PHANTOM

[Jeff423]

I knew the Vigilante had a bad rep, which I always thought strange since it was made by North American. The same company that had made the P-51 Mustang, the B-25 Mitchell, the F-86 Saber, and the F-100 Super Saber. All world beater great planes. I guess every company is entitled to one stinker, though the Vigilante did look beautiful.

I don’t know if it was North American’s fault. It was never designed to be a reconnaissance aircraft. By the time it was a “C” it had already been an A and B. I think the Navy was stuck with an expensive airframe when it’s original mission changed. It then had to retrofit all the recon equipment to the existing airframe.


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[tg4360]

I was doing my two weeks active at Sheppard AFB many moons ago (Security Police LE) when a Reserve F-4 arrived for gas.

Regs required security on the bird so I drew an M-16 and posted just as the Pilot and REO were climbing out. Turned out it was the Commander of all reserve forces on a hop out to Travis so it was nice to meet him as I was one of his troops.

When they started up to leave, even at idle those J79s were one of the loudest things I've ever heard as a continuous sound.

Apparently they decided they were fat on gas as the pilot asked for and got clearance for a max performance takeoff. At about one third of the runway he lit the burners and not very long after stood the thing almost on it's tail and was out of sight in probably not more than 10 seconds.

Amazing.

 

[Murphy's Law]

When I was aboard the USS Oriskany (aircraft carrier) off Viet Nam, we tried to land a few F4's off the Roosevelt but due to our "wooden flight deck", they had to call the landings off because it was pealing our decks off. We have the A3/4's & A7's and a few other type aircraft. Those F4's come in "fast & heavy" but was interesting to watch those noisy buggers. True Story!

 

[LVSteve]

I knew the Vigilante had a bad rep, which I always thought strange since it was made by North American. The same company that had made the P-51 Mustang, the B-25 Mitchell, the F-86 Saber, and the F-100 Super Saber. All world beater great planes. I guess every company is entitled to one stinker, though the Vigilante did look beautiful.

I think some of that was due to the plane makers of that period trying to fit all kinds of underdeveloped technologies with inevitable results. Sometimes it was tricky engines, other times it was fiendishly complicated electronic equipment.

The UK went down the same rabbit hole with the TSR 2. The Olympus engine was a high strung device at first, although it went on to power the Concorde with great success. Then there was the IR imaging device fresh out of the lab requiring the aircraft to carry liquid helium as a coolant, which is bad as liquid oxygen will form on top, no bueno when not carefully controlled. It also meant that the aircraft was not to perform negative G maneuvers because the helium was in some kind of open container. Bit of a restriction for a military aircraft.

 

[zzzippper]

Back in the '60's and '70's the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II shared the deck with North American A-5 Vigilante. Both were powered by the General Electric J79 after-burning turbojet. Both could exceed Mach 2 in a straight line. Making them faster than the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II of today.

Mach 2 capability is over rated and comes with a cost in weight, complexity, maintenance, and price tag. Variable inlets are a must or the engines would get blown out like a candle.