The Greatest Fighter Jets of The 20th Century [4K] | The Greatest Ever | Spark

fighter planes are the sharp end of the world's air forces over time they've evolved into the most sophisticated and eye-catching killing machines ever designed by man so tighten your harness check your six and keep your eyes peeled for the 10 greatest fighter planes ever [Music] [Music] more [Music] coming up on the greatest ever we're on the hunt for the world's ultimate fighter plane there's something cruel and mean and nasty about fighter planes but they're also balletic superb and beautiful these fighters will be judged by their firepower maneuverability historical significance sheer aesthetics and special design features like swept back wings multiple wings and even the ability to hover to help us on our quest we've got experts like best-selling military author tom clancy fighter plane is an aircraft that controls a block of air and denies use of that block of urgent enemy pilot and aircraft collector kermit weeks in the case of any fighter airplane the pilot literally becomes part of that airplane you're watching the greatest ever we'll get up close and personal with the 10 greatest fighters will also meet the combat pilots who know these fighters like nobody else he's a very good girl we'll see what kind of punishment these planes can take and we'll put you in the cockpit of a modern fighter 99 boredom and 1 sheer terror and show you what air combat feels like so who could reach that level was a god and when all is said and done you'll know which one of these planes is the greatest fighter of them all we start with the number 10 choice of the greatest ever fighters it's baghdad 1991 this bad boy gains star status thanks to its unique ability to remain undetected by enemy radar it's the unmistakable f-117 stealth fighter the nighthawk it swoops in reigns death upon its prey before they know that they are there and hopefully is able to get out before the bad guys know what hit them there's a lot to be said for being invisible on a battlefield if the other guy doesn't know you're there you can do lots of bad things to him and he can't see you so you're safe the stealth fighter is a beautifully sinister aircraft in modern film terms of course it would be i guess it's the plane that darth vader would like to fly in star wars you know if he had an escape aircraft to get out of his imperial airship flying the stealth is awesome the driver is called to black jet and they're also the saudis called the shaba which means ghost the greatest ever got unprecedented access to this jet which has seen action in panama bosnia and iraq many facts about the stealth are still secret it has an unconfirmed top speed that's close to the speed of sound mach 1 or 1200 kilometers per hour and it can carry some 2 300 kilograms of bombs first impressions of this intimidating jets can be misleading even for pilots walking up to the jet it has so many odd type features that you would not think it would want to fly the odd thing about the stealth unlike other fighters there's nothing smooth or streamlined about it it's all radar deflecting angles it's like in design terms it's like a wonderful piece of japanese origami it's like the designers have taken a big sheet of paper or card and folded it in many angles to create this wonderful shape was it origami or were there darker forces at work the greatest ever got into the thinking behind the diamond-shaped stealth with alan brown the jets chief engineer at lockheed's mysterious skunk works to make the diamond fly we had to do black magic really a diamond-shaped fighter is the ultimate radar evading design but how do you make a diamond fly and one of the things you can do is start chopping off bits off the back of the of the tail and now i'll finish up with something that looks more like this and we can put a cockpit in the front of it and some inlets and now this starts looking like an airplane starting with the diamond we took a lot of the parts from other airplanes the engines were stolen literally off the f-18 production line the navigation system came from a b-52 and so on brown and his team conjured up the stealth and neutralized 50 years of radar technology the multiple angled shape of the jet ensures that enemy radar signals are bounced away and not back to the enemy making the plane invisible it's all about fooling enemy radar a typical fighter has a radar cross section of about five square meters the stealth is less than 0.01 square meters the size of a small bird virtually undetectable by radar the nighthawk is also covered in a top-secret radar absorbing material that helps confuse enemy radar [Music] so they made the plane invisible but the next problem was how to make the pilot invisible so the thing that we have to do is coat the canopy glass in some way with a metallic shield a little bit like a highway patrolman sunglasses so he can look out but you can't look in making a plane that's almost invisible to enemy radar has several drawbacks not terribly fuel efficient the nature of the design makes for uh it makes for the fact that gobbles up gas the stealth has a range of 1200 kilometers and that means topping up the tank on a regular basis when it's on a long mission and a bigger fuel bill isn't the only drawback of this fighter's unique shape it's also more susceptible to bad weather icing is an issue for this aircraft it is considered an all-weather fighter however the same unique shapes that help us to have a low radar cross section unfortunately work as ice picker uppers if you will so we have to be very careful in what kind of weather that we fly to and we typically like to stay under clear skies the remarkable nighthawk can run and it can hide but surprisingly it can't fight air-to-air making it a contentious choice for the greatest ever it's not really a fighter to bomber it drops bombs those carry guns or missiles at least not that i know of so why is the stealth classified as a fighter by the us air force no self-respecting fighter pilot is going to fly an airplane which has a b designation like a bomber so of course it was called an f but it's not just called f for pilot vanity there is another more pertinent reason the aircraft maneuvers very much like a fighter however the f-117's primary mission is to drop bombs so one would have to make their own assessment of what a definition of a fighter is as far as the greatest ever is concerned the real fighter needs to be able to mix it up with other fighters not just drop bombs that's why the stealth is relegated to number 10 on our list of the greatest ever fighters we've got nine more awesome fighters coming your way including the plane that can land like a helicopter the nighthawk claims the number 10 slot in our search for the greatest ever fighters and it would be just plain wrong not to include on our list the number 9 pick the red barons famous dr-1 the triplane it's an unfortunate name when you think about it it's a prussian knight you know from the north of germany on his horse and his helmet with plumes flying in the stream of the feathers flying in the wind that's the tribe playing it with pilots like baron manfred von richthofen at the controls this classic world war one german fighter brought terror to the hearts of allied pilots the baron chalked up many of his 80 aerial victories in this fighter and it's no surprise really the dr-1 was the fastest climbing and most maneuverable fighter of its day it's not elegant it's not beautiful but they're just cool it's simple it's efficient it does what it needs to do everything has a place it all fits in that space single winged fighters were still in their infancy during world war one and biplanes were the design of choice as they could take the harsh gravitational forces of aerial combat but if two wings were good engineers reason 3 should make the dr-1 even better and they were right the extra wing allowed the plane to climb higher and fly faster the whole purpose behind the three wings on this airplane was that it create lift and be able to climb quickly aerial combat back then basically the higher you the faster you can get above somebody then you could use the momentum coming down to attack them and get back up high and do it again with its phenomenal climb rate the dr-1 could reach 3000 meters a full three minutes before its mortal enemy the two-wing sopwith camel when the dr-1 was rolled out in 1917 it wasn't just its superb wings and a top speed of 185 kilometers an hour that made it an awesome fighter it also had machine guns that actually fired through the propeller arc a revolutionary world war one innovation it was dutch dr1 designer anthony fokker who figured out the secret to firing through the prop he designed the interrupter or synchronization gear that allowed machine gun bullets to pass between the rotating propeller blades and not through them basically all the interrupter is it's a cam that runs off the engine it just interrupts so that the gun will not fire when the propeller is in front the dr-1 was a deadly combination of guns and wings but it wasn't perfect an aerodynamically unstable design it never wants to fly straight and level a pilot can never ever let go of the controls the airplane when you first fly it you go oh my god there's something that's not quite right it tends to wallow around a lot so if you let go of the controls they don't really go back to a neutral position like you would expect on most airplanes this highly unpredictable fighter will bite the unwary and keeps experienced pilots on their toes it is a ground looper that's why they have the uh what we call the axe handles out on the wings because the pilots i think on a regular basis would come in and land and get the airplane up on a wing and they put those out there to keep from breaking the wing off it's tricky every time i get into it i don't know what's gonna happen the iconic focker dr-1 is arguably the most recognizable world war one fighter and it will forever be linked to the red baron the most famous ace of all time but this highly unstable fighter is definitely not pilot friendly that's why this mother of all fockers is number nine on our list of the greatest ever fighters the number eight fighter on our list made a rather spectacular and infamous appearance on december the 7th 1941 the mitsubishi zero wave after wave of enemy planes bombed american aircraft and units of the pacific fleet in a treacherous attack which achieved perfect tactical surprise without the zero fighter uh japan would never have dared a pearl harbor attack it was america's first real look at this lethal dogfighter and it hurt the zero could outfly and out fight anything the allies had the a6m zero fighter uh we which we called the zeke may have been the first real air superiority fighter in so far as it could drive a long way control a piece of aerospace and then go home the carrier-based zero could go further on a tank of gas than any other fighter 3 000 kilometers without a refill power to weight ratio was very good and a very maneuverable and elegant design uh excellent aerodynamics excellent stability it's no wonder this fighter was nimble and quick the zero weighed in at 1800 kilograms a full 900 kilograms less than the p40 warhawk the american aircraft no doubt technology more sophisticated more powerful more heavily gunned the pilots are probably equal in talent and intelligence but that little japanese aircraft all its limitations can turn inside spin round bam bam and knock the tail off the american the zero had an astonishing vertical climb rate of 1400 meters per minute almost double that of the competition in a one versus one staying dog fight it was tough tough atmosphere the plane remained an enigma until the u.s got a lucky break an intact and airworthy zero was captured in alaska in 1942 where they had their test pilots and fighter pilots just fly the hell out of the plane extensive tests reveal the zero secrets the fighters lightweight construction couldn't handle speeds over 660 kilometers an hour or the plane would start to break up once we figured out what it could do and what it couldn't do we tend to gobble them up it could out climb anything the americans had but it couldn't out dive anything because it was too light the american strategy was simple their fighters were far faster they just had to avoid dog fighting and use simple hit and run tactics instead was they kept high altitude dive down hit the zeros and zoom right back up the american tests also found another glitch in the zero's armor it didn't have any the plane's aerial agility came at the expense of pilot protection it was a flimsy airplane it wouldn't take any punishment the japanese philosophically thought that a good warrior is always offensive never defensive well that's fine except what if you get killed then you're neither offensive nor defensive you're just dead to see how weak the zero was the greatest ever decided to bring out some serious firepower and put its pilot protection to the test american world war ii pilots had their backsides protected by thick armor plate as you can see it does stop the round you could get fragmentation inside the aircraft which would cause secondary fragmentation to the pilot but it does offer protection just very heavy zero pilots had zero protection this thin plate of aluminium is all that separated a zero pilot from eternity taking four rounds it would go through the skin as you can see and seriously enter the body of the pilot but zero pilots never wavered when it came to pilot protection even toward the later parts of the war these zero pilots did not want armor plate or anything that added unnecessary weight to their aircraft and their philosophy was you know just kill or be killed towards the end of the war zeroes were turned into flying bombs landing safely was no longer required and then it just became a death trap and a lot of zeros ended up as being kamikazes which is a very good use for an airplane [Music] ending the war as a suicide bomber and leaving its pilots unprotected is why this flying ninja is checking out in the number eight slot on our list of the world's greatest ever fighters [Music] number seven on our list of the greatest ever the fighter with a split personality it hovers like a helicopter and flies like a fighter the harrier jump jet it's a tremendous aircraft it really is yeah traditional jet fighter needs 10 000 feet we can put it down literally anywhere that's got to make it one of the greatest fighters in the world the noisiest damn airplane i've ever seen it's a good airplane and the royal navy the royal air force the united states marine corps made good use of them the harrier was first flown in the 1960s and has continued to see action right through to the latest gulf war it was thrust into the public eye during its first taste of combat the falklands war in 1982. it's pugnacious it can really give a good fight you can see that and it proved that of course in the falklands war where it was a hugely successful aircraft royal navy sea harrier shot down 24 argentine jets without a single air-to-air loss the greatest ever reunited raf wing commander tony harper with the actual gr3 harrier he flew in combat it looks exactly the same as it did when i last flew it in in the falklands it still got bits of paint missing in the same places it's nice to see it again tony's most memorable mission saving trapped british paratroopers it was during the battle of goose green the paras were pinned down by the argentinian defenders we were tasked at the end of the day to come in and try and deal with some of the artillery positions we found the targets on our first run and we hit them the commander contacted the argentinians and asked me if they'd like some more of that medicine or if they'd like to surrender they decided to surrender the reason this plane is so successful is its versatility it has a decent top speed of 1065 kilometers an hour but more importantly this plane can hover it's difficult to design a plane that's excellent in both regimes hovering and forward flight but if your mission is such that taking off from an unfinished field is an advantage for you as opposed to optimum high speed performance then that aircraft makes sense and the reason it hovers one very powerful rolls-royce jet engine and four rotating nozzles that can blast an amazing 10 000 kilograms of thrust literally giving the jet a cushion of air to ride up and down on whereas some aircraft will have two engines we've actually got four exhausts which is what makes the harrier capable of hovering and to control the harrier when it's in the hover small air nozzles help keep the plane in position we have reaction control valves at all the extremities in the wing tips in the nose in the tail and also on the rudder and from that we feed air from the engine through the reaction controls to in essence provide the stability the harrier may be high-tech and revolutionary and cost millions but the secret of its versatility costs just 100 it's a measly wind vane it helps the pilots keep the jet pointed into the wind this flimsy piece of aluminium is the difference between life and death in the harrier during the critical and dangerous transition from forward flight to the hover the way we counted that is probably the cheapest instrument that we've got on the harrier which is your vein up here as you can see it kicks into the wind but until we get into the hover we need to keep that pointing straight so we're always into the relative airflow pointing directly into it fantastic system very cheap this fighter's ability to hover does however make it easier to knock down in combat the four hot thrust producing engine nozzles are a magnet for heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles to lock onto it tends to be an easy kill for a heat-seeking missile because the the the centroid of the of the heat source tends to be the engine it's a single-engine airplane so if you lose that you're in big trouble if something gets close it's exploding pretty close to the aircraft and if it knocks off one of the nozzles it's just going to be completely asymmetric thrust and it won't fly anymore during the first gulf war five marine harriers were shot down and two pilots died the harrier also has a higher crash rate than other top end fighters mainly because it's very complicated to fly the harrier is a more demanding aircraft to fly than than the average uh fast jet that you will see i mean if you look at a modern fighter between the stick and the throttle there's probably 30 buttons which micromanage all sorts of things and you got to be very you almost have to be a piano player pilot overload is pretty common with this jet at least 45 u.s marines have died in 143 harrier accidents since 1971. you just have to be very conscious of which lever you are moving which incept you're moving at which time because if you move the wrong one in the wrong direction it's easy to get yourself into trouble fairly quickly the innovative harrier jump jet has earned its place in the top 10 list of the greatest ever fighters but its high accident rate combined with a high pilot workload is why the harrier is bowing out at number seven number six on our list the korean war superstar and probably the greatest of all the first generation jet fighters the swept wing f-86 sabre in my opinion out of all the fighters that have been flown the f-86 has all the characteristics you wanted a great fighter the unique look of the f-86 is that wonderful shark-like nose and like a shark its mouth at the front is always open wide open for a reason it's the critical engine air intake it's a long way down there the j47 which is the engine in this airplane uh sabre was every kid's fantasy back in the late 50s uh it's just got sleek lines you know the wings are swept back i don't think they've ever made a jet as pretty as the 86. the greatest ever got air show and retired combat pilot dale snodgrass to put his f-86 through its paces entire saber 86 fox romeo is with you uh and show off the fighters classic swept wing design in the process that's a beautiful day to be in an f-86 flying over the sky the saber forged its formidable reputation in the korean war where it out flew and out fought the comparable mig-15 on an almost daily basis and earned the nickname ace maker to become an ace it takes five combat kills that was a pretty good airplane in its day in the korean war it chewed up a lot of migs and had a about 11 11-1 kill ratio of you know winning to losing against the mig-15 their power was the decisive factor in preventing a communist victory in korea to find out exactly how good this plane was in combat the greatest ever got some air time with korean war f-86 pilot general boots blessed a double ace with 10 mig kills i think the proudest moment of my life as a fighter pilot was when i became an ace flying the f-86 i loved it with a great airplane it turned well and climbed well it was just an easy and a fun airplane to fly the more you flew it the better the more performance you could get out of it the f-86 has got swept back wings and when you sweep wings back you instantly give an aircraft a very very dynamic fast look the f-86 sabre's distinctive swept back wings weren't there just to make the jet look pretty they allowed the jet an incredible top speed in straight and level flight of 1075 kilometers an hour without coming apart at the seams aircraft as they got faster and faster had to tolerate thinner and thinner airfoils that made their wings very flexible and very vulnerable to twisting off by sweeping the wing back you suppress that one of the main features of this revolutionary wing design the performance enhancing wing slats as you come down the wing on both sides you'll see these devices which we call slats they're not mechanically controlled by me or hydraulically control they just fall out and as the airplane slows down and the angle attack increases then they will roll down and what they do is allow you to land the airplane slowly it has an extra benefit when you're in a dog fight it increases the wing area and the airplane turns better with its sleek look and faster design there are also suggestions that this aircraft may have broken the sound barrier before the legendary chuck jaeger there is a rumor that the f-86a xf-86a was actually the first airplane to go supersonic prior to chuck yeager in a dive for top guns like boots bless a breaking the sound barrier in the saber was just a whole lot of fun the f-86 could go supersonic but it had it was straight down with a lot of power and uh they invited us to air shows and we'd go out we called it our boom demonstration team and we'd get up at about 35 or 40 000 feet roll over and we'd come down and everybody we go down everybody go through the speed of sound we break windows in the hangar and everything and everybody thought it was wonderful the swept wings gave it maneuverability but its firepower gave it the real edge in the air the saber was armed with six machine guns it could also carry eight five-inch rockets or 900 kilograms of bombs the guns were actually located here and the ammo was held down here and now these are just that's where i put my bags when i take the airplane to an air show dale snodgrass may use the gun compartment for a luggage locker but boots blesser use the f-86's guns to kill the enemy when you first go into combat i think one of the most exhilarating moments that you'll ever have in your whole life is when when you're up there and you spot an enemy airplane and you start turning a little bit with him and all of a sudden you see his wing drop and he turns around and turns into you and it becomes obvious to you that he sees you you see him and one of the two of you are not going home why is the f-86 number six in our top ten list of the greatest ever fighters it's maneuverable it's responsive it's reliable and it was a great killing platform in its day absolutely in the top 10. the sabre's moment of glory was the korean war but as a first generation jet fighter the f-86 was quickly outclassed by more modern designs and withdrawn from frontline service by the late 1950s it just didn't have the staying power we're halfway through our countdown and so far we've had a fighter that can hover and one that fools enemy radar but still to come a cold war icon and the darling of the raf as we search for the greatest ever fighter so far we've seen five excellent planes but there are five to go before we find out which is the greatest ever fighter up next in the number five position the allied nemesis and the pride of the german luftwaffe during world war ii the messerschmitt me109 it's it's like a racing horse in the air as soon as you are cleared to take off it was an easy aircraft to fly a good aircraft to fly it was a good gun platform it could perform well could turn well could climb well the 109 saw action from the battle of britain to the russian front from north africa to norway as soon as you see a swastika on the plane particularly on the 109 you just think this these are the bad guys coming really that's what it is here comes hitler and the boys and the luftwaffe it just looks so german you know it this was at a time in history where nations had distinctive looks in their products the spitfire was a very elegant solution to killing you the measure schmidt was a very straightforward solution to killing you it looked like it wanted to kill you and killing is what the 109 did a lot of the greatest ever reunited luftwaffe triple a's oscar bosch with the me109 he trained on these fighters and went on to shoot down his share of allied aircraft putting the enemy into the gun site became second nature when the bomb did fit in from wingtip to wingtip into the ark into the circle then you knew you were exactly 400 meters away and that was our time to start by opening fire the 109s top speed of 560 kilometers an hour was close to that of the spitfire but for many allied pilots having a 109 on their tail was a potential death warrant the 109 had our great respect by the same token anything with black crosses on it had our great respect and certainly this is a very excellent fighter aircraft alongside the 109's formidable machine guns the plane also had a very lethal cannon it was actually built into the engine and fired through the center of the propeller the shells were filled with high explosives and carried a much heavier punch than the machine gun bullets making it particularly deadly against enemy bombers it reaches further it is doing more damage and of course it's a heavier weapon and the ammunition is heavier as well during world war ii more me109s were produced than any other fighter designer willie meshesmith's winning formula for this plane's amazing success was to design the smallest fighter he could and hang the strongest engine he could find on the front of it it was designed to be manufactured quickly and easily and that was certainly very successful it was built in uh in sections it was designed to take the engine off very quickly in case they had a problem they could just bolt another one on and send it out but there was a weakness a very lethal weakness it had a nasty habit of crashing on takeoff and landing i think designers optimize an aircraft for high speed and for maneuverability and and so forth and oh yeah by the way it's got a land it was very difficult to handle on the ground because the main landing gear was sort of toe out like that made it very unstable and wobbly as you can see the landing gear is rather tight you know you don't have much control as such in takeoff or for the landing but you have to be a good pilot you must know what is involved chance would not be better than 50 50 that they would crash before you before your airborne almost a third of the 33 109s built were destroyed during takeoff and landing it's no surprise that there's only about one or two of them still flying today the me109 is number five on our list of the world's greatest fighters because more of these aircraft were lost in takeoff and landing accidents than in actual air-to-air combat the me-109 was a good airplane it just wasn't good enough to to win the battle of britain if darwin had a favorite fighter it would be the number four plane on our list the revolutionary and evolutionary f-18 super hornet the f-18 is one of the more lethal airplanes that there is out there and i love flying for that i know if i get into the merge with an adversary airplane that he is going to die [Music] i flew the f-18 or the cf-18 the canadian f-18 from 96 to 99 and i would say that those were the three best uh years of my flying career the f-18 is a multi-role aircraft can drop bombs and kill people shoot airplanes down and kill people the f-18 is probably our leading conventional modern fighter of the present day the greatest ever got up close and personal with the us navy's latest super hornet squadron the fighting redcocks and commander nick mongello our personal f-18 pilot and tour guide i'd be lying to you telling you that it's not fun strapping on a jet that's able to go supersonic and do loops and dog fight and drop bombs and rage around down low that's a lot of fun some planes are fast this fighter is ballistic it's two afterburning jet engines give it a top speed of 1.8 mack or almost 2 000 kilometers per hour the turn rate you could get the nose authority it was just fantastic and i loved it the f-18 is an overachiever when it comes to fighters it can fight air-to-air and hit the enemy with bombs on the same mission convert the flip of a switch from a fighter plane to a precision attack bomber which is not a bad piece of switch hitting the f-18 has been in combat for over 25 years armed with a 20 cannon bombs and missiles the hornet has proven itself during both gulf wars afghanistan and bosnia during operation desert storm hornets flew some 5 000 strikes against the iraqis losing only two jets to enemy fire it's very much heroic imperial america getting out there and kicking ass i can get into the target i can carry a nice array of air to ground weapons drop the bombs on that target and i can go ahead and fight my way out during the first gulf war put his money where his mouth is proving himself in combat when his flight mixed it up with iraqi migs we were basically jumped by two iraqi mig-21s we quickly with the push of a button went from that ear ground master mode to the ear mode detected the migs on our nose at about eight nautical miles the missile hit the mig at about half mile from in front of me and i rolled over the top of him as he was exploding in flames about a tenth of a mile uh beneath me from a time they alerted us to the time we down the nigs was about 45 seconds the two f-18s continued on their mission smashing their targets and returning safely home and believe it or not pilots like are now even more deadly in their new f-18e super hornets case in point his latest bit of high-tech kit a helmet that's a little bit like star wars meets buck rogers this is the joint helmet this is somewhere around the hundred thousand dollar point in this case looks really can kill where the pilot looks is literally where the weapons are aimed all i have to do while i'm in my plane i can be flying that direction is look left i can lock my sensors on in my heat seeking missile onto you and kill you but all the high-tech computer-driven toys can become too much to handle pilots call it helmet fire when there's just too much for the human brain to process the problem comes in is when you're multitasking when you are operating the radar looking at your ford looking infrared or defending against a sam system where you have to use expendables or your jammer so at times you become task saturated you can go ahead and have helmet fires etc and just start to lose it a little bit the hornet is a multi-tasker it operates from land but its natural habitat is the carrier where deck space is tight the plane even has folding wing tips which means more room in the nest for other hornets getting off the carrier means strapping the jet to a steam catapult essentially the world's most powerful slingshot and blasting a single 10 000 kilogram jet into the sky it isn't exactly a hands-on experience for f-18 drivers the flight computer is in control during the launch well during the catapult launch in the f-18 the pilot does not hold on to the stick pilots must place their right hands in full view on the canopy rail before they shut off the carrier basically the airplane will fly itself away at about a 10 degree positive climb rate once the airplane achieves weight off wheels then at that point the pilot can take his hand off the towel rack place it on the stick and continue flying so the pilot is only allowed to touch the controls after the jet is actually flying and if you think that's hard try landing a multi-million dollar jet on a postage stamp size carrier in the middle of the ocean day landings are something that naval aviators will go ahead and volunteer for any time to go out and get a day landing but at night nothing is routine my palms get sweaty when i think about it bad weather night carrier landings are the hardest thing uh to do in aviation within the last 40 seconds of the approach you'll probably make on the average 50 to 100 small engine changes to control my airspeed exactly and my glideslope the name of the game is catching a steel cable on the deck of the carrier with the f-18s tail hook to keep the fighter from going over the edge of the ship when your hook goes across the back into the ship you're plus or minus six inches in in altitude and you're going 135 knots 150 60 miles an hour and you are literally with your knees shaking as you go ahead and land it's pretty intense very intense but the very impressive steroid-enhanced computer-controlled hornet blows past at number four on our list of greatest ever fighters why because the pilot spends as much time dealing with flight computers and weapon systems as actually flying the jet blasting in at number three on our list of the world's greatest fighters is the kalashnikov rifle of soviet fighters the mig-21 mig-21 is a uh is a rocket ship that has a lot of get up and go it was the threat that i trained to for many many years for romanian pilots to fly mig-21 was the top of the you know what was the elite you know so who could reach that level was a god i still dreaming that i'm flying with 21 so yeah i love that plane i i love that this cold war fighter first appeared in the late 1950s named after its designer the mccoyan 21 is today the most produced jet fighter in the world with a staggering 10 000 plus mig-21 serving in some 40 countries during the cold war and over vietnam the mig-21 nato codename fishbed was the jet to watch out for yeah i think the mig-21 was a very very lethal looking airplane it had nice lines on it had good performance and uh handled by the right kind of pilot was a real dangerous adversary the greatest ever caught up with a dangerous cold war adversary romanian mig-21 pilot eugene maxim for the inside scoop on this fighter it was like like a bullet everything it did it did very fast you know it was very very smooth the nicest thing to fly over the clouds the sky you know the clouds like and putting a wing you know inside and it was very cool yeah but what made this plane so cool for the pilots and so special for its foes big engine big after burner and that thing is business i mean you're strapping on a rocket and going for a ride a very fast ride indeed the mig-21 is capable of a searing 2.3 mac or 2 200 kilometers an hour this plane really is all engine and its engine air intake is what gives it that distinctive look i like that tubular fuselage with a diffuser cone in the front it's just no nonsense uh inlet design the strange-looking diffuser cone in the engine air inlet actually moves in and out controlling the flow of air to the engine it's that big spike in the nose of the big 21 that gives away what it's there for it's there as a sort of supersonic battering ram aside from being fast the mig-21 was also resilient and typically russian no fancy shelters for this fighter we didn't have hangers for each plane you know like in america or like in states or west no we kept all the planes outside you know like with two inches of ice on it and and we took off the mig-21 was built tough meaning no refined finishes for this brutish fighter by american standards it was crudely built and the pieces don't all fit together the russians the russians had serious problems with quality control and every soviet weapon i've ever seen the mig-21 was designed to hit the enemy and keep going its small wings just weren't made for dogfighting great high-speed performance but in a turning fight it bleeds its energy very quickly in other words it's not able to sustain its air speed and if the plane was rolled too quickly in air-to-air combat there was often trouble was too easy to roll it if you roll it you know more than 90 degrees per second it was dangerous you could go on outer rotation and it happened hard to handle with its short wings and short range maybe but was it done on purpose i've often wondered if the russians didn't put short legs in their planes liberty to keep the pilots from defecting that's not all that's entirely a joke but every russian airplane i know i've had short legs the mig-21's limited range small wings and poor workmanship put it in the number three position of the greatest ever fighters number two on our list of the greatest fighters ever the unmistakable battle of britain starlet the supermarine spitfire flying a spitfire was like dancing with the most beautiful girl at the mall it's inspirational it's just dropped dead gorgeous from any angle it's the only airplane which reduced my wife to tears a perfect combination of form and function it is so responsive you just feel part of the airplane when you get in sheer beauty sheer bulletic movement in the sky the association of hearts and land and soil and sky and it punched out the luftwaffe at the time that britain was all alone that's quite something a champion of the air-to-air duel the spitfire helped turn the tide during the battle of britain in 1940 armed with eight machine guns it knocked luftwaffe fighters and bombers from the skies the spitfire's performance and aerial supremacy is all down to its wings these elliptical or oval-shaped wings made this fighter instantly recognizable from below and deadly from above the reason behind the beautiful wing design room for the guns a requirement came up for having more guns in the wings and that required a bit more room so the easy way to do that and also get a highly efficient wing was to broaden the wing out in the mid area and make it elliptical another benefit was a very efficient wing with increased lift that allowed this fighter to turn on a dime the spit's distinctive wing shape also meant the enemy could see it coming the spitfire was a beautiful beautiful aircraft but of course the beauty alone doesn't count in the air in a situation of war it's a matter of he is your enemy and he tries he tries to get you down canadian spitfire pilot lloyd berryman was awarded the dfc the distinguished flying cross for taking on german fighters the greatest ever put him back in the pilot seat getting in the cockpit of this spitfire here today that just brings home the 62 years since i've been in this position what a wonderful feeling it is to get inside this aircraft for many of us it was like walking in the front door of our home and we treated this aircraft with great respect and we expected a lot out of this aircraft and it performed for us [Music] it was easy to fly uh and you once you trimmed it up after airborne uh it was indeed just like flying on a cloud flying on a cloud maybe but not for long the spitfire mark ii was a home defense fighter with a limited combat range of 600 kilometers it was supposed to take off hit the enemy and land the obvious disadvantage about the spitfire if you could call it that would be it's a very short range they didn't anticipate at that time that this aircraft would be flying the channel and indeed flying over enemy territory you had to be able to go all the way to germany and come all the way back and spitfires simply didn't have the uh the range problems aside the spitfire is a plane that has an emotional appeal all its own spitfire is one elegant sexy looking airplane and it was one of the all-time great fighters it has to be just look at it small lightweight beautiful bulletic crafted and a machine that really expresses the country it was built for and fought for and a little tiny machine that stood up really with those great pilots to the might of adolf hitler and second world war now come on you can't beat that can you as far as i'm concerned the spitfire is the finest fighter aircraft ever regardless of what anyone else said it was a close call but the spitfire comes in at number two on our list of the world's greatest fighters why because its limited range meant it couldn't take the fight to berlin and back something the fighter in the coveted number one slot did on a regular basis here's a hint like the spitfire it was powered by the incomparable rolls-royce merlin we've gone through nine incredible fighters all that remains on the greatest ever is the number one fighter of all time in the number one slot it's the superlative north american p-51 mustang i've had an opportunity to fly a lot of different fighters in my collection and the mustang has got to be right up at the top probably number one because the fact that it got me through the war saved my life it is a beautiful airplane and the mustang is the greatest fighter ever i was very lucky enough to fly a p-51 mustang in the states um in texas and it is as good as you think it is the mustang had a blistering top speed of 716 kilometers an hour over 80 kilometers an hour faster than the me-109 and no other fighter could touch its ability to go the distance 2400 kilometers the spitfire mark iv was lucky to make it 800 kilometers our number one plane accounted for almost 5 000 air kills more than any other allied fighter and created over 280 fighter aces who better to give the greatest ever an insight into our number one plane than american war hero and triple a's retired colonel clarence e bud anderson the mustang gave me an advantage because i felt like no matter what situation i was in if i was at a disadvantage i knew what to do to break the attack and um and perhaps press on and turn the tables the mustang made its name escorting american bombers deep into germany a mustang could stay with b17s they could go anywhere the b-17s went and bring them home no other allied fighter could fly as high or go as far as the mighty mustang it was historically successful hereman gearing the head of the luftwaffe said when he saw mustangs escorting bombers over berlin he knew then the war was lost from luftwaffe boss hermann goring down to the german pilots they all knew the mustang was the beginning of the end the mustang it was always a frightening sight because you knew you have no not more than a 50 50 chance to be successful or to be killed and racking up enemy kills was something colonel bud anderson became very good at one particular me109 didn't have a chance and i had the old mustang just climbed right up just beautiful just inside and fired a burst i saw a little tracer go by his right wing gave it a little bit of rudder and then caught him right in the middle of the airplane and i could see the wheel well i could see the grease and i could count the rivets i was so close and he just rolled over there from 29 30 000 feet and just went straight down so what gave the mustang its edge in combat it was this fighter's wing design that resulted in its unequal speed maneuverability and range the design of the p51 wing incorporated all the good lift drag ratio features of the elliptical wing of the spitfire without the complication of manufacturing the secret this new wing design was easy to build and provided unmatched lift for its size it was a very high performance airfoil and fortunately it also gave it a a pretty maneuverable airplane it was a great innovation the mustang conceptually was a greatly improved spitfire it had much more legs than the spitfire did but all the other positive characteristics but it was a combination of luck and anglo-american ingenuity that turned the mustang into the greatest ever fighter initially uh the airplane came out with the allison somebody got the idea hey let's try the air the engine out of the spitfire and the hurricanes that engine is what made this a great airplane physically it represented the great alliance between the united states and great britain and that's a wonderful idea that this aircraft really was about joining hands or joining wings if you like across the atlantic and then taking those wings out to take out nazi germany and imperial japan terrific the greatest ever couldn't pass up the opportunity to fire up the mustangs merlin and go flying with ed shipley one of the most experienced p-51 pilots flying today and we give rides every day in this mustang and what we tell people is when you get in this thing it's going to be like taking one of the national monuments out for a ride i mean there's just so much history involved with it it's just it's unbelievable it just it just sends a chill through your spine when you get inside the p51d model is the quintessential mustang fully loaded with six 50 caliber machine guns and the classic bubble canopy the big heavy airplane it was maneuverable enough to do the job and it packed a very heavy punch and just how reliable was the mustang i flew 116 missions that's about 480 hours and 20 minutes of combat flying and never had an abort never turned around for any reason mechanical or weather or whatever the mustang's incredible success as a world war ii fighter is why it remains a coveted plane in the 21st century the thing about the mustang is it's the one airplane that fighter pilots even today want to try well i'm sitting here thinking i'm probably one of the luckiest pilots kicking around and that you've picked 10 aircraft and i've flown three of them but i i won't really consider myself truly lucky until i've been in a p-51 you know i've gotten a chance to fly all kinds of airplanes from corsairs spitfires f-86s and as far as i'm concerned the mustang's the greatest fighter of all time i still fly a mustang today and not just a mustang but a mustang painted just like my old crow that i flew in world war ii and people ask me says you know buddy are you having any fun can i say you know you got to be kidding to ask me a question like that first flown over 60 years ago the p51 mustang with its classic lines and boxes stance is guaranteed its place in aviation history as the greatest ever fighter it's just it's a great airplane mustang is a great great airplane

Channel: Spark

Views: 125,245

Keywords: Fighter Jets, Jet Engines, How to build planes, Jet Fighters, War machines, engineering documentary, building a fighter jet, inventions creativity, gadget geek, automotive photography, technology friday, fighter jet construction, no mans sky, aircraft carrier, aircraft carrier spark, fighters, bombers, moving a building, moving big buildings, technology 2021, construction management, engineering design process, national geographic, engineering mechanics

Id: M4bpTcj44V4

Length: 51min 34sec (3094 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 10 2021

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