Warthogs!!!

[Ombligo]

^^^
I'd add the F-111 Aardvark to that list.

Designed to be a superior fighter and a bomber - it did neither well.

[Panopticon]

Ombligo wrote:
^^^
I'd add the F-111 Aardvark to that list.

Designed to be a superior fighter and a bomber - it did neither well.

Yep, a real stinker except for the EF-111A Raven recon variant.

Funny thing is the Soviets borrowed the F-111 design and voila,
the Sukhoi Su-24 is still in Russian AF & Navy service.

[Uncle Wig]

Ombligo wrote:
^^^
I'd add the F-111 Aardvark to that list.

Designed to be a superior fighter and a bomber - it did neither well.

Agreed, although the Australians seem to like them. They were only recently retired. I'm not sure what they actually did with them, besides dump fuel and light it up with the afterburners!

[freeradical]

I can't believe that the F-4 is considered a great aircraft. It was a turd. It was primarily an interceptor that could really only shoot missiles. It had no dogfight capabilities. I was stationed at Kunsan A.B. Korea when F-16's arrived to replace the F-4's that we had. The F-16's and F-4's flew together for awhile until the F-4's were sold off to some third world country that wanted a "fighter". The F-16's flew rings around the dog tired F-4's. It was truly amazing. An F-16 could go screaming down one side of the flight line area and do a 180 and head back the other direction, while an F-4 basically needed the airspace of the entire air base to pull off that maneuver.

[Uncle Wig]

The F-4 is on all the "great plane" lists because it has been so adaptable. True, it was not a great dogfighter (although it participated in a very famous dogfight with a MiG-17 over Vietnam - I forget who the pilots were). It was designed at a time when the prevalent thinking was that dogfighting was a thing of the past, when speed and missiles were it. It's the only airplane I can think of to have successful careers with the Navy and the Air Force. It worked OK as a fighter, and as a bomber, and as a recon platform. None of the other fighters of it's generation were able to do that.

It's not really fair to compare the F-4 and F-16: different generations and different design philosophies. Better to compare it to the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter which almost made my turd list. As neat as it was, the F-104 couldn't do anything well except intercept. And ask the poor German AF how treacherous it was!

[decay]

i keep thinking of Track 5.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFUIOXbv0tQ

[Racer X]

One of us had to do it Dave.