SeaWings: The Last of the Gunfighters (F-8 Crusader)

[@allandavis8201]

Love this kind of upload,informative across a variety of topics,not just the title topic,but the people,politics,and history of the era.thanks.

[@rrrosadorr]

At 17:31 actually it was the Chance Vought XF6U "Pirate" (which first flew in 1946). That first generation of jet fighters were largely hit or miss. The XF6U's direct competitors were McDonnell Aircraft's FH1 Phantom (ever wonder why the old F4 was the Phantom II), Grumman F9F Panther, North American FJ1 Fury. There was also the Douglas F3D but it was actually designed for the night fighter role. Now, back to the F8 Crusader...

[@ConvairDart106]

If the Crusader has no flaps, then what the hell do you call those big panels on the trailing edge, that went down, when the wing went up? Refer to 06:24 in the film.

[@allandavis8201]

ConvairDart106 Technically the narration is correct, and you are also correct, I think they should have said that it didn’t have independently selectable flaps, when the wing is raised to act as flaps the trailing edge “flaps” (for want of a better word) are automatically lowered, and on wing selection to flight they go back to fully up position, so both the documentary and you are correct. In my opinion any trailing edge assembly designed to provide lift, and only lift is a flap, nothing more, nothing less. 👍🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@CaptainLumpyDog]

This was an EXCELLENT episode of WINGS! But then again, there were so few poor episodes. Thanks for the uploads. Here's hoping they stay online!

[@phayzyre1052]

At 5:52 if you look closely at the footage of that F-8 taking off the rudder was stuck in full left. Ventral fins would not have saved it.

[@BCSchmerker]

*The USN-USMC/Chance Vought F8U wing incidence mechanism also controlled the trailing-edge flaps.* The slats were initially slaved to the wing incidence control; I reckon they were put on their own control system in rebuilds, to avail them for high-α/high-G manoeuvre at combat speeds. If any weapon let it down, it was a quad Mk 12 Mod 2 installation with a severely-G-limited feed system. As of June 2018 the closest aircraft in Navy and Marine Corps inventory to the F-8 is the McDonnellDouglas F-18C, a twin-engined single-seater that, although fully equipped for multimission duty, is from an aerodynamic perspective a gunfighter flyable down to fifty knots. Most between-the-wars propfighters packed their synchroguns high in the forward fuselage, betwichst engine and cockpit, which had the side benefit of minimizing parallax for the pilot's gunsights, iron and/or reflector. Reviving the practice in a jet, Northrop put dual M39A1's ahead of the pilot in the F-5 and YF-20 single-seaters (developed from the Air Force T-38 advanced trainer), and the F-17 would have packed an M61A1 ahead of the pilot had it been adopted; McAir essentially followed suit, placing the M61A1 ahead of the pilot in the F-18.

[@paraord1410]

Kendra - well, yes and no. What the general was referring to was the fact that those "flaps" and L/E devices could ONLY be employed AS PART OF the wing's variable-incidence" system. If that system could not be employed for landing (due to battle damage, etc.), then all of those other wing surfaces COULD NOT be used, either. He was simply referring to the fact that these leading and trailing edge wing surfaces were PART OF the variable-incidence system.

[@Shahranim]

YOU ARE WONDERFUL, Man you are the Best!

[@L33tP1ckL]

Exceptional video! Thank You so much!

[@johnblack4257]

Standard practice was to use only 2 of the guns just in case they jammed so the others would be available later. The airplane was a joy to fly except for landing which was a constant challenge.

[@shihaolim]

my favourite plane of all times!!

[@BernardGoonting]

..what an awesome show..

[@philhh65]

Beautiful airplane! The Navy has one on display at NAS JAX.

[@RastaSaiyaman]

Yup, as cannons gave way to missiles the Crusader became the last gun fighter. The F-4 phantom and the F-102 Delta Dagger among others were designed to have missile armament only and rely on "shoot-and-forget" tactics, meant to bring down intercontinental bombers. And the pilots were trained as such. But when the Phantom and Delta Daggers fought in Vietnam the USAF and Navy pilots found out in an embarrassing manner that those nimble MiG-17 and MiG-19 fighters could easily out turn the Sidewinder and Sparrow missiles, rendering them effectively useless. So, caught with their pants down, the high command began talks with WW2 veteran pilots on what was needed to change the tide. The very first thing those veterans said was "Fit guns on the planes!" But they also said that the pilots should be trained in aerial combat and so the "Top Gun" and "Red Star" programs were started where pilots were trained in dogfighting, in simulated air battles.

[@stevecollins8149]

The F8 is still a well sculptures aircraft. I wonder if the airframe could contain most of the systems from the F22. What you think?

[@markymarknj]

It would be VERY interesting to outfit an F8 Crusader with a modern engine (e.g. a GE F404 or F414) and modern avionics!

[@KJLesnick]

I hate to contradict experts, but General P. Drax Williams was wrong about the wing of the airplane he flew. It had flaps already -- an inboard trailing edge flap, a flaperon, as well as leading-edge devices. The wing had a variable incidence system, however.

[@paraord1410]

The French use of the F-8 was legendary. The use of that aircraft up to the point at which other countries incl. the US had long since retired it says a lot about the plane itself. It was truly the "F-14" or the "F-18" of it's day. Had they redesigned it with a much more efficient low-bypass turbofan engine and other improvements, it probably would've soldiered on for several more years in US service - my opinion.

[@ManWithBeard1990]

You can't say with absolute certainty how much better the F4 really was, because the plane is only part of the equation. It may very well be that the Mig21 was comparable to these planes, but pilot training was better in America. Russian designs are often better than they may seem at first, if not somewhat primitive. The American planes sure were better, but not as much as kill ratios suggest.

[@markymarknj]

The proof in the pudding was that an Israeli Air Force general said that, even if the Israelis and their enemy switched planes (F-15s for MiG 21s), they'd have still had an 80-0 kill ratio. Why? Because of the pilot training.

[@evilchaosboy]

The BEST!! \m/

[@onblock7]

That part there is true. I still feel that guy above has no clue what he was talking about when he said his comment that the F4 Phantom < Mig 21. He didn't explain why either. Your post is very true.

[@thetreblerebel]

If the F7U had better engines, would it of been a better navy plane? It looks like it could fight!

[@paraord1410]

Steve: No and yes. If the F-22 systems were re-designed and re-shaped, perhaps, but then the entire airframe would have to be redesigned & then you wouldn't have an F-8 Crusader anymore. The F-8 was a superior airplane at the time it was introduced and could presumably still cause a lot of damage in aerial combat - maybe. But a lot of advances in engine (fast-reacting turbofans) and airframe (F-16, F-14, FA-18, etc.) technology have passed it up since then.

[@Feyser1970]

yes an no is not a logical answer, only used by those who aren't sure about the answers they're giving

[@kimjoshua4938]

Our country used to have this until 1989, :)

[@onblock7]

The kill ratio in Nam says not, and for certain the F8 > Mig 21 and thats no debate.

[@Ryenobal]

I could never understand why the Navy started to phase out the Crusader during the height of the Vietnam War. Also, the Air Force should have utilized the agile F-5 Tiger IIs more instead of heavily relying on the Phantoms to fight off the Mig threat.

[@melangellatc1718]

Fuck, the F4d with Sidewinders and 20mm's would have been fine.

[@markymarknj]

Better yet, why didn't the USAF not make use of the F-20 Tigershark? The F-20 was an outgrowth of the F-5, but instead of the two J85 engines, it had a GE F404 instead. This gave it 60% more thrust, which gave the F-20 awesome acceleration and climb in addition to its agility and maneuverability.

[@rsaf18]

LMAO, sorry but the F8 was not replaced by the hornet for a photo recon bird. it was the F4 that did that... there was no RF-18 during that time...

[@rsaf18]

Look up VMF-P3 my friend...I was stationed at MCAS El Toro with them.

[@rsaf18]

I was with VMFA-314 the first in the Corps to get the Hornet. There was no photo recon Hornet...it was still a concept...

[@rsaf18]

the last time I read my seal it said Dept Of the NAVY United STATES MARINE CORPS...lol also P3 was a USS Midway based squadron most of the time I would say.

[@wlmac]

***** You need to hop back a couple of decades. The original RF-4 was being developed by McDonnell for the USAF and USMC hopped onto the programto get a more advanced recon aircraft. The Navy had lost its heavy nuclear strike mission at that time in the early 1960’s and was already taking the A-5 and A-3 frames and converting them recon platforms that would shortly be serving over Vietnam. The Navy was satisfied with its RF-8’s, RA-5’s, and RA-3’s so it didn’t need the RF-4 at the time. Our RF-8’s went to Navy after we got RF-4’s. After the RA-5’s were retired around 1979 the F-14 got the excellent TARPS pod and became the main Navy platform for recon; however, there were some deployments of USMC RF-4’s on carriers to make up for lack of recon platforms in late 80’s early 90’s. I do believe that there were some early F-18’s built as specific recon planes lacking the M-61 before the ATARS pod came about and they were interspersed with regular F-18s in squadrons.

[@rsaf18]

F9F, Cougar was set up for photo recon...

[@stevehammond9156]

6:13 "This aircraft has no flaps". Bullshit, the Crusader DID have flaps and you can even see them in the background as he is saying this, They were not FULL SPAN flaps like were on the A-6 Intruder that I flew, but they were still there. You can also clearly see them in the cat shot at 6:41. How could a MGEN make a gaff like that, especially in light of the fact that he supposedly flew it for 3 years? Unless he of course was full of more shit than a Christmas turkey and never flew one.

[@souloftheage]

Why was a twin engine jet design(Phantom) so important to the Navy that it was a design stipulation?.

[@AngelofCruelty]

Flying over water, in the event of an engine failure, there is a much improved chance of the aircraft making it back to the carrier. Saves airframes and pilots.

[@rjocl12]

twin engine was a survivability issue in case of battle damage. See the scene at the end of Top Gun when one engine is lost but the plane is ale to continue to fly and fight

[@uberme163]

sploosh! F8 with fangs out is the only way to go.

[@pleasures072876GR]

FLY LOW HIT HARD

[@jasongomez5344]

If the Crusader held speed records at some point, how come it is not mentioned on this Wikipedia page? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_airspeed_record

[@eagerbeaver57]

Jason Gomez You just don't look hard enough. Wikipedia is notoriously unreliable and doesn't cover them all. Level Flight Speed Record - 1015.428 mph; 21 August 1956; CDR. Duke Windsor (previous record 822, F-100)

[@Feyser1970]

if your main source is wikipedia you're just plain dumb

[@mikoyangurevich3863]

Feyser1970 lol 👍

[@snowman374th]

13:15 ...Al Bundy was a pilot?

[@Sublette217]

Between 11:20 and 12:20 the background score twice uses a straight lift of one of Andrew Lloyd Weber's themes from "Jesus Christ Superstar"..

[@agentorange153]

+C. Mark Sublette The Last Supper, right?

[@thetreblerebel]

Much better dogfighter than the F4 by a long shot

[@philelsner105]

i was sitting outside of my house in brooklyn whan all of a sudden this airplane went screaming over my house,it was glenn on the way to land at floyd bennet naval air station,

[@usu15550]

Well, this documentary starts well....LBJ's statement on the bay of Tonkin - it doesn't matter that that event never really happened. No correction or even mentioning that this was the American version of the Gleiwitz event in 39.

[@Emman_1035]

That Philippine Air Force roundel......

[@Mattebubben]

The last of the gunfighters "for the US"

[@leg0ma2ter]

do others have guns as main armament?

[@Mattebubben]

well the F-5 Tiger II. Mirage III and Saab 35 Draken to name a few. Especially the Mirage III and Saab 35 used mostly cannons early on (before reliable enouch missiles where issued) But also the Mig-21 could be considerd a "gun" fighter early on since it also did not have very usefull missiles in the start but used the gun as a primary weapon. The majority of 1950s-1960s jets actually used the Gun as a primary weapon since it was not untill mid 70s that they started to be issused with missiles that where actually worth carrying. And really what makes the Crusader a gun fighter? that it was equipped with a gun for air to air combat? since the vast majority of fighters have that the Phantom was uncommon in not having an internal gun and that was fixed in later models. Since the Crusader is designed to use missiles and as missiles became more reliable they became the more important weapon. The Crusader also had problems with its cannons (such as jamming during High-G manuvers) That could be deemed problematic for a supposed "gun fighter"

[@twotailedavenger]

Yeah, I understand the French loved the Crusader.

[@melangellatc1718]

Wait....... The notator seems anti-US government........ Remember , the administration calls the shots, not the shooters.......You guys work this yourselves.....

[@tinhanh7cha]

the f4 fantom look much better jet

[@allandavis8201]

When I last watched this a year ago I should have said that until the Royal Navy perfected landing the F4U Corsair onto a carrier the U.S Navy and Marine Corps Pilots were restricted to land base operations, something the narration failed to Acknowledge, just as they (American documentary makers/scriptwriters) fail to acknowledge that the Royal Navy invented the angled deck, making Naval aviation a lot safer and flight deck capacity much larger and easier to control. I wish that the narration was a little less biased, the Canberra pilots were no more or less “surprised” than any other pilot encountering a new “adversary” for the first time, and yes, the United States Navy would have taught the United Kingdom Pilots a lesson, but again, no more or less than any other nations Pilots, ok, I know this narration has to appeal to the American viewer, but at the expense of one of the United States closest allies is not “Cricket old chap” and totally misleading to all viewers, except those of us with practical, theoretical and historical knowledge of flight, in fact 24 years hands on experience, and very nearly ever since I can remember I have loved aircraft and the history of flight, military and civilian. 😀👍(for the upload) ☹️👎(for the information), I know it can’t be changed now but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t correct the wrongs of the narrative. P.S, if anyone wishes a sensible debate about my comments, bring it on, on the other hand, if you want a slanging match, DILLIGAF.

[@giavarderpc4157]

F4 phantom

[@mystinger72]

You must be French then?