You've Probably Never Seen This Plane | Century Series Part 3

[Music] [Music] thank you [Music] the project of building the century series was a particular way of thinking about research development manufacturing and airplanes in service and the shapes of these airplanes are instantly recognizable they are many people's favorite airplanes and they also represent a lot of firsts this is the North American f-100f Super Saver next up the McDonald f-101 voodoo this is the amazing f-102 Delta Dagger this little guy is the Lockheed f-104 Starfighter you're still holding on this is awesome 105 is up next this big monster is the Republic f-105 Thunder Chief it was an internal Republic aviation project to replace their out of date rf-84f Thunder flash a design team led by Alexander cartvelli tried numerous designs but ended up with a large single-engine fighter bomber which was intended primarily for supersonic low altitude penetration to deliver a single nuclear bomb now cart Valley emphasized the low altitude speed and flight characteristics range and payload the aircraft would have a large engine a relatively small wing with a high Wing loading for a stable ride at low altitudes and less drag at supersonic speeds but that came with a trade-off one traditional fighter attribute maneuverability was a secondary consideration now the U.S Air Force loved the new design and awarded Republic a contract for 199 aircraft in late 1952 not much later than that the Air Force canceled the entire program but as things sometimes go less than a year later the Air Force decided to give the plane another try and ordered 15 f-105s of differing models Republic wasn't really happy with their initial design low power and problems with the transonic drag led to redesigning the fuselage utilizing area Rule and it gave the plane its characteristic wasp waste the distinctive air intake allowed for increased airflow and better engine performance at supersonic speeds the f-105b hit Mach 2.15 that's not bad the 105b entered Air Force service in the summer of 58 although it didn't become operational until 59. typically the 105 required 160 hours of maintenance for each flying hour like the B model the D model's early career was full of maintenance problems and in-flight failures in fact the entire f-105d fleet was grounded in December 1961 and again in June of 1962 but many issues were solved through production changes and refit programs now the origins of the nickname thud are thought to come from this dark period some claim it stood for the sound of an f-105 crashing into the ground but the pilots they say it came from the character Chief thunderthud from The Howdy Duty television series makes sense to me now like the f-104 the thud carried a 20 millimeter m61 Gatling type Cannon as you can see it takes up a lot of room and the weight of just the gun was around 250 pounds the feed system added another three to four hundred pounds but with a 6 000 round per minute rate of fire it was worth it the Air Force sent f105s to Southeast Asia in 1964. shortly after that Summer's Tonkin Gulf incident it operated extensively in Rolling Thunder the air campaign against North Vietnam as the war ground on the 105 gradually was replaced by the F4 Phantom and the last 105 retired in July 1980. the last 143 Thunder Chiefs built were two-seat f-105f trainers but in response to the surface-to-air missile threat above Vietnam dozens of f models were converted into anti-radar wild weasel aircraft culminating with this bad boy the f-105g attacks into high risk areas combined weasels with single seat 105 DS called iron hand the weasels suppressed Sam sites while the 105s delivered their ordinance on an iron hand Mission a weasel would allow a samsite to lock onto it it would turn into the radar and launch a shrike which would then ride the radar beam back to the Sam site it was nerve-wracking work but it made life easier for the bomb dropping thud Pilots [Music] this Sleek baby is the convair f-106 Delta Dart it was the final development of the Air Force's 1954 Interceptor program of the early 1950s the competition's winner had been convair's f-102 Delta Dagger but the earlier versions of that aircraft were limited to subsonic speeds and relatively low altitudes a couple of things you don't want in an interceptor but by 1951 the Air Force had turned its attention to an improved version the f-102b now the new model centered on replacing the Pratt Whitney j57 in an early 1955 the Air Force approved the switch to the Pratt and Whitney j75 the 75 was larger than the 57 in the f-102a and gulped a lot more air this meant the changes had to be made to the inlets to allow more airflow which led to using a variable geometry Inlet duct to allow the best performance across a wide range of supersonic speeds now check this out the Ducks also became shorter which is a dead giveaway if you're trying to figure out which plane is which the fuselage also got longer and simplified the wing was slightly enlarged and a new vertical tail was designed combine all this work and you get a brand new airplane the f-106 Delta Dart like the 102 dagger the 106 Dart was designed without a gun or even a way to carry bombs its main Armament was missiles carried in an internal weapons Bay for clean supersonic flight it was armed with four Hues aimed for Falcon air-to-air missiles and a single 1.5 kiloton mb2 Genie unguided air-to-air rocket to be fired into Soviet bomber formations you know it wasn't until the F-117 that aircraft would re-adopt the idea of carrying missiles or bombs internally although it was officially named the Delta Dart that name was rarely used and most pilots and Crews simply referred to it as the six now like the f-102 the 106 was progressively updated in service with improved avionics a modified Wing featuring a noticeable conical camber and an infrared search and track system streamlined Wing tanks provided virtually no degradation to overall aircraft performance better instrumentation and features like an in-flight refueling receptacle and an arrestor hook for landing emergencies were awesome additions air-to-air combat testing suggested the six was a pretty good match for the F4 Phantom in a dogfight with Superior high altitude turn performance and overall maneuverability now the F-15 Eagle replaced the f-106 in 1981 with the sixes typically passed on to Air National Guard units the speed E6 remained in service in various USAF and Air National Guard units until 1988. this aircraft has a really cool story attached to it during a training Mission from Malmstrom Air Force Base on February 2nd 1970 the plane suddenly entered an uncontrollable flat spin forcing the pilot to eject now without its pilot the aircraft recovered on its own and miraculously it made a gentle belly landing in a snow-covered field near Big Sandy Montana after minor repairs the aircraft was returned to service and it last served with the 49th fighter Interceptor Squadron before being brought to the museum in August 1986 that is very cool stuff [Music] finally it's time to check out the North American f-107 it was North American aviation's entry into an Air Force tactical fighter bomber design competition in the 1950s now the f-107 was based on the F-100 Super saber that we saw earlier but included many improvements over that plane and some pretty radical design features check out that over the fuselage air intake how cool is that but more on that later in June of 1953 North American began thinking about Advanced F-100 designs which led to a proposed Interceptor and a fighter bomber concentrating on the fighter bomber they called the f-100b the preliminary engineering and design work focused on an aircraft with a recessed weapons Bay underneath the fuselage and Several Hard points underneath the wings an all-moving vertical fin no rudder and an automated flight control system which permitted the aircraft to roll its supersonic speeds using just spoilers on the wings that's pretty cool for an aircraft of this era now let's get back to the super cool air intake by far it's the most distinguishing feature of the f-107 now what's vade stand for you ask that's variable area Inlet duct and at the time the vade was unique to the f-107a but it's now considered an early form of variable geometry intake ramp that automatically controlled how much air got fed to the engine although the intake was originally located under the fuselage kind of like the f8 Crusader it was eventually mounted directly above and behind the cockpit where it looks much cooler if you ask me the vade proved really efficient in North American used the concept on their A5 vigilante xb70 Valkyrie and xf-108 Rapier designs in August 1954 North American signed a contract for three prototypes and a pre-production order for six additional F-100 bees lots of design changes meant that the plane went from the 100b to the 107a while it was never given an official name it was sometimes called the super super saber but it's also sometimes called the ultra saber I kind of like that one the best now the 107 first flew on September 10 1956 and it hit Mach 1.3 and Mach 2 later in November at the end of the f-107 test program Tactical Air Command decided to hold a fly-off between the 107 and the 105 which were designed for the same Mission and used the same engine now although the competition was close the f-105 won and became tax next tactical fighter the 3107 prototypes were put to work as test beds and the pre-production order was canceled now prototype number one is at the Pima Air and Space Museum and prototype number two this baby was flown to the museum in 1957. that is pretty cool this wraps up our look at the century series which was a fan request from you guys and we really appreciate it keep those requests coming in by the way because that means we get to go to cool places like this and you get to see the content it's a win-win people okay [Music]

Channel: The Museum of Flight

Views: 465,056

Keywords: Museum, of, Flight

Id: 5V9fuh_7Duk

Length: 14min 32sec (872 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023