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#11
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) wrote: Sure did. In 1983, in a TF-104G. N824NA, to be precise. Look! It's the "Supersonic Teenager" Mk. 2. Toni LeVier watch out. Mary's at your six. Squeal, Mary, squeal!: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...4757-1,00.html "Boy, this is the most!" squealed Toni Ann LeVier, 18, whipping a Lockheed TF-104G Super Starfighter through the supersonic corridor near Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., at twice the speed of sound. Toni, a Pasadena high school senior and very likely the world's fastest teenager, held a pace of 1,325-1,350 m.p.h., with Dad as her copilot—and Dad is Supersonic Flight Pioneer A. W. ("Tony") LeVier, 50, now Lockheed-California's director of flying operations. With another father-daughter stunt in the offing, a cross-country flight to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Toni nevertheless talks like a girl whose aims are thoroughly down-to-earth. "I want to get my private pilot's license," says she, "but I think I'd rather be a mother than a jet pilot." What they missed in the article was that Toni wanted to have a child by each member of the Rolling Stones. :-D Pat |
#12
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer) wrote: It was built to be a Mach-2 interceptor, not a Northern European fighter or strike aircraft. It was definitely not a knife fighter. Don't get me wrong; I love the Zipper. But, as I said many times before, aircraft can't be all things (except the F-4 Phantom, but that's more the result of P_sub_s). The F-104 had exceedingly high wing loading and that limited its capabilities. At high altitude and Mach, the aircraft was a great bomber destroyer. If the Air Force had used it as a point-defense interceptor against incoming Bisons and Bears...they'd be toast, particularly if the wingtip Sidewinders had been replaced with Genie nuclear AAMs. Lockheed pushed it too far by selling it as the "One lightweight fighter that can do it all". The Lockheed Lancer on the other hand might have been a aircraft that really _could_ do all that competently; as the F-16 does*: http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0236.shtml You could have sold those to NATO hand-over-fist. When F-104s met MiG-21s in air-to-air combat during the Indian/Pakistani wars, the F-104s generally lost. The Lancer could have kicked their ass. *And having crawled all over a F-16 while salivating, I think that aircraft is the coolest fighter outside of the Incom T-65 X-Wing that Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star with. :-D Pat |
#13
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
On May 2, 6:26*pm, "Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)"
wrote: On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:10:49 -0700 (PDT), spacearium wrote: 45th Space Wing commanding officer, Brig. General Susan Helms, herself a former space shuttle and station astronaut, called out the final ten seconds before the charges were detonated on schedule at 9 a.m. EDT, sending an Earth-shaking thunderclap rolling across the Canaveral landscape. Good grief. *I met Susan when she was a USAF Test Pilot School student, down at the far end of the flight line from Dryden. *I got her a flight in an F-104, going along in a chase plane for the HARV. I was just wondering what she was doing these days. [damn caps still not working] the helmses lived a couple of blocks away when i was in high school, and i even delieved their paper for a couple of years. i was 2 years ahead of susie at parkrose sr high (which they unfortuntely tore down about 12 years ago). if i recall correctly, she was one of the first two girls in the air and space class at the school. she wouldn't remember me at all, but it sure is nice when someone from the old school makes good. |
#14
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
In article ,
says... Don't get me wrong; I love the Zipper. But, as I said many times before, aircraft can't be all things (except the F-4 Phantom, but that's more the result of P_sub_s). I'll play the straight man: What's P_sub_s? -- Kevin Willoughby lid Kansas City, this was Air Force One. Will you change our call sign to SAM 27000? -- Col. Ralph Albertazzie |
#15
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
On Mon, 5 May 2008 20:48:41 -0400, Kevin Willoughby
wrote: In article , says... Don't get me wrong; I love the Zipper. But, as I said many times before, aircraft can't be all things (except the F-4 Phantom, but that's more the result of P_sub_s). I'll play the straight man: What's P_sub_s? Excess thrust. Enough thrust to overcome the drag of whatever you could think to hang on the airframe and still be able to maneuver. Mary "The triumph of thrust over aerodynamics" -- Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it. or Visit my blog at http://thedigitalknitter.blogspot.com/ |
#16
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
I think the Pakistani '104 drivers that were shot down tried to engage
Gnats and MiG21's on turning dogfights instead of playing the vertical. Gene |
#17
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
Gene DiGennaro wrote: I think the Pakistani '104 drivers that were shot down tried to engage Gnats and MiG21's on turning dogfights instead of playing the vertical. Gene Trying to play the vertical in a aircraft that's going to fall apart if you throw it into too abrupt of a climb is going to be tricky. :-D One thing that did work against the F-104 was that the J79 in full afterburner was a target made in heaven for a pursuing aircraft armed with IR homing missiles. Pat |
#18
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
On Tue, 06 May 2008 15:32:27 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote: One thing that did work against the F-104 was that the J79 in full afterburner was a target made in heaven for a pursuing aircraft armed with IR homing missiles. ....That, and the fact that it couldn't hold up under a tractor beam. OM -- ]=====================================[ ] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [ ] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [ ] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [ ]=====================================[ |
#19
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
Pat Flannery wrote:
Gene DiGennaro wrote: I think the Pakistani '104 drivers that were shot down tried to engage Gnats and MiG21's on turning dogfights instead of playing the vertical. Gene Trying to play the vertical in a aircraft that's going to fall apart if you throw it into too abrupt of a climb is going to be tricky. :-D One thing that did work against the F-104 was that the J79 in full afterburner was a target made in heaven for a pursuing aircraft armed with IR homing missiles. Pat, With reference to the F-104 and its pitchup behavior, You've got it a bit muddled. The pitchup would occur at an Angle of Attack of about 21 degrees. Note that that's AoA, not flight path angle. In order to generate that much AoA, you've got to be working the wing really hard. Even with the F-104's high wing loading, it won't pitch up unless it's over in the left (slow) side of its flight envelope. Not enough Qbar (Dynamic Pressure) there to rip it apart. I've never heard of one coming apart due to the pitchup. (It would, however, plummet from the sky for several miles before recovering, if it didn't fall into a stable spin.) Note that the F-104 was not the only airplane of its era with these problems. The F-101 was, if anything, worse. The One-Oh-Wonder wasn't helped in that its only effective weapon, the AIR-2 Nuclear Rocket (Genie) was launched from a snap-up maneuver, real close to the edge of the pitchup. In quoting the F-104's war record, especially with reference to the Indo-Pak wars of '65 and '71, remember that both sides took prevarication to astonishing levels. There is no way that any reports in the popular press can be relied on. The ACIG database http://www.acig.com shows that Pakistani F-104As with 4 confirmed kills, 3 in the '65 war, vice 1 loss (To a Mystere IVA), with 2 unconfirmed (by India) claims, and 1 confirmed kill and 3 unconfirmed claims in the '71 war, vice 4 losses, all to MiG-21FLs. The Indian government is notorious for not admitting losses. Note that these were all early "small bore" F-104As with the J79-GE-3 engine, which by 1971 was beyond tired - The USAF had replaced that engine in their A models with the J79-GE-19, with about 3,000# more thrust, and giving out of this world performance. The MiG-21, with its high drag (low PsubS while pulling G) was even more dependant on using its afterburner while maneuvering, with the extra problem of not carrying much in the way of gas. (According to Dave Sutton, who got hist MiG-21U from Burlington VT to central NJ with only 3 fuel stops, a MiG-21 has grounds to declare a "low fuel" emergency as soon as the wheels leave the ground. Oh - and as for your previous comment that the wingtip AIM-9s could/should have been replaced with AIR-2s - Man, do you know how _big_ the Genie was? you're talking about scraping them on the ground in a crosswind. There was a program to fit an AIR-2 on an extendable ventral rack. This wasn't implemented due to the lack of space in the airframe for the bigger radar and extra computers required to compute the launch parameters for the weapon, and properly program its time fuze. The rack equipped F-104A was tested as a platform for launching high altitude sounding rockets, and studied as a launch platform for small satellites. -- Pete Stickney Any plan where you lose you hat is a bad plan |
#20
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Historic Cape Launch Tower Demolished (With Video Clip)
Peter Stickney wrote: Oh - and as for your previous comment that the wingtip AIM-9s could/should have been replaced with AIR-2s - Man, do you know how _big_ the Genie was? Not all that big, I've seen one close-up (inert). (I don't think many people knew that Fargo, N.D. probably had nuclear weapons out at Hector Airport when the NDANG was using the Voodoos.) It was 9' 8" long and weighed 882 pounds. I wasn't going to hang them on the wingtips, but on pylons under the wings, like the bombs were carried on. Since one of the weapons a F-104 could carry was the 1,323 lb Kormoran missile, the Genie is easily within the F-104's carrying capacity. you're talking about scraping them on the ground in a crosswind. There was a program to fit an AIR-2 on an extendable ventral rack. This wasn't implemented due to the lack of space in the airframe for the bigger radar and extra computers required to compute the launch parameters for the weapon, and properly program its time fuze. That would have been a problem. The rack equipped F-104A was tested as a platform for launching high altitude sounding rockets, and studied as a launch platform for small satellites. I've seen artwork for the satellite launch mission. The sounding rocket version was ALSOR. Pat |
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