On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 19:07:43 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

If memory serves, the Crusader had a single bulge -- one side only --
because its otherwise quite skillful designers had somehow neglected to
provide space for a retractable flight-refueling probe, and somewhere
between the design freeze and the production order, the USN decided to
insist on having one.

That doesn't make sense, as (IIRC) most USN aircraft of the era simply
laid the probe alone side the fuselage with little attention paid to
aerodynamics at all. That bulge is quite a bit larger, and in the
wrong position anyhow.

The external probe is for airplanes like the A-6, not for the
fighters. The F-8 went Mach 1.4, so there's no way they'd put a fixed
external probe on it.

It might be the gun, though.

You can see more photos of the SCW and the F-8 DFBW in the gallery at
www.dfrc.nasa.gov if you're interested.

If there is a photo of the F-8 DFBW with a fuel probe, that's not the
real thing. That's an F-4 probe tip stuck onto a dummy probe. I was
doing a study of the PIO suppressor filter, the one we came up with
for the Orbiter after ALT-5, using the F-8 DFBW because we wondered
how it would work in high-performance aircraft.

I wanted a high-gain, repeatable precision task, so aerial refueling
was a natural. The tiny detail that we'd taken the F-8's probe out
and used its space for computer equipment meant we had to come up with
a substitute. So we built the dummy probe. It's nice to have all the
shops and skills on site.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer