Air Warfare is changing dramatically.

Any ideas on when this will be re-broadcast ? My friend was in the second half and I missed it !

 

[Michael*K]

lockheed actually did tests against the then hot fighters, the F14 and F15, the F104 actually came out on top inmost of the dogfight tests with military pilots because it was more manuverable and faster

Imagine that. A plane's manufacturer running tests against the top competition and finding that it's own bird comes out on top.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Kirk: The rebroadcasting is due in part to your local PBS affiliate. We have four PBS stations in Los Angeles. The primary one, KCET-TV Channel 28, rebroadcast this fine documentary yesterday. I watched it again, too. As for this plane being the last manned fighter, that's what current military doctrine calls for. But I wonder how the real-life drama will play out? We shall see. JB