My uncle Mike said it's really bad. Was he wrong?

>>30504555

If you take a high-speed interceptor and try to use it as a low-level bomber you're gonna have a hard time.

I think they had a 100% crash rate in Germany

>>30504555
A lot of the Starfighter was used in the U2 Spyplane.

Here is a doc on Kelly Johnson, the man who ran Lockheed's Skunkworks and worked on the Starfighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3viiJ4g5G8

Starfighter parts is at 30 minutes.

>>30504555
Not as good as a V2, but can still dig a nice pool.

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>>30504555
Kind of.

The F-104 was an amazing interceptor, and was a pretty good analog to the MiG-21.

Problem was, NATO didn't want or need a MiG-21 analog. The F-104 had far too short legs to be of any use in American and NATO air doctrine, and attempts to expand its capabilities into a fighter-bomber didn't do much to make it any better than many more capable alternatives. On top of that, it was an unforgiving plane to fly, meaning accidents were fairly common.

Odds are, if we lived in an alternate universe where the Soviets had made the F-104 and the US the MiG-21, you'd have the general perception switched - the MiG-21 being shit while the F-104 is a surprisingly capable light fighter.

Yes. The aircraft was difficult to fly, and really only had speed and acceleration going for it. That made it good as an interceptor, but nothing else.

The stubby wings provided little lift, giving poor handling at high speeds, and down right dangerous at low speeds.

It was too small to carry any meaningful load, and not enough range to carry it anywhere.

USAF, and everyone else, would have been better off with F-5s, a few years later, even with their slower speed.

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>>30504555

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Was this one good? All I really know about it is that it was one of the first airframes fitted with a Vulcan.

>>30505496
It was fairly good, but because they only flew domestically as interceptors they didn't get to see any glory.

The real problem was its payload - it could only carry AIM-4s, which were terrible missiles.

>>30504593
This guy knows whats up

So it was a bit like the Electric Lightning where it was so specialized in its one role that it was a bit rubbish when put into other roles?

>>30505670
pretty much. It was a great plane for its role, but nobody needed a point-defense interceptor. The worst of the issues came when they tried to shoehorn it into other roles.

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>>30505544

>The real problem was its payload - it could only carry AIM-4s, which were terrible missiles.

U WOT M8

The Delta Dart could fire the Genie.....the world's only air-to-air nuke.

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>Everyone ITT forgets the real reasons F-104 starfighters were made

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>>30505496
So Good one managed to land itself without a pilot

>>30505947
The Genie was a neat payload, but generally you want your payload options to be more than
>uselessly ineffective
>signaling the end of the world

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>>30506165
Given the F-106s role it kinda makes sense. If the F-106 ever had to fire its weapons in anger the worlds already about to end anyways, one more nukes not gonna matter in the long run.

Later models were fantastic interceptors. Problem was, those models came about right when the dedicated interceptor became obsolete. It also has a bad rap from West Germany being incompetent, and from West Germany using them as a low level bomber.

>>30505496
The F-106 was a great but under appreciated plane. There were also tons of kinks that had to get worked out from early models, but the end product was a very advanced interceptor that managed to have a decent range. Once again, this was all moot in the age of multiroles and ICBMs.

>>30506263
Problem was that it doomed it to that very niche role.

Had they given it the capability to carry Sparrows or Sidewinders it would have been something fairly capable that we could have deployed abroad.

By making its only feasible option for interception a world-ending one, you've ensured that it's stuck firmly in the realm of strategic deterrent.

>>30504555
Posting the story because F-104 thread

>I don't know when the first instance of the F-104 and the F-15 engaging in DACT happened...but I do know when it happened early on at Luke.

>When the F-15 training operation began at Luke in the latter 70s, the initial squadron was the 555th, known as 'the Nickle'. Sometime in 78 or so, the Nickle guys were looking for DACT with a variety of fighter types, and so they came down the street to the F-104 Fighter Weapons School in the 69TFTS, also at Luke.

>They wanted to fly against us, and so we agreed to put up a two ship for a trial mission. Two FWS instructors were selected, one a German instructor (Hartmut Troehler) and one USAF instructor (me).

>The Nickle hosted the mission. We briefed at their squadron with two of their instructors (both F-4 FWS grads). They were going to use the two seat model for the engagement. We would both have dedicated GCI. We were to simulate Floggers...not a bad idea since the G model that we flew was a good representation of the A2A capability of the MiG-23. Our simulated armament was to be Apex, Aphid, and the gun.

>After the main briefing, Hartmut and I had our own briefing. I was the flight lead and intended to use as much deception as I could. We knew that the F-15 guys were really proud of their radar capabilities...the PD radar was new to the fighter community at that time. I thought that the two Nickle guys would be heavily relying on their radar to enter the fight...as it turned out, I was right.

>>30506338
>My plan was to put Hartmut in close formation and run head on at the F-15 using GCI for vectoring. Our radar could search out to 40nm but we couldn't lock on until 20nm.

>We took the first GCI vector and accelerated through the mach. Intended to fight fast...high speed extensions and hook turns. At 20nm, the F-15 made a large blip on my radar and I was able to get a lock. The plan was to Fox-1 at about 16nm and then have Hartmut peel off into a hard 360 to follow me.

>I called the Apex at 16nm, told Hartmut to deploy, and then pushed it up to over 700KIAS. My hope was that the Eagle guys would hold their lock on me and not see Hartmut separate. We could slave our gunsight to the radar lock on angle...this let me fly right at the F-15. I picked him up visually...he was high, to the right, and had started a conversion turn. I unloaded, and extended away figuring they would try to follow...and they did.

>What that did, of course, was get them sandwiched between me and Hartmut. My guess was that they would get all excited and jump on me without asking where my wingman was. They found out soon enough as their GCI relayed to them Hartmut's gun attack call.

>I was looking back and saw their break turn that resulted. I went idle and boards, slowed to .85M, dropped my maneuver flaps, put my lift vector on the Eagle and then pulled the jet into a hard 7g turn using burner to hold my speed. I knew I could sustain that g at around 400KIAS.

>I pulled into a lead snapshot position on the Eagle, closed in and went guns. The Eagle broke again as their GCI relayed the second gun call.

>By this time, Hartmut was pitching back into the fight. He saw me extend away, went in for his second gun attack, and then extended away after me. I tallyed him, gave him a check turn to put us back into line abreast and then we became a dot.

>>30506345
>The Eagle tried to call a Fox-2 as we separated but with us well over 700KIAS, it was way out of parameters.

>The result was the two Fox-1s and three unobserved gun kills by us. They had no valid shots.

>The debriefing was a hoot. I especially liked the part where the Nickle guy played his recorder and we heard the backseater say "Break, we just got gunned again"!

>Of course, all of this should not have happened. The F-15 should have had us for lunch. But they didn't, and it was all because they didn't play to their strengths...and they severely underestimated their opponents. They didn't do that again and that was a good thing.

From what I've read, the top speed wasn't absolute, only a guideline. There was somebody who hit something like 850KIAS at 70000 feet.

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>>30506297
The F-106 was just one of the many forgotten cold war jets. their all beautiful.

>>30506362
>their all beautiful.
Their all beautiful what?

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>>30506362
Best forgotten Cold War jet reporting in

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>>30506394
>>30506362
>tfw all those early jet age planes that got discarded like yesterday's garbage because of the breakneck technological advancement

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>>30506394
false, also this is what the Germans should of bought.

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>>30506435
The US Navy definitely had the best looking jets of the early-mid cold war.

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>>30506362
I made a pic about this once.

>>30506394
>>30506435
>>30506439
>>30506484
At least these guys remembered

>>30506516
Didn't an F-11 shoot itself down with it's gun?

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>>30506531
Never forget
>>30506566
yes

>>30506566
This happens more often than you think

In Michael Oren's "Six Day of War" about the Six Day War it talks about 3 Egyptian MiG-17's which in desperation took off to try and attack incoming Israeli fighters and ended up shooting 2 of their own down

>>30504555
My uncle Jimbo said a propeller fighter could take down a F35. Is he right? Could those plains shoot down a jet?

>>30505335
Could the F-104 approximate the MIG-21s great low speed high AoA handling?

I say this because much has been said about the Mig 21 pulling high AoA at low speed to outmaneuver newer opponents and using HMS AA-11 for the kill.

>>30506635
He's talking about the plane literally shooting itself down with its own guns, which the F11F actually managed to do on a test flight.

>>30505969
The fuck is that

>>30506696
how?

>>30504555
It was a mach 2 interceptor with a short range radar and short range missiles which made it somewhat shit from the very beginning and not very useful for night and bad weather.

The fact that ze germans strapped bombs under its wings and thought it would make a decent fighter bomber was catastrophic though

>>30506706
>fire gun
>go into shallow transonic dive
>come out of dive into recently-fire bullets

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>>30506707
The F-104 actually has qualities that make it pretty well suited for a low level short range ground attack aircraft, high wing loading, high T-W ratio, etc...

>>30506693
A little bit of googling got me my answer.

Link for those interested:
http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/JOHT/joht12f-104.htm

>>30506693
You're thinking of the MiG-29, not the 21. Soviet HMS and AA-11 didn't exist in that time.

>>30506806
But they do nowadays for the poo in loo Mig 21

>>30506703
That big fucker right there has the same wingspan as a Nimitz class aircraft carrier.
Has the same payload capacity as 30 B52s.
Can carry 24 F-104 starfighter parasite aircraft.
Has a 500 man crew, and powered by 4 nuclear ram jets

>>30506769
You wot m8? High wingload is bullcrap for low level flight. The F104 was all about straight climbing and speed to get those pesky soviet bombers.

>>30506861
high wingloading gives you a smoother ride at low levels. F-111 pilots transitioning to the F-15E, for example, noted how the F-15E was a much bumpier ride due to its lower wing loading.

>>30506842
So it is some sort of modernization package that came out probably some after the F-104 was getting phased out of service. Not even Russian MiG-21s recieved modernization packages like those to my knowledge.

>>30506880
But high wingload stresses the wings much more if you turn man.

>>30506516
The F-89 Scorpion is my baby. Same with the Hustler.

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>tfw when I always get shit for slobbering all over the F-14
>tfw they just say it's because of top gun and not because my uncle was a pilot and I got to sit in one.
It's a hard nuff life.

>>30504593
Yeah screw low level bombing, how about troposphere level operations in general. Also think of the runways and what lengths they had to be to accommodate takeoff and landing.

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>>30506899
your point?

>>30507234
>I got to sit in one.
tell me more senpai

>>30507408
I was like 11, and we went to go see Uncle Joe and his big fighter jet.
He took us over and he put me right up in the pilot seat and took a ton of pictures.
Then we got to see him take off and everything.

I have cried before that there are no operational F-14s left except for in fucking Iran.

>>30507234
>giving you shit about the F-14

anyone who says its bad is fucking retarded, feel free to kick their ass

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>>30506899
>turn

worst way to dogfight bro, give the red baron my fuckin regards

>>30507618
TFW Saudi-Iran war and F-14s fighting F-15s and eurofighters

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>>30506394 If you're remembered, you're never forgotten.

>>30504555
your uncle is a faggot.

>>30506032
This was not very far from where I live, I've probably driven past that field.

The dudes who accepted this shit in service are low life criminal scum.

There is next to no wing surface on that crap, it's not stable at all while in flight. So many pilots died because of the poor conception.

>>30504555

The ASA/S ASA/M whatever it was called here in Italy was claimed to be good even against Mig-29 as long he kept the distance and used Aspade missile and didn't try something fancy from close distances.

I have the luck of living in Sardinia so when Fulcrum,Tomcat,F-15,Viggen,Draken,Mirage F1 give me any name as it was probably deployed on X Decimo Air Base I sneaked through mountains and other places around the designated area for dogfights and bombing runs.

I guess me and my uncle were spotted just once when a S3 Viking with a couple of Intruders did a low pass over our heads and scared us out of the area.

I will never forget Luftwaffe Fulcrums jinking against US fighters,nor I'll forget the time two IDF Eagles did a simulated dogfight above my hometown or when straight after the Desert Storm a flight of 10 A-10 passed by there.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand back to F-104 Asa his main problem was just it could only carry 2 missiles usually a Winder and Aspide and the 2nd flight only carried 2 Winders.

Carrying missiles on the belly was forbidden as they created drag and possibly vibrations but other forces like JASDF,Spanish AD and probably Dutch AF used them

Another problem was that if the pilot was used to fly it with tip tanks he could accidentally fuck himself up by flying without them,various accidents happened due this so flying without fuel tanks on tips was strictly forbidden or limited to no AA maneuvers

Also due the Aspide/Sparrow/Skyflash thing they didn't carry the gun and the strike version for what I understand could not carry Winders

>>30506684
Your Uncle Jimbo still owes me $65. Tell that poof I said to call me.

>>30504555
This is how it went down:
>let`s build this cool interceptor
oh yeah!
>it`s good and all! Nice.
But we need to sell it to our allies, many are still recovering from ww2, they can`t really afford a dedicated interceptor
>OH. Well we need to sell these though. Gotta drive down dem costs, man.
Let`s just tell them it is what it is not, like an all weather multirole instead of a good weather interceptor!
>Seems great! No way this will backfire!

And then Canada lost 46% of its F-104 force to accidents.

But this is just part of the issue, many of the pilots were used to propeller fighters, imagine transitioning from that to THIS, while being fitted in roles it couldn't really perform. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

>>30507940
>>30507940
Iran's F-14's wouldn't last long vs. Saudi Eurofighters and F-15s.

>>30505335
The MiG-21 was easier to fly and more versatile though. It ended up being the best plane. Even the damn Poo People managed to fly them without crashing that much (until the airframes were too old to fly, which is why we hear so much of Indian MiG-21's crashes - the airframes are done for.)

>>30505335
Not even thatL the Starfighter was nothing more than a high altitude interceptor, it sucked big time in fighter role simply because it was a really poor turner with very heavily loaded wings. MiG 21 is the exact opposite of that.

>>30506889
A similar update package has been fitted to romanian ones over 15 years ago, made by Elbit.

>>30504555
it was called the "lawn dart" for a reason

>>30504673
buying land in Germany used to be the best way to get your own F104

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Hey Lockheed, Franz Josef here, the French want to sell me their Mirage III and the Brits have that lovely little P117, maybe you would like to convince me to buy your Widowmaker.
All it has to do is carry a tactical nuke to Moscow in bad weather, can you do that for me?
I'm sure we'll come to an agreement.


True story, i knew a German Starfighter jockey, he had to eject once during a landing.
He also said you had to follow the protocoll by the letter, if you were a second late during take-off the landing gear wouldn't come up because the thing was already too fast.

>>30509881
>He also said you had to follow the protocoll by the letter, if you were a second late during take-off the landing gear wouldn't come up because the thing was already too fast.
This. It was an excellent jet, a great technical achievement. Unfortunately it was so far ahead of its time there was almost no room between the safe operation requirements upon the pilot and the engineered capabilities, no wiggle room for human pilots that do human things like make mistakes, become distracted or attempt to use it for purposes other than intended.

If it had come along just a little later when we were playing with relaxed stability, FBW and computer flight assist, the story of the jet might have been a little different, though of course the design would also have been very different knowing those things.

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> Vat do you mean, your oxygen mask smells funny?

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>Hartmann considered the F-104 a fundamentally flawed and unsafe aircraft and strongly opposed its adoption by the Luftwaffe. Although events subsequently validated his low opinion of the aircraft (282 crashes and 115 German pilots killed on the F-104 in non-combat missions, along with allegations of bribes culminating in the Lockheed scandal), Hartmann's outspoken criticism proved unpopular with his superiors. General Werner Panitzki, successor to General Josef Kammhuber as Inspekteur der Luftwaffe, said, "Erich is a good pilot, but not a good officer." Hartmann was forced into early retirement in 1970.

>>30504555
not bad per se, but see, the issue is that someone designed it to fight in space, where aerodynamics don't really matter.

>>30506706
When the average x component velocity of the bullets and you are the same. Imagine throwing a ball up at a steep angle and then walking forward a little and it landing on your head.

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>>30504555
The Starfigher was built at a time where fighters were being made to fill a very specific mission role each. In this case it was to fly very fast and high so it could get all up in a Russian bomber's business before it could do anything funny like level Seattle. In that respect it was damn good at its job. It even formed the basis for the U2 like >>30504796 mentioned. The problem was it was so specialized for that role that it ended up being mediocre-to-shit at everything else. However, that didn't stop the US and Lockheed from shopping it out to all their NATO allies that couldn't afford indigenous aircraft as a multi role fighter. Hence where the Starfighters' reputation of being a shiny flying coffin comes from.

But at least it gave us a great MST3K episode.

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Early F104 ejection seats fired you downwards.
Just the thing when flying all low level sorties.

>>30509447
Saudi military is Iraq tier garbage in terms of skill and competence. Iranians might have inferior tech, but they are pretty competent and skilled compared to the saud schmucks.

>>30508455
Why don't people understand basic aerodynamics before commenting on /k/?

>>30506706 what >>30506717 said. Chuck Yeager mentioned it in his autobiography as well, that same incident.

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Yeager also had a near miss with one of these.

>>30506880
>high wingloading gives you a smoother ride at low levels.

It also gives you a faster instantaneous turn, very important for dodging a tree or ridgeline.

>>30510364
>flat spin
>eject
>ejection seat smashes you in the face with the hot rocket nozzle

Yeah, the Starfighter could bite you hard.

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ZELL F104
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVFFF-e1KA4
Groovy.

>>30510211
>Arabs can't into war
>Persians can

>>30510364
to be fair, he was flying an experimental jet/rocket aircraft going for an altitude record. this one can't really be included in "shit that's wrong with the widowmaker".

>>30510406
Test pilots are complete loonies, who the fuck volunteers for something like that.

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Oddly enough that fireball was an F-104.

>>30510552
What caused that rollover again? Turbulence off the Valkyrie?

Asking for cereal, not being sarcastic.

>>30510542
More gentle than a carrier launch by all accounts.

>>30510552
>this kills the Valkyrie

>>30509979
>This. It was an excellent jet, a great technical achievement.
It was literally just a big engine with tiny wings, come on. It wasn't very good and it wasn't what europe needed.

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>>30510559

>>30510603
>It wasn't very good
It was excellent at its intended purpose, especially for being designed in the early 1950's.

>it wasn't what europe needed.
No argument there. They would have been much better off with the F-100 or F-105 as a multi-role platform or just waited another year or two for the F-4 to get completely sorted out.

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>>30510635

>>30510603
>It wasn't very good

It was a superb interceptor.

>>30510406
>our missiles guidance is still shit.
>just put a plane instead of the warhead, the pilot will assume guidance
result :
taking off on a jet fighter from a field, in the middle of a forest with absolutely no way to land in emergency. Those guys were heroes, todays pilots are whinny crying little bitches.

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>>30509881
>True story, i knew a German Starfighter jockey, he had to eject once during a landing.

I knew Captain Guy Ghys, belgian air force. Let me recount you (a part of) his story:

Captain Guy Ghys was a skilled pilot in the Belgian airforce. He had flown a variety of prop (SV4B Trainer & AT6 Harvard) & jet planes (T-33A Trainer, F-89F Thunderstreak & F-104 Starfighter) and had an ungodly amount of flight hours, in and out of combat.

On the 24th of Sept 1969, he taxi'ed his F-104 (tail number FX-71) on the runway and started his take off. Halfway the runway he noticed that the engine started to crap out, resulting in insufficient engine thrust and following procedures by the book, he abandons the take-off. Procedures or not, his luck was about to run out.

The craft's single engine spools down, and one after the other, the emergency brake systems fail. Bricks are shat when the aircraft continues straight ahead off the runway into the overrun. It rumbles on to cross a road after the overrun and tumbles and catches fire.

The good captain, following procedures ejects in the overrun, just before the aircraft was about to cross the road. But planes in this era did not have enough trust in their ejection seats to develop enough lift to allow the parachute to fully deploy. With little forward momentum and not enough altitude, the parachute had no time to open.

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>>30510840

As the control tower scrambles the base's fire brigade, the pilot races to the ground only slowed by a barely deployed parachute. He lands in a swampy area just next to the overrun. The impact is severe, and crushes a few bones. The weight of the ejection seat (which he could obviously not separate from in the air) presses down on him, as he rolls face down into the swamp. Slowly, mud and water seep into his mask... Unable to push away, and with the heavy weight pressing down on him, he can do nothing but gasp for air (getting mud in return). By the time the rescue teams reach him, half his lungs have been destroyed by mud. They saved him, though his life hanged by a thread.

He spent the rest of his life at home. Unable to take more than a few steps before gasping for air. He had to drag a little trolley with him, with dual oxygen bottles to feed him O2.

He could say no more than a handful of words before having to breath from his oxygen mask, making it impossible to finish a sentence. He had always said the F-104 was a great lil' rocket when it worked, but was little else than that. It was the wrong choice for the belgian airforce.

He was a great man. He died about a decade ago. He will be missed.

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>>30510887

Aside from this great personal loss, my opinion of the F-104 is also tainted by the fact european F-104s seemed to have far more mechanical defects than the american ones.
I'm not sure why this is the case, but there's statistics to back that up.

Either way, my opinion of the F-104 Starfigther is pretty low. For me it'll always remain the Flying Coffin or the Widowmaker.

>>30510908

Franz Josef wanted to build them in license in order to boost the economy in his home state of Bavaria.
It was the time of the Wirtschaftswunder, so everyone had a good paying job and the horrors of the war were still present, so the Bundeswehr wasn't a popular employer and found itself about 10.000 qualified mechanics short.

They'd skip the routine maintenance in favor of only fixing parts that were visibly broke and due to undertrained staff, those repairs were often faulty.

>>30510953
>They'd skip the routine maintenance in favor of only fixing parts that were visibly broke and due to undertrained staff, those repairs were often faulty.
Never heard this side of the F-104 story or German military history post-war. Are there any good books or sources detailing this period?

>>30510987
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfighter-Aff%C3%A4re

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>>30510953

I have heard those stories about the german parts & planes. But the loss & failure rates of the Lockheed produced initial belgian batch & the SABCA produced local planes are nearly identical. So that's something fishy going on. I haven't seen those stats for the german produced planes, but for Belgium it's 26% loss of aircraft (of these losses, 1 in 4 resulted in fatalities).

>>30511069
I'm reading this article from 1966 right now, even back then they said with all the electronic upgrades, different engines etc. the American and the European Starfighters were essentially two different planes that shared a certain shape and some airframe parts.

> http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-38223909.html

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>>30511109

I'm not disagreeing there, I'm just saying the Lockheed produced export units also had a huge failure rate. So it's not (only) about shoddy euro manufacturing practises or lack of expertise. I suspect some of the design was flawed from the start (especially when trying to convert it to a light bomber role).

>>30510420
>lebanon
>iraq
>syria
I don't know how good they are against arabs in regular wars but they kick ass in proxy wars.
The syrian and iraqi armies would suck without Iran. In Lebanon hezbollah is basically IRGC foreign legion and the only decent fighting force around.

>>30509539
"the 104 had a credible turn capability when using the maneuver flap position. I flew the jet at TOPGUN in '78 when we wanted to verify some energy maneuverability data against the F-5E. We all were surprised when the 'numbers' worked out as well as they did. In addition, I have also flown the 'hard wing' and slatted versions of the F-4 and am familiar with the relative performance comparisons between the two a/c."

>>30506165
It was solely purposed as an air defence interceptor , it was made for the end of the worldoption, and downing dozens of enemy bombers with one shot was optimal use

>>30510038
Brutal

>>30506566
wasn't an YF-14 shot down from it's own Aim-7?

>>30504555
OP, were lawn darts a good idea?

No, they weren't.

The F-104 is a militarized lawn dart.

>>30514522
yup. It's a good story.
http://www.ejectionsite.com/F-14%20SHOOTDOWN.pdf

>>30514551
>The F-104 is a militarized lawn dart.
Isn't the F-16 known as the lawn dart?

>>30514522
Wasn't hit by it, the missile failed to properly seperate and ripped a hole all the way up the "tunnel" between the nacelles as it fired, plus FOD'd the left engine. They lost pretty much everything - positive surface control, fuel lines, etc.

>>30506566
"The F-11 Tiger is noted for being the first jet aircraft to shoot itself down. On 21 September 1956, during a test-firing of its 20 mm (.79 in) cannons, pilot Tom Attridge fired two bursts midway through a shallow dive. As the velocity and trajectory of the cannon rounds decayed, they ultimately crossed paths with the Tiger as it continued its descent, disabling it and forcing Attridge to crash-land the aircraft; he survived."

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>>30514753
ok, my bad.

>>30510396

Lower wingloading actually makes for better turning, no clue what youre on about...

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>>30507007

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A musical history of the starfighter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWipIji35Cg

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>>30504555
Lockheed had to bribe German officials to choose it over the British favourite from the competition - SR.177

Says it all really.

>>30509539
>sucked in fighter role
>poor turner

I fucking hate you retards so much

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>>30514902
>Lower wingloading actually makes for better turning, no clue what youre on about...

GOD, YOU STUPID CUNT BADGER FUCK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_fighter_maneuvers#Turn_performance

>"Instantaneous turn-rate" describes turns which are above the maximum sustainable-load. These turns can be as high as 9 g's before the pilot begins to lose consciousness (G-LOC). These turns can have a very small turn radius, but cause a loss in energy, either in the form of speed or altitude. Therefore, these turns are unsustainable, causing the fighter to lose massive amounts of airspeed, sometimes reaching stall speed in as little as a quarter turn. To some degree the energy loss may be compensated for by increasing thrust, known as applying "excess specific power," but this cannot fully make up for the losses. This usually occurs during hard turns or even harder "breaks." Only by turning the aircraft at its best "sustained turn-rate" can the aircraft maintain its specific energy. However, situations in combat may require a change in energy, and energy may also be increased by pulling less than the maximum sustained g-force load.[14]

>>30515701
>spergs out
>posts something that has nothing to do with how wing loading affects sustained or instantaneous turn rate

(you)

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>>30515719

HERE, LET ME FUCKING GOOGLE IT FOR YOU, YOU STUPID GOD DAMNED ILLITERATE CUNT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_loading#Effect_on_turning_performance

Aircraft with low wing loadings tend to have superior sustained turn performance because they can generate more lift for a given quantity of engine thrust. The immediate bank angle an aircraft can achieve before drag seriously bleeds off airspeed is known as its instantaneous turn performance. An aircraft with a small, highly loaded wing may have superior instantaneous turn performance, but poor sustained turn performance: it reacts quickly to control input, but its ability to sustain a tight turn is limited. A classic example is the F-104 Starfighter, which has a very small wing and high wing loading.

IT LITERALLY

FUCKING

MENTIONS

THE STARFIGHTER

BY NAME

DIE

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>>30515824

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>>30515831

>>30515824
>Aircraft with low wing loadings tend to have superior sustained turn performance
That's literally from your source. I fail to see why you sperged out on >>30514902
>Lower wingloading actually makes for better turning
I guess autism speaks.

>>30515843
that would be truly frightening to come across

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>>30515843

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>>30515910

>An aircraft with a small, highly loaded wing may have superior instantaneous turn performance, but poor sustained turn performance

now you're just trolling

>>30516005
>An aircraft with a small, highly loaded wing may have superior instantaneous turn performance, but poor sustained turn performance
So, good instantaneous turn rates and only good instantaneous turn rates make an aircraft a good turner?

Interesting. I would assume that the combat aircraft capable of making the tightest turns with the least energy lost would be considered a "good turner".

The simple fact remains that the F-104 cannot perform basic combat maneuvers flying with something designed for WVR combat without losing a ton of energy. Which is just fine; it's a fucking interceptor.

>>30506852
That makes my dick rock hard.

>>30510038
>says dangerous thing is dangerous
>"oy they know! shut it down!"

>>30510038
>>30516858
Could have also been like Yeager and the NF-104:
>FLIGHT ENVELOPE? STUDY? GET AN AERONAUTICS DEGREE? FUCK YOU, I'M A FUCKING WWII HERO AND THE TEST PILOT WITH THE BIGGEST BALLS ON THE PLANET! I'M THE BEST STICK AND RUDDER MAN FOR SIX LIGHTYEARS! FUCK NO I DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT FLIGHT ENVELOPE!
later...
>Ma? Yeah, little chuckie here. Yeah. I, uh, accidentalied my face. And my plane. Yes, the super expensive hand built jet/rocket hybrid test plane. Yeah. No, I don't want any goddamn pie.

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>Buy a high altitude high speed interceptor

Okay

>Want to make it perform light bombing/interdiction duties as well

Okay, I guess so

>Want to make it perform light bombing/interdiction duties at treetop level then pull hard turns and evac the area

And this is where the problems come in. The biggest issues with the aircraft always came down to doctrinal differences that put it in situations it wasn't designed for.

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>>30506852
Estovakia plz go.

>>30516961
that goddamn pic and file name.

you motherfucker.

fucking got me.

>>30516061
>The simple fact remains that the F-104 cannot perform basic combat maneuvers flying with something designed for WVR combat without losing a ton of energy

So it can't perform a loop, yo-yo, or the rolling scissors? Do you know what an energy fighter is, you stupid god-damned cock-gobbling FUCK?

Why don't you go read Shaw and come back when you know what the fuck you're talking about, thanks.

>>30516061

Oh and while we're at it, dumb fucks that think turn rate is more important than roll rate were left behind in WWI. Ask the Japs how that worked out for the Zero.

>>30517451
>thinks sustained turn rate is unimportant to an energy fighter
>calls other people stupid goddamned cock-gobbling fucks

ok

>>30506852
Nimitz class carriers don't even have wings you dunce.

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>>30517469
>thinks sustained turn rate is important to a fighter that doesn't fucking turn-fight

how is it possible for one person to be this fucking stupid. do you get all your info from the history channel

>>30517598
>thinks fighters never change heading or altitude in the merge

just how high are you right now?

>>30515824
This is not even completely true.

The reason why planes with a higher wingloading have better instantaneous turn performance is because the force per unit area on the wing is larger (definition of wingloading), which for the same size of control surface means that the moment generated by mentioned surface is larger. If you would make two planes one with high wingloading and one with low wingloading where the area of the control surface times the wingloading would be the same for both, their instantaneous turn performance would be equal.

so we can conclude that most higher wingloaded planes have better instantaneous turn performance, but that this is not necessarily true for each individual aircraft.

>>30517921
>that this is not necessarily true for each individual aircraft.
like the F-16 or F-35, which both have excellent sustained and instantaneous turn rates.

>>30518051

yes, but such good maneuverability due to their natural tendency to be statically unstable.

>>30518080

'These planes' is supposed to be somewhere in that sentence. Havent slept in nearly 24 hours now....

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>>30510144
agreed, i cant think of the 104 without that movie

so many shots of formation flying. so many

>>30518080
>>30518097
That's also part of it. That's why I posted >>30509979
>If it had come along just a little later when we were playing with relaxed stability, FBW and computer flight assist, the story of the jet might have been a little different, though of course the design would also have been very different knowing those things.

by the way if anyone wants to have a laugh:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Bullet

>>30517671

Both of which call upon instantaneous turn rate, not sustained turn rate, you fucking IDIOT.

>The immediate bank angle an aircraft can achieve before drag seriously bleeds off airspeed is known as its instantaneous turn performance.

>If you would make two planes one with high wingloading and one with low wingloading where the area of the control surface times the wingloading would be the same for both, their instantaneous turn performance would be equal.

Except the plane with the big, low-loaded wings would incur much more drag for each maneuver, and thus waste a lot more energy. Something with thin, highly-loaded wings like the Starfighter could jink and jive all damn day and still retain most of its energy. I think having larger control surfaces (in an absolute sense) has negative repercussions for roll rate as well, but I can't remember why.

>>30504555
I think I remember Chuck Yeager saying one time the Pakis flew them but kept trying to turnfight the Indian migs and losing hard, because the 104 was just not meant for a turnfight.

>>30518270
>Both of which call upon instantaneous turn rate, not sustained turn rate, you fucking IDIOT.
Only if you want to bleed massive amounts of energy every time you need to turn in a combat scenario. How are you really this fucking dumb?

>>30518270
Actually, the starfighter would have much more drag because of its high wingloading. Lower wingloading means more frictiondrag but less lift-induced drag, for a high wingload its the reverse. It sort of depends on how fast your flying though, but since low-radius turns arent really done at higher airspeeds due to physical limitations you would be false to say that the starfighter is more efficient at turning.

>>30518323
>Only if you want to bleed massive amounts of energy every time you need to turn in a combat scenario.

See >>30518270

>Except the plane with the big, low-loaded wings would incur much more drag for each maneuver, and thus waste a lot more energy. Something with thin, highly-loaded wings like the Starfighter could jink and jive all damn day and still retain most of its energy.

You see, wings create lift. This is a force, that lifts the aircraft Up. When you turn your "lift vector" (i.e. the direction the wings are lifting the plane, i.e. Up," 90 degrees, then that force moves the aircraft sideways, instead of up, in a circle. When you pull back on the stick, it alters your trajectory because you are deflecting the wings into the windstream, increasing the Angle of Attack. The more Angle of Attack, the more resistance to the incoming airstream the wings present, and thus, the more it alters your trajectory.

Big wings provide more lift, so when power/drag equal out and you reach your corner speed, lower-loaded wings can turn tighter. But when you're not committed to a sustained turn, and you are making smaller maneuvers above your corner speed, smaller wings will generate less drag when deflected into the airstream. Thus costing the fighter less energy.

Is that simple enough for you to understand, you illiterate cockbag?

>>30518368
You're completely missing the point here.

Friction drag (what youre talking about) is relatively small compared to lift-induced (pressure) drag. Since larger wings generate way less pressure drag than smaller wings, theyre more effective.

>>30518327
>Actually, the starfighter would have much more drag because of its high wingloading. Lower wingloading means more frictiondrag but less lift-induced drag, for a high wingload its the reverse.

Or that, lift drag/friction drag, yeah, that's a more concise way to put it.

>but since low-radius turns arent really done at higher airspeeds due to physical limitations

Dude, please.Making a 10 or 20 degree turn to open up a smidge of separation from your bandit as you go into the merge is not a "low radius turn." Not every dogfight ever waged is a nose-to-tail sustained turning fight. The Red Baron called, he wants his fucking war back.

And we haven't even *touched* on rate versus radius turning.

>>30518368
>Thus costing the fighter less energy.
Literally the opposite of true. I can't even argue with you any more. I'm pretty sure I'm being baited at this point. No one is this retarded yet absolutely sure of their correctness.

>>30518404
>Friction drag (what youre talking about) is relatively small compared to lift-induced (pressure) drag. Since larger wings generate way less pressure drag than smaller wings,

So they generate more lift, but less lift drag? I'm sorry, but I don't fucking believe you.

>>30518429
Same lift, less drag, in turning that is.

For each speed (in level flight) theres a minimum in pressuredrag+frictiondrag. Because at the speeds at wich the starfighter was made to fly they chose to reduce the wing area to keep the friction drag to a minimum, because at higher speeds friction drag becomes substantionally larger than pressure drag.

However, when turning the situation changes and having larger wings is more efficient. Since the starfighter wasnt made to do a lot of crazy turns they chose those tiny wings.

>>30518429
and to be clear: it is possible to generate more lift with less lift-induced drag, at the cost of frictiondrag that is.

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>>30518429

this should give you an idea of what im talking about

>>30518416
>Literally the opposite of true. I can't even argue with you any more.

Yeah, you're totally right. That's why so many fighters with highly loaded wings compared to their opponents did so damn well, like the FW-190 versus allied aircraft, the F6F, P-38 and P-40 versus the Zero and all those other famous match-ups that went in favor of the higher-loaded fighter. And there's a reason Spitfires and Hurricanes didn't have it all their way against Me-109s either, despite having much lower loaded wings.

>For each speed (in level flight) theres a minimum in pressuredrag+frictiondrag. Because at the speeds at wich the starfighter was made to fly they chose to reduce the wing area to keep the friction drag to a minimum, because at higher speeds friction drag becomes substantionally larger than pressure drag.

Okay, I follow you here, but-

>However, when turning the situation changes and having larger wings is more efficient.

Why? Pressure drag is the backwards force generated because of the disruption of airflow flowing over the airfoil creates an area of lower pressure behind the wing, creating a slight vacuum effect that pulls the aircraft "back," so to speak. If you make the wing's chord thinner you can reduce that effect considerably, but at the cost of low-speed performance. (Unsurprisingly the Starfighter's wing is very thin and narrow.)

But why would bigger wings generate less pressure drag then small wings, when turning? All things equal, wouldn't bigger wings disrupt the airflow more?

>>30518559
>Yeah, you're totally right. That's why so many fighters with highly loaded wings compared to their opponents did so damn well, like the FW-190 versus allied aircraft, the F6F, P-38 and P-40 versus the Zero and all those other famous match-ups that went in favor of the higher-loaded fighter. And there's a reason Spitfires and Hurricanes didn't have it all their way against Me-109s either, despite having much lower loaded wings.
And here is why this anon is being so fucking retarded. He's literally applying WWII fighter design philosophy to FUCKING MACH 2 INTERCEPTORS.

And I'm out. I can't do it any more.

>>30518559
the zero is a really bad example, as it has one of the lowest wingloadings ever seen on a fighter plane.

The lift of a wing is dependent on a couple of things:

airspeed (squared)
airdensity
wingarea
liftcoefficient

you could explain it mathematically by saying that if you lower the wingarea the lifcoefficient must be higher to maintain the same lift. since the pressure drag increase quadratically with the liftcoefficient though its easy to see that this would cause more drag.

for the more physical approach:

if youve got smaller wings, that means the pressure must be higher (force = pressure*area). with a higher pressure difference between the bottom and lower surface of the wing theres more high-pressure air bleeding away at the tips compared to a lower pressure difference (as with a larger wing).

Its not just at the tips by the way, the same goes for the trailing edge where both airflow meet, you just lose more energy because the coming together of both airflows is more violent.

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>>30518548
>that graph

... so there's a break-even point where the larger wing rapidly reduces pressure drag for any given AoA. I presume that's because of complex fluid dynamics shit regarding how the turbulent air eddies around and behind the airfoil. And the same reasons affect things heading in the other direction - higher-loaded wings have less pressure and friction drag, until they get *too* highly loaded, at which point strange fluid dynamics effects make the pressure drag skyrocket.

The benefits scale much better moving towards lower wing-loading, so presumably the point on that graph where the orange/blue lines cross is where most highly loaded fighters fall.

And you're trying to say that the Starfighter is an outlier that lies well to the left of that equilibrium point because in supersonic regimes the friction drag is a lot higher than what that graph would imply.

Am I following you here?

>>30518583
>WWII fighter design philosophy
>he thinks dogfights happen at supersonic
>he doesn't know what an F-4 Phantom or F8-J Crusader is

Please fucking kill yourself, thank you.

>>30518620
>since the pressure drag increase quadratically with the liftcoefficient though its easy to see that this would cause more drag.

Oh fuck me, I get it. An airfoil that produces more lift per square cm of wing area, by its very design, (chord,) produces stronger turbulence at the trailing edge of the wing and thus more pressure drag.

>>30518227
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Bullet
It made me angry, you filthy liar

>>30518643

im not even exactly sure of what youre trying to say, but have another look at the graph and just taking the x-axis (l/d) as a measure for speed, maybe it makes more sense then.

>>30518643
>>WWII fighter design philosophy
>>he thinks dogfights happen at supersonic
>>he doesn't know what an F-4 Phantom or F8-J Crusader is
>Please fucking kill yourself, thank you.
Are you really completely unaware of the design and aerodynamic differences between fighting at 250 knots and 450 knots? Really? JUST LOOK AT AN F-86. Look at it. Now look at a P-51. Do we notice anything different? Any completely obvious and gross wing geometry differences? And that's before we even get into the finer points.

Holy fuck, anon. Just holy fuck.

>>30518643
nah you're just like autistic

>>30518643

I think you were confused with the x-axis, D/L is a measure of speed (so not AoA).

>>30518702
>and just taking the x-axis (l/d) as a measure for speed, maybe it makes more sense then.

Oh, I see. It's just illustrating the relationship between drag effects and airspeed (and how friction drag and pressure drag swap places over a certain speed.) I take it this means pressure drag is dominant at subsonic speeds where dogfighting takes place.

So in reference to the efficiency of a Starfighter making quarter or eight-circle turns, it'd come down to where that airspeed is for the airframe. If it's middling subsonic, then the Starfighter still has an energy advantage in a dogfight (unless it slows down, which it won't do unless the pilot is insane.) If it's high subsonic or supersonic, then its meaningless, and the only benefit of the wing design is for gottagofast.

>>30518719
>Really? JUST LOOK AT AN F-86. Look at it.

Wow, the delta wing configuration. That's totally relevant to the conversation at hand. Holy fuck you're off your fucking rocker.

In case you weren't aware, people are still building fighters with relatively high wing loading, and fighters with relatively low wing loading. The Russians have typically preferred the latter, and Americans, the former. Combat experience has demonstrated many, many times that the fighters with lower wing loading are not necessarily superior, because the higher-loaded fighters tend to have superior energy characteristics (smaller wings tend to coincide with lower drag, and your wing loading goes up when you add more weight to the plane, i.e. huge loud thundering powerplants.) The F-4 Phantom basically proved that a brick will fly if you give it enough thrust - and not only fly, but break speed records. For various reasons fighters with higher-loaded wings tend to have superior roll rates as well (this was the undoing of the Zero versus the Wildcat/Hellcat, in fact.) This is at least partially because roll rate depends heavily on centrifugal force effects...

>>30518810
>completely ignores the point
>again

>The F-4 Phantom basically proved that a brick will fly if you give it enough thrust - and not only fly, but break speed records.
I'm sorry, are we talking about straight-line speed or turning characteristics?

>>30518810
Well the thing is, when turning your D/L goes down initially. so looking at the graph you can conclude that pressure drag becomes more relevant.

Its all trade-offs and very situationally dependent though.

>>30518797
>I think you were confused with the x-axis, D/L is a measure of speed (so not AoA).

Correct. I understand the graph now.

>>30518810

-centrifugal force effects, so the more mass you have the further from the centerline the more energy it takes to get it moving (around the centerline.) And naturally, fighters with lower wing loading tend to have big wings. You can increase effective lift with the same wing area if you thicken the chord of the aircraft (which is what flaps do, basically, and why fighter pilots will drop flaps in a close turn fight) but that costs you in top speed because of the increased friction drag in level flight (the entire thing about pressure drag and its relation to wing chord is a surprise to me, thanks to >>30518797 for explaining that.) For the same reason turn-fighters in the modern era tend to use lifting-body designs to get even more lift/lower effective wing loading, and that spreads the weight out horizontally (and the mass) which further impacts roll rate.

>>30518841
well flaps are mainly there to increase your liftcoefficient and therefore increase pressure drag not friction drag, but you get the idea.

>>30518840
>Well the thing is, when turning your D/L goes down initially. so looking at the graph you can conclude that pressure drag becomes more relevant.
>Its all trade-offs and very situationally dependent though.

Precisely. The longer you turn, the more energy you lose to drag. If you sustain the turn, you are, unsurprisingly, then in a sustained turn fight, and you get raped by the aircraft that wasn't shaped like a lawn dart.

Therefore you fight without getting into sustained turns. The F-104 was made to go fast, which also means, coincidentally, that it was a nice clean ship when not turning, letting you build back energy pretty fast (it accelerated like a bat out of hell, as you might infer from the power/weight ratio, esp. of older models.) The high instantaneous turn performance lets you pull hard Gs to get angles for a good shot without fear - you spend energy hard, yes, but you can build it back again quickly; you'll probably be out of the enemy's range by the time he manages to reverse to put his pipper on you. But that's just energy fighting 101.

>I'm sorry, are we talking about straight-line speed or turning characteristics?

See above. As I've been trying to tell you, you don't necessarily need to turn to fight.

>>30518858
I should add to this that different types of flaps do different things, regular flaps only raise the Cl (lift coefficient) but fowler flaps for example also increase the size of the actual wing, therefore creating even more extra lift (and theyre also more efficient than regular flaps because your dont have to increase your Cl as much).

>>30518863
>See above. As I've been trying to tell you, you don't necessarily need to turn to fight.
It was an interceptor.
Not a dogfighter.
Nothing you say will change that fact.
It was not designed to perform well in the merge.
It did not perform well in the merge.
Dozens of pilots confirm this.
Why are you even still arguing the point?

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>>30518858
>well flaps are mainly there to increase your liftcoefficient and therefore increase pressure drag not friction drag, but you get the idea.

Exactly, which is why they slow you down a lot.

>>30518863

Anyway, back to the Zero being a bad roller? One of the reasons was it had very large control surfaces (ailerons) and it was an old-fashioned aircraft powered by muscle power, so as airspeed increased, it became harder and harder for the pilot to move the stick (greater force pressing back against the ailerons as you try to deflect them into the airstream.) Aircraft use hydraulics for that now of course; I have no idea if that's still an issue for various physical or engineering reasons or if its negligible - but in any case it does illustrate that the slavish focus on maximizing turn performance of the Zero cost it dearly in other maneuverability regimes.

>>30518878
>Why are you even still arguing the point?

Because you're wrong, you stupid cockbag.

>Dozens of pilots confirm this.

I'd love some cites on that, considering that we've got a link in this very thread describing the Starfighter as surprisingly nimble when the flaps came out.

>It was an interceptor.

So was the F-4 Phantom. Fuck, the F4U Corsair was originally built to a specification for a fucking dedicated bomber interceptor. They both proved very, very good at ACM.

>It did not perform well in the merge.

What, pray tell, does this even fucking mean? The ideal zero-advantage merge is where both fighters pass each other with separation in horizontal and vertical as close to zero as possible. This is not very hard to accomplish unless your enemy manages to catch you from behind, at which point you have been bounced and you are fucked anyways. This statement tells me fucking nothing.

>>30518908

I mean, here. Here's the fucking link:

http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/JOHT/joht12f-104.htm

<You will read in some references that the F-104 is not very maneuverable. Well, down low and going slow, it isn't. However, high and fast - which was how it was designed to operate - it is just about untouchable. The secret is energy maneuvering, repeatedly trading speed for altitude and vice versa. Pilots of other aircraft flying practice dogfights against a Starfighter get left behind when their opponent makes a vertical maneuver they can't match. While they are trying to relocate the tiny plane, it suddenly dives on them from behind. Repeated slashing maneuvers leave opponents riddled, while providing little opportunity for retaliation. (Members of one squadron of F-105 pilots participating in dissimilar aircraft exercises complained that the only reason they came in second was that the F-104s kept going up and down, instead of turning hard like real airplanes do. One F-8 pilot in another dissimilar aircraft exercise chased down what he thought was a lone F-4 - which also used the J-79 engine - only to see an F-104 break off from close formation, going into a vertical climb. He lost that match.)

This is classic energy fighting; especially the focus on using the vertical. Back before aircraft had a 1:1 thrust ratio, climbing away (and attacking from above) meant the enemy had to time his counter very carefully, or he'd stall out before you reached gun range (very tricky to time with the closing speeds of a front-quarter attack) thus giving you a clean shot (compensating for higher deflection angles by holding fire till you're really close; again, easy due to the high closing rate.) Even with modern fighters that can climb indefinitely at any angle...

>>30518908
>when the flaps came out.
And that somehow also equates to a fighter that regained energy very quickly? Also, and here's the fun part, what do you think happens to wing loading when the flaps come out? Especially the Starfighter's fowler flaps?

>What, pray tell, does this even fucking mean? The ideal zero-advantage merge is where both fighters pass each other with separation in horizontal and vertical as close to zero as possible. This is not very hard to accomplish unless your enemy manages to catch you from behind, at which point you have been bounced and you are fucked anyways. This statement tells me fucking nothing.
You don't even know what the term "the merge" means in the context of modern WVR air to air combat? Fuck, man. Why are you even commenting? Seriously.

>>30518935
>http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/JOHT/joht12f-104.htm
A blog post.
Written by an engineer.
Not even an aeronautics engineer.
Not even a pilot.

What the literal fuck, anon?

Here's another question for you: if the F-104 was so excellent at WVR combat against other fighters, why was it so thoroughly wrecked against MiG-21s in the 1965 Indian-Paki war?

, the guy with the draggier ship with the lower power/weight ratio will lose more energy, comparatively, if he tries to follow you into the vertical (or put his nose on you to ward you away from accepting a head-to-head shot (which no sane pilot takes up, because that's an easy way to get both pilots killed; that's not a victory.) The vertical also means gravity is pulling your aircraft towards Earth, helping you tighten your turn radius more than your aircraft could do in a flat, horizontal turn.

>And that somehow also equates to a fighter that regained energy very quickly? Also, and here's the fun part, what do you think happens to wing loading when the flaps come out? Especially the Starfighter's fowler flaps?

It gets a bit lower. All that means though, is that the Starfighter (like a LOT of fighters, in fact,) could really catch people by surprise by dropping two notches of flaps. And that's simply because it'd start maneuvering like a mediocre or even poor turning aircraft, instead of an aircraft that needs half the Atlantic to make a horizontal reversal. Starfighter's a bit unique in that regard; most of those aircraft tended to be bigger heavier aircraft that actually had lower wing loading than they looked like they had, and with two notches of flaps became surprisingly good turners (but very poor rollers.) P-61 would be one example.

>You don't even know what the term "the merge" means in the context of modern WVR air to air combat?

I literally just described the merge, and you're telling me I don't know what a merge is? Fuck you, moron. And protip, "The merge" refers to the initial merge. Not every crossing of flight paths after it. You don't call the flat scissors a "series of merges."

You stupid arrogant little fuck, why don't you go outside and play? God I hate summer.

>>30518989
>attacking the source

Fine. Let's rank sources by legitimacy.

My source: Engineer that worked alongside the pilots that flew and fought in the Starfighter.
Your source: Horseshit opinions of some random cunt on the internet (yourself.)

My source wins.

>Indian-Paki war?
>Indian-Paki

Yeah bro top-notch pilots there, that's definitely a valid and all-illuminating example of the plane being flown to its utmost, and not a cherry-picked anecdote that only proves that shit pilots are shit pilots.

Basically, it comes down to me knowing something about ACM, and you knowing jack diddly fucking shit. I've actually done some reading. What have you done? Your granpappy used to fly Phantoms or something, so now you think you know everything? Or maybe you play Borethunder and cry about Russian Bias?

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Boy howdy, is that silence? Did the kiddie go to bed? Did he finally follow through on his threat to go stomp off because anon won't sit here and listen to his uninformed bullshit?

Probably. Who cares. I'm just posting one more time so I can say, once again: Fuck You. I hate you fucks. Every single fucking thread has at least one little mouthy cunt like you who thinks they know fucking everything about a highly technical fucking topic, and the first words out of their mouth to anyone who fucking disagrees with them is "FUCK YOU RETARD." /k/ has never, ever been a good place. It started as a place for /b/tards to argue over katanas and has never really shed that diseased, rotten core of stupidity. But by fuck you summerfag shitlords are a special breed of asswipe. May God infect your bowels with something horrible.

>>30519013
>Yeah bro top-notch pilots there, that's definitely a valid and all-illuminating example of the plane being flown to its utmost, and not a cherry-picked anecdote that only proves that shit pilots are shit pilots.
What other conflicts was the F-104 employed in?
>Vietnam
No air combat victories
Shot down by a Chinese J-6. That's right, it got smoked by a Chinese copy of a MiG-19.
Six more downed by ground fire.

>India-Pakistan wars
One claimed A2A victory against a Dassault Mystère IV (almost too embarrassing to count)
5 shot down by MiG-21s, with one more claimed by India

>Taiwan crisis 1967
One A2A victory over a Chinese MiG-19
One F-104 from that fight did not return to base, no surety what happened to it

So, the total combat record for the F-104 is as follows:
A2A victories: 2, both older aircraft
A2A defeats: 6-8
Ground fire losses: 6

That should tell you about everything you need to know. It has one of if not the worst combat records in US fighter history, though if it had ever been actually used as an interceptor it probably would have performed brilliantly.

>>30519132
>Probably. Who cares. I'm just posting one more time so I can say, once again: Fuck You. I hate you fucks. Every single fucking thread has at least one little mouthy cunt like you who thinks they know fucking everything about a highly technical fucking topic, and the first words out of their mouth to anyone who fucking disagrees with them is "FUCK YOU RETARD." /k/ has never, ever been a good place. It started as a place for /b/tards to argue over katanas and has never really shed that diseased, rotten core of stupidity. But by fuck you summerfag shitlords are a special breed of asswipe. May God infect your bowels with something horrible.
u mad bro?

>>30519149

So you're just going to double-down on your fucking cherrypicking? By your logic the F-22 is the worst fighter on earth because it hasn't been in a single shooting war yet and hasn't scored a single kill.

>That's right, it got smoked by a Chinese copy of a MiG-19.

Yeah and a civilian helicopter shot down a Russian biplane fighter in the same war, what's your fucking point?

Have you ever heard of "sample size?" Your sample size is so small that you can't draw any meaningful evidence from it; especially as it was only operated in air to air combat by poorly trained pilots from poor nations with poor doctrine.

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>>30519160
>u mad bro?

At least respect the hallowed shitposting traditions of the board and use a god-damned image. Here's one, for free.

Summerfags. Summerfags EVERYWHERE. What ever happened to lurking more?

>>30519176
>So you're just going to double-down on your fucking cherrypicking? By your logic the F-22 is the worst fighter on earth because it hasn't been in a single shooting war yet and hasn't scored a single kill.
The F-22 hasn't flown over 3,000 sorties in active combat zones against active air threats.

The F-104 did. And it got exactly 2 kills. And it got shot down at least 6, possibly 8 times.

Those are basic facts. That's the entire combat record. There's nothing to cherry pick.

>Have you ever heard of "sample size?" Your sample size is so small that you can't draw any meaningful evidence from it; especially as it was only operated in air to air combat by poorly trained pilots from poor nations with poor doctrine.
The F-104 flew 2,937 sorties in Vietnam. Those are US pilots. US training. They got exactly zero A2A kills. And they got shot down once.

That's only 60% of the missions the F-105 flew in Vietnam, by the way. Pretty much everyone agrees that was not an amazing fighter. Care to guess what it's record was? 27.5 A2A victories to 17 A2A shootdowns.

You know you've got a shit aircraft when the Thud kicks the shit out of your K/D ratio.

>>30519221
>That's the entire combat record.

And considering the vast majority of those sorties were opposed by nothing but SAMs, that doesn't mean jack shit. In Vietnam the North Vietnamese Air Force refused to engage fighters; they just wanted to ambush bombers (intelligently.) The Stargfighter usually flew as a dedicated escort fighter, thus they were never engaged (which is explicitly spelled out in that fucking link you tried to brush off.) In the entire fucking Vietnamese war there were only a handful of actual air-to-air engagements.

Sample size, you dumb motherfucker. Chuck Yeager flew 30 combat missions. He saw the enemy six times. And that was against an airforce that contested the skies much more often than the NVA.

>That's only 60% of the missions the F-105 flew in Vietnam, by the way. Pretty much everyone agrees that was not an amazing fighter. Care to guess what it's record was? 27.5 A2A victories to 17 A2A shootdowns.

That's because the F-105 was the bomber aircraft the NVA wanted to ambush; so those pilots engaged enemy aircraft a lot more often.

Here's proof of everything I'm saying: https://theaviationist.com/2014/10/09/operation-bolo-f-4c/

>Operation Bolo: how U.S. F-4C Phantoms disguised as F-105 bombers set a trap for North Vietnam’s MiG-21s

NVA fighters refused to engage escorted strikes so often that the Phantoms had to bait them into attacking... by pretending to be unescorted Thuds. Because MiGs DID attack Thuds.

Just give it the fuck up, kid. You literally don't know what you're talking about, and I'll keep blowing you the fuck out all night.

>>30519273
>In Vietnam the North Vietnamese Air Force refused to engage fighters; they just wanted to ambush bombers (intelligently.) The Stargfighter usually flew as a dedicated escort fighter, thus they were never engaged (which is explicitly spelled out in that fucking link you tried to brush off.) In the entire fucking Vietnamese war there were only a handful of actual air-to-air engagements.
Then how did the pretty crappy F-105 get a 27.5 to 17 record in Vietnam?
How did the F-4 amass a 151 kills to 41 losses record in Vietnam?
Shit, even the F-5 managed 2 kills.

Is your defense of the F-104 really that there was never any A2A combat in Vietnam? Fucking really?

>That's because the F-105 was the bomber aircraft the NVA wanted to ambush; so those pilots engaged enemy aircraft a lot more often.
>NVA fighters refused to engage escorted strikes so often that the Phantoms had to bait them into attacking... by pretending to be unescorted Thuds. Because MiGs DID attack Thuds.
If that is the reason F-4s got so many kills, again I ask, why didn't the F-104? Literally could have used the same tactics.

I mean seriously, man, what are you even arguing at this point? That the F-104 had a GOOD combat record? Is that really a wagon you want to hitch your horse to? It had a terrible combat record. It was literally shit at every job that was not interceptor; this is historical fact.

>>30517541
I think he meant to say 'as long as'.

>>30519334
>Then how did the pretty crappy F-105 get a 27.5 to 17 record in Vietnam?

Because it was the bomber they focused on attacking, you fuckwit.

>How did the F-4 amass a 151 kills to 41 losses record in Vietnam?

The Phantom was a multi-role fighter that was widely used by Navy, Marines AND Air Force and was used much more widely in the war than the F-104 Starfighter, which participated in much smaller roles and for much shorter time periods.

>If that is the reason F-4s got so many kills, again I ask, why didn't the F-104?

Because they only deployed to Vietnam twice.

http://www.i-f-s.nl/vietnam/

>F-104Cs served in SEA in 1965-66 and 1966-67 during two separate deployments. Over the course of these two deployments, seven F-104s were lost to enemy ground defenses; one F-104 was shot down by an enemy aircraft, and no enemy aircraft were engaged by F-104s while flying escort or CAP missions.

Compare that to the Phantom, which was used in much greater numbers from the very beginning of the war till the very end.

>That the F-104 had a GOOD combat record?

No, we're watching you trying to shift the goalposts after I proved you know less about ACM than a dead rodent. Its especially laughable to try and extrapolate wide-ranging claims about the airframe's potential from a very limited number of missions where it never had a single classic engagement that would actually provide one, even one, "live-fire" demonstration of its capabilities in symmetric air combat in the hands of a well-trained pilot.

Of course, we've got more than enough commentary regarding the performance in actual dogfighting exercises, but you're ignoring that because it doesn't back up your shit conclusions.

>>30519407

Check it:

>The effect of F-104 deployment upon NVN and PRC MiG operations was immediate and dramatic. NVN MiGs avoided contact with USAF strikes being covered by F-104s, and PRC MiGs gave the EC-121s a wide berth despite the proximity to Hainan island, from where PRC harassment flights had previously originated. Much to the frustration of the pilots of the F-104s, during the entire deployment of the 476th only two fleeting encounters between F-104s and enemy fighters occurred (*6). As it became apparent that the MiG threat had decreased, PACAF sought to find other uses for the F-104s to supplement their air superiority role. Toward the end of the 476th's deployment, the F-104s began to be tasked for weather recce and ground attack missions.

So it never shot down any aircraft because it literally never had a chance to. So your quoting of "statistics" and "combat record" means jack diddly fucking shit. Just admit that you're wrong, bro. It's what big, grown-up boys do.

>>30519273
>>30519334
Aircraft with better combat records than the F-104:
F9F Panther (Korean War USN fighter, slow as all fuck): 10 kills, 2 losses
F-80 (Korea): 17 kills to 14 losses

You have to go all the way back to the F-84 (8-64 in Korea) to find a US fighter with a worse combat record.

>On 11 July 1965, the 476th TFS completed its 96th day of TDY deployment. In all, 476th aircraft had flown 1182 combat sorties. 52% of these sorties were EC-121 escort; 24% were MiG screen; 5% were weather recce and 18% were ground attack missions.

So they flew a grand total of 250 or so (one-quarter of all sorties) missions where they could reasonably expect to encounter MiGs (MiG screen/BARCAP,) and only saw the enemy twice. In other words, it was never tested in air to air combat in the hands of US pilots at all.

>>30519450

Moving the goalposts again. Now you want to compare completely different wars with completely different dynamics, force numbers, and engagement doctrines?

You're wrong, fuckhead. Accept it.

>After several equipment failures and numerous incorrect steering commands from DaNang and a tanker, his F-104 wandered over Hainan and was shot down by a PRC J-6 (MiG-19S)

Fucking hilarious; the only air-to-air loss in US Service was of a fighter suffering multiple equipment failures (deaf, dumb and blind, basically) that probably couldn't have fought back if it'd wanted to. Yeah, this is totally relevant data.

>>30519407
>Because they only deployed to Vietnam twice.
They still flew almost 3,000 combat sorties. If they were so effective, why were they only there for two tours?

>Compare that to the Phantom
Why? The F-104 was never even in the same zip code as the Phantom.

>I proved you know less about ACM than a dead rodent
No, you've pretty much done nothing but show your ass when it comes to flight mechanics. You're literally applying WWII flight characteristics to the F-104 while evaluating it. As if compressability, among other things, just doesn't exist. Fucking mind blowing.

>Of course, we've got more than enough commentary regarding the performance in actual dogfighting exercises, but you're ignoring that because it doesn't back up your shit conclusions.
Already addressed it. You've supplied one blog post by someone who is neither a pilot nor an aeronautics engineer. Not much more to say to that.

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>>30504555

Depends entirely are you Italian. If you are, it was a fine interceptor, if aren't... it was a death trap kind of fighter-bomber.

>>30504593

Only if you fly in bad visibility conditions and not so flat terrain. It is fastest thing ever for low altitude flying and has unbrealable speed record... that is only second best run.. faster run wasn't good for record due to camera failure.

>>30519476
>Fucking hilarious; the only air-to-air loss in US Service was of a fighter suffering multiple equipment failures (deaf, dumb and blind, basically) that probably couldn't have fought back if it'd wanted to. Yeah, this is totally relevant data.
Take it away, the F-104's combat record is still 2 kills to 5-7 losses. You can have it. The record is still dogshit. Literally the only US dedicated fighter to have a negative k/d record since the F-84, which was a generation behind the planes it was fighting.

>>30519466
>Moving the goalposts again.
I'm moving the goalposts? I'm simply pointing out that literally every other combat tested aircraft in US history since Korea (except the F-84) had a positive or nuetral combat record. The F-104 was the only one that didn't. Shit, even the F-100 managed to avoid getting shot down A2A over 360,283 sorties. Think about that for a minute.

>>30519489
Sorry, spoke too soon. I forgot about the F-102's 0-1 record in Vietnam.

>>30519479
>They still flew almost 3,000 combat sorties. If they were so effective, why were they only there for two tours?

>The F-104s of the 435th continued flying escort missions over the Gulf of Tonkin until 19 July 1967, when they were withdrawn from the theater and replaced by F-4Ds of the 4th TFS. The official reasons for the withdrawal were the need to shepherd remaining F-104C assets in case the MiG threat increased in SEA or elsewhere in the world, the imminent phase-out of the F-104 from active USAF service (*17), and the deficiency in air-to-ground load (*18) that could be carried by the F-104 (*19) . During their second deployment to SEA, the F-104s of the 435th TFS had flown a total of 5306 combat sorties, for a total of 14,393 combat flight hours. Due to increasing parts shortages (*20) and unrelenting sortie rates (*21), aircraft in-commission rate dropped from a high of 85% to a low of 62%

>Why?

Because they flew the vast majority of fighter-bomber missions in Vietnam, fucktard, and in much greater numbers.

>You're literally applying WWII flight characteristics to the F-104 while evaluating it.

Dogfights quickly go subsonic when combat starts due to energy lost while maneuvering. Aircraft in WWII had to respect many of the same engineering trade-offs modern fighters do. Your inability to understand this just proves how fucking stupid you are.


>You've supplied one blog post by someone who is neither a pilot nor an aeronautics engineer.

So the actual testimony of someone who worked with the aircraft, in their unit, and witnessed the performance and results of the aircraft, is shit. But your quoting of "combat record" that deliberately ignores the relevant context informing it counts?

So empirical evidence only counts when you can't admit you've lost an argument. Coolio.

>As if compressability, among other things, just doesn't exist

Did you know that before WWII started, a lot of people thought dogfighting was obsolete, because aircraft were orders of magnitude faster than WWI counterparts, and so much heavier that the idea of them getting into turn fights was just ridiculous? Fly a WWI sim sometime. You'll be awful surprised at how different it feels - the aircraft are a lot lighter, and they can reverse a lot faster. Just letting up on the stick a bit to try and perform a lag-pursuit turn (just fine in a WWII fighter) will result in your enemy having almost completed a 360 degree turn by the time he comes into your forward field of view again. It's crazy.

And yet most of the dogfighting lessons learned in WWI applied to WWII as well; the dogfight's just happened at higher initial speeds and higher sustained speeds, and the turning circles covered more area.

>>30519537
>Dogfights quickly go subsonic when combat starts due to energy lost while maneuvering.
Dumbass. For the last fucking time. Flight mechanics change vastly between 250 and 450 knots. Compressability is not an issue that begins at Mach 1. This is basic stuff, man. Fucking read a book.

>Aircraft in WWII had to respect many of the same engineering trade-offs modern fighters do. Your inability to understand this just proves how fucking stupid you are.
Not in any real engineering sense. The entire game was changed with early swept-wing jets and then again once the area-rule started being applied. You'd know this if you didn't have your head up your ass.

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>>30519514
>I'm simply pointing out that literally every other combat tested aircraft in US history since Korea (except the F-84) had a positive or nuetral combat record.

What about the Brewster Buffalo? You know, that Navy fighter that's been put in dozens and dozens of books as one of "the worst fighters of all time?" Its only combat engagement with the USN was at Midway, where it got blown the fuck out in epic style...

... except that same aircraft, used by the Finns, kicked so many Russian asses that the Finns called it the "pearl of the northern skies" and to this day it holds a special place in their hearts. It's almost like simply quoting k/d numbers doesn't prove fucking shit, especially when you only have three or four actual fights to quote. And since we've already established that the F-104 never entered an actual dogfight with a competent, Western-trained pilot at the controls, it's clear that there is NO combat experience for the airframe that proves shit. You may as well try to judge the T-72 based off the shit performance the stripped-down "monkey model" export versions operated by undertrained Iraqis put in during Desert Storm.

You're grasping at straws, and it shows.

>>30519567
Anon, just stop. It isn't worth it. He's just going to keep screeching the same shit until the thread dies or you go to bed. You are fighting autism.

>>30519575
>What about the Brewster Buffalo?
You know that sentence you quoted? The one where I specifically said, "since Korea"? That's what about the Buffalo.

Are you high right now?

>>30519584
I know, I know. I'm done. Can't fight stupid.

>>30519567
>The entire game was changed with early swept-wing jets and then again once the area-rule started being applied.

Prove it.

Go ahead, cocksucker. Prove it. I can (and have) held forth at length several times in this thread where I patiently explain the things I'm talking about, giving examples and such to make it easier to follow along. You, on the other hand, just drop a one-sentence statement making a claim, then call me stupid for not knowing "what you're talking about." Except your refusal to actually talk about the subject proves that you don't know jack fucking shit either. You're stupid, and hoping that telling lies off the cuff will confuse and flabbergast me. Oh no. He said "area rule." He dropped a buzzword! What ever shall I do?

Except I know these buzzwords already, I know what they mean, and I know you're full of fucking shit. So guess what? It's your turn. Go ahead, big guy. Tell me what "area rule" means. Go ahead and explain how the "game was totally changed." Go for it, fucknugget.

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>>30519584
>>30519593

>ou know that sentence you quoted? The one where I specifically said, "since Korea"

Like I said. Cherrypicking.

>>30519595
>Prove it.
You want me to prove that the area rule fundamentally changed the way aircraft were designed? Fucking really?

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter5.html
>The solution to this frustrating impasse was found by Richard T Whitcomb, a young aerodynamicist at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. His development of the "area rule" revolutionized how engineers looked at high-speed drag and impacted the design of virtually every transonic and supersonic aircraft ever built. In recognition of its far-reaching impact, Whitcomb's area rule was awarded the 1954 Collier Trophy.
>Researchers in the Langley Research Center's wind tunnels had begun working with transonic airflows and the problem of transonic drag (at speeds approaching and surpassing the speed of sound) even before the end of World War II. In 1943
Notice where it says "APPROACHING ... the speed of sound?"

>>30519606
>Like I said. Cherrypicking.
So cherrypicking means I was limiting the comparison to only conflicts where jet fighters saw combat fighting other jet fighters? In a comment about the effectiveness of a jet fighter tasked to fight other jet fighters?

Just how retarded are you?

Seriously, fuck this. I'm going to bed.

>>30519621
>Notice where it says "APPROACHING ... the speed of sound?"
>transonic drag

And this affects a discussion about low-to-high subsonic maneuvering (i.e. the speed range at where dogfighting occurs) how, exactly? There is a challenge inherent in engineering an aircraft so it can handle the transonic/supersonic regime effectively and still maneuver (i.e. turn) decently at low airspeeds, yes. Century series fighters didn't even try to do this, which is why we got aircraft like the F-102, F-104 and F-106. Fighters like the Falcon and the F-15 are the beneficiary of new computers, new science and new engineering techniques.

Except you don't need to turn well to be able to dogfight well. As I explained repeatedly to you. You dumb son of a bitch.

>So cherrypicking means I was limiting the comparison to only conflicts where jet fighters saw combat fighting other jet fighters?

It means limiting the comparison to wars where actual instances of air to air combat were so limited as to be highly context-sensitive and useless in a statistical sense - and then you tried to treat them as statistics and ignore the context. Basically you're arguing in bad faith, because you're a stupid cunt who can't admit that he doesn't have a fucking clue.

>Seriously, fuck this. I'm going to bed.

Don't come back anytime soon. Next time you get the urge to post in a /k/ thread about aircraft, just stay the fuck out of it. Because I'll be there, and I'll be happy to shit down your fucking throat all over again. Arrogant know-it-all cunts like you have fucking ruined what little value /k/ once had. Fuckheads like you are responsible for the endless F-35 threads. You sound like an engineer; you think you know fucking everything about long-range shooting because you engineered the receiver on the gun. Surprise, fuckwad, having a math degree doesn't make you a genius, it just makes you a monkey good at following directions.

Do the world a favor and kill yourself.

>>30510420
That's because the only thing persians have in common with arabs are their religion, and that's quite new.

>>30519656
>And this affects a discussion about low-to-high subsonic maneuvering (i.e. the speed range at where dogfighting occurs) how, exactly?
Oh, only in the fact that it fundamentally changed how every aircraft designed to fly faster than 300 knots was built. Only that. Once again for the short bus, compressability does not start becoming an issue at Mach .99. It starts seriously affecting performance as slow as 300 knots. It's not just about transonic drag, dillweed.

>There is a challenge inherent in engineering an aircraft so it can handle the transonic/supersonic regime effectively and still maneuver (i.e. turn) decently at low airspeeds, yes.
How you can say this and still claim that WWII flight mechanics are still completely applicable in the analysis of the F-104 is mind boggling.

>Century series fighters didn't even try to do this, which is why we got aircraft like the F-102, F-104 and F-106.
Absolute bullshit. I mean grade-A shit right there.

>Fighters like the Falcon and the F-15 are the beneficiary of new computers, new science and new engineering techniques.
Seeing as how the Area Rule was developed as a design tool in the 19-fucking-40's, I assure you computers were not necessary to apply good practices to address compressability and transonic drag in new aircraft.

>Except you don't need to turn well to be able to dogfight well. As I explained repeatedly to you. You dumb son of a bitch.
You made a bunch of ridiculous generalizations and flat misrepresentations of the engineering concepts. And then you claimed that area rule and swept wings were no big deal in design. Fuck off.

>You sound like an engineer
So you have no formal aeronautics training. Right.

>Surprise, fuckwad, having a math degree doesn't make you a genius
No math degree either. Tell me, do you even have a college degree?

>Do the world a favor and kill yourself.
Look out, folks. Big interwebs tough guy here.

>>30515688
Why, because we're exposing you for the dumb, gullible fanboi that you are?
And yes, the Starfighter was nothing more than a piloted rocket that should have never been used for anything else but high altitude interceptions.

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>>30519688
>How you can say this and still claim that WWII flight mechanics are still completely applicable in the analysis of the F-104 is mind boggling.

Yeah sure I guess wing loading and the physical aerodynamic factors affected by it just ceased to matter after 1955. Which explains why you spent the first third of this argument trying to say it was super relevant.

>Absolute bullshit. I mean grade-A shit right there.

Yeah, you're totally right, the "missile with a man in it" wasn't optimized for transonic/supersonic performance elusively, and all that time you spent arguing that it being an "interceptor" made it a shitty "fighter" I guess we can just ignore that, you meant something totally different.

>I assure you computers were not necessary to apply good practices to address compressability and transonic drag in new aircraft.

So we refused to design aircraft with excellent low-speed sustained turn rates *and* super-cruise ability in the 60s and 70s purely as a matter of doctrine, then? Someone said "no, I don't want a perfect do-everything fighter, gimp the performance in a few key areas." Yeah, that sounds legit.

>You made a bunch of ridiculous generalizations and flat misrepresentations of the engineering concepts. And then you claimed that area rule and swept wings were no big deal in design. Fuck off.

You first, fucknugget. You're the one who still can't fucking explain to me how any of this shit backs up your argument. I was perfectly willing to talk to that guy upthread talking about pressure drag and shit, but you? Nah. Fuck you. I'm not going to suck your cock and worship at the altar of The Engineer. You actually have to explain these concepts if you want anyone to understand or accept your argument, and now that you've spent half the thread calling me a dumb cocksucker for not believing what you said just because you said it, you can kiss that goodbye.

>No math degree either. Tell me, do you even have a college degree?

Bachelors; double-major in Journalism and Political Science. Which means I'm very good at researching complex topics and breaking them down into easily-understood language for laymen. I work a a technical writer. Trust me, I've talked to plenty of engineers, and you fit that douchebag mold like a fucking GLOVE.

>>30519726
>>30519733
You know, something about this guy just does not jive with "professional journalist". Or even "well educated". Anyone else getting a "cheetoh crusted sufferer of asbergers with maybe a little tourette's" vibe?

>>30519334
>Then how did the pretty crappy F-105 get a 27.5 to 17 record in Vietnam?
>How did the F-4 amass a 151 kills to 41 losses record in Vietnam?

With very selective interpretation of statistics. If there is any doubt with cause of loss. It is always ground fire that caused it for propaganda reasons for immediate concerns and since officers giving statements usually continue their careers... they can't admit lying later on as that would be used against them.

When you take a look at any Vietnamese fighter aces claimed kills, almost all of 'em have couple that have been credited to SAMs or AAA by US.

>If that is the reason F-4s got so many kills, again I ask, why didn't the F-104? Literally could have used the same tactics.

Range. There no way F-104 could have flown same missions as F-4.

>>30519742
>takes fighter with one of the worst combat records in US fighter jet history
>which was designed as a no-nonsense straight line speed, acceleration and time-to-climb monster interceptor
>claims it was actually excellent in all flight regimes, and especially brilliant as an energy fighter in WVR combat against other fighters
>defends its terrible combat record
>REEEEEEEEs at anyone who disagrees

Nope. Seems legit.

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>>30519742
>just does not jive with "professional journalist".

You're so far off the mark that you couldn't hit the ground if it weren't for gravity. Take your average IT nerd, the kind that get paid 80,000 dollars a year to "maintain the servers" and fucking hiss at the light if you open the door to their den to ask them to unfuck something. Now imagine that guy at a typewriter surrounded by discarded chinese takeout boxes and posters of questionable vintage. That's a technical writer. Wolf fucking Blitzer they ain't.

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>>30519768
>claims it was actually excellent in all flight regimes

>>30519766
>With very selective interpretation of statistics. If there is any doubt with cause of loss.
Those are USAF-confirmed numbers. There hasn't been movement more than one or two either way on those in peer-reviewed sources in a couple decades. Those numbers are about as solid as air combat numbers get.

>Range. There no way F-104 could have flown same missions as F-4.
Yet another reason it was terrible at just about everything but point-defense interceptor roles.

>>30519781

Look, he's going to bed like he said he would!

>>30519575
>Brewster Buffalo
>post Korea
Tell me more.

>>30519775
see
>>30506769
>>30506880
(yes, he actually claimed the F-104 performed well at low altitude)
and then he continued to claim that instantaneous turn rate was the only think that mattered in maneuverability.
>>30515688
>>30515701
>>30515824
>>30517451
>>30517462
and on and on from there.

>>30519785
I'm not the anon you were arguing with. I think he was a burger.

>>30519772
>they
dat's some sad samefagging there.

or he really was lying.

>>30519733
Typical fucking journalist. Take a complex topic requiring a solid basic understanding of fundamentals, irreparably mangle it and then just try to scream louder than anyone who points out the many ways in which he's wrong.

Just fucking sad.

>>30519656
A guy here literally shoved the barrel of an 870 up his ass and got it stuck, yet somehow you sound more butthurt than he was.

Just chill out. You don't have to sperg to disprove someone.

>>30519799
>(yes, he actually claimed the F-104 performed well at low altitude)

That wasn't me. And a "smooth ride at low levels" doesn't really equate to superior combat performance in thick air.

>and then he continued to claim that instantaneous turn rate was the only think that mattered
>only

Another load of strawman horseshit.

>>30519831
Typical 4chan poster, shooting his mouth off about shit he doesn't understand. Don't you have an F-35 thread to shit up?

>>30519838
>A guy here literally shoved the barrel of an 870 up his ass and got it stuck

... what the fuck are you doing, and where are you?

>>30519850
>That wasn't me. And a "smooth ride at low levels" doesn't really equate to superior combat performance in thick air.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

holy fucking keks.
>direct reply string
>it wasn't me

thanks for the chuck mate

>>30519850
>Another load of strawman horseshit.
see >>30515824
>>30516005
>>30517598
>>30518270
>Both of which call upon instantaneous turn rate, not sustained turn rate, you fucking IDIOT.
>Something with thin, highly-loaded wings like the Starfighter could jink and jive all damn day and still retain most of its energy.
>still retain most of its energy
>still retain energy

Jesus Christ.

>>30519781
>Those are USAF-confirmed numbers. There hasn't been movement more than one or two either way on those in peer-reviewed sources in a couple decades.

It not just Vietnam where propaganda is a factor even in post conflict assessments of what actually happened. WW2 was last conflict where lots of combat pilots were "amateurs" with no military career ambitions.

>Yet another reason it was terrible at just about everything but point-defense interceptor roles.

It was pretty decent plane for naval strike and recon as visibity and terrain limitations of low level are more relaxed than over land. F-104 is pretty good on those as it is fast as hell on low level. Marine flieger had far less issues with F-104 than luftwaffe.

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>>30519831

Here. I'll fuckin prove it to you.

I made a comparison using two WWII era fighters to illustrate a relationship between an inherent engineering trade-off involving wing-loading. Fagmofuck spergs over it. I call him out on it, and illustrate it with an example of a prior technological leap that did not produce significantly different results when considered in the context of air combat maneuvering. He countered by citing a major advance in aerodynamic theory.

So, to form a rebuttal from this, he has to do the following.

1. Explain that the WWI to WWII tech advances were iterative, whereas the postwar tech advance was transformative.
2. Actually explain why that is. For instance, "knowledge of the area rule led to wing designs like swept-wing and delta-wing. These designs allow for much less induced drag while maintaining the same wing loading compared to earlier designs, so the trade-off between highly loaded wings and lowly loaded wings you were talking about earlier doesn't exist in modern fighters."

There. That's it. And an engineer - someone who actually *knows* why the above is true (if it were true) ought to be able to explain that.

This isn't very difficult for anyone who knows how to talk to other human beings. For some reason, engineers find this very, very fucking difficult to do. Half my job is translating the autistic spergrage of engineers so normal, sane people can understand it.

>>30519799

bru

it's 2016

that samefag shit doesn't work anymore

>>30519874

So lemme get this straight.

You're saying that an aircraft optimized for very high speeds and high altitudes... does *not* have a design that minimizes drag? That it doesn't retain energy well? That an aircraft shaped like a fucking lawn dart doesn't have a very low drag coefficient?

Do you know what a jink is?

>>30519900
Your writing style makes me hate you as a person.

>>30519924
>Your writing style makes me hate you as a person.

Of course it does. It's becuase I'm educated and I use big words and diction that makes your stupid retard head hurt. Here's a hint - if you put a hole in your head, it'll let all the pain out. Go get daddy's gun and set things right, anon. Scamper along now.

>>30504673
And they had a 0% crash rate in Spain
It seems Germans can't fly worth shit.

>>30504555
The worst thing about this thread is that you know everyone and their brother is gonna go "lol it was an interceptor guys".

It was designed to be an energy dogfighter with input from Korea veterans. It just so happened to enter service with ADC first as an interim while they waited for the F-106. As an interceptor its armament was poor; two AIM-9s and a vulcan.

The next variant was the F-104C which was a fighter bomber, a role it was not well designed for, but one it did not typically perform. In Vietnam the aircraft saw the most success as an escort fighter, PVAF aircraft rarely came up to try and inctercept when Starfighters were around.

Of course, as everyone knows, the USAF were not so hot on single role aircraft, and the starfighter was replaced by the massive, hugely capable, F-4 Phantom II. The Phantom II was more capable in the fighter bimber role, the interceptor role and despite what you'll read in the media, a surprisingly good dogfighter, provided the pilot wasn't an idiot.

>>30520696

Main issues with F-4 in Vietnam were immature weapon systems and most importantly training. USAF flight training was very safety oriented back then and had been designed bomber pilots in mind and fighter were trained the same way. Lot of USAF unit commanders used mostly older pilots because they had better air combat training in addition to experience.

>>30520280
>The German Air Force lost about 30% of aircraft in accidents over its operating career, and Canada lost 46% of its F-104s (110 of 235). The Spanish Air Force, however, lost none.
¡Toooooma!
Yes, it seems Canadians and Germans just need to git gud.

>>30519906
sigh, once again, friction drag and pressure drag are seperate things. you cant just say ,'oh my plane has low friction drag at high speeds so that means its good at turning'.

Coming from an actual aerospace engineer.

>>30505670

the lightning was considerably more manoeuvrable and better suited to other roles though

it also fit UK doctrine much better

Was part of a CF-104 squadron, ask me anything.

>>30521321
>>30520280

Spain was pretty only country that used it purely as fighter and mostly in good weather.

>>30504555
All interceptors are pretty bad. The engines though very powerful were usually pretty unreliable and the stability of the air frames themselves was questionable because of the optimization towards rate of climb and high top speed. They were made to pop up, kill some bombers, return, rearm, and repeat. Only other thing they were good for was reconnaissance.

>>30519900
>Fagmofuck spergs over it.
Looking at the conversation detailed >>30519799 and >>30519874, I'm not sure you have any ground to stand on calling someone else a sperg. At all.

My favorite:
>>30515824
>HERE, LET ME FUCKING GOOGLE IT FOR YOU, YOU STUPID GOD DAMNED ILLITERATE CUNT

>>30519885
>It not just Vietnam where propaganda is a factor even in post conflict assessments of what actually happened.
There was a lot of movement on those numbers in the late 80's-early 90's as more rigorous researching standards were applied to them. They're pretty solid now. But even if they were off by 10% in either direction (which would be a ton), it still doesn't change the fact that both the F-105 and F-4 have very positive numbers. I'm not that anon, so I'm not really sure what you're arguing here. That K/D numbers are all completely fabricated? Seems highly unlikely.

>>30519885
>It was pretty decent plane for naval strike and recon as visibity and terrain limitations of low level are more relaxed than over land.
But it handled terribly in low level flight. By far, the F-104s best flight regime was over 30,000ft and faster than 450 knots.

>F-104 is pretty good on those as it is fast as hell on low level.
The low-altitude speed record (using a highly modified F-104) is one thing. Using that in combat is another. To my knowledge, it was never used as a low-level sprinter. Nor was it ever employed in any naval attack.

>Marine flieger had far less issues with F-104 than luftwaffe.
IIRC (might be wrong here, I'll have to check), the Marineflieger only used the F-104s as high-level interceptors to protect their ships against incoming raids.

>>30519900
>Half my job is translating the autistic spergrage of engineers so normal, sane people can understand it.
You don't seem to be doing a very good job, as at least two folks that seem to be trained in aeronautics engineering in some way in this threat have been explaining to you why you've gotten it all bollocksed up, and you seem to be too busy throwing temper tantrums to listen to them and understand what they're saying.

Entertaining thread to read, though, watching you lose your mind and act like a complete mental case.

>>30519906
>You're saying that an aircraft optimized for very high speeds and high altitudes... does *not* have a design that minimizes drag? That it doesn't retain energy well?
Yes. That's exactly what he's saying. Most aircraft optimized for excellent high altitude, straight line speed are actually very poor at retaining energy in high delta turn rates. This is actually in the sources you quoted above, by the way.

>Do you know what a jink is?
Do you? Instantaneous turn rate dependent maneuvers by definition trade kinetic energy for a change in vector. So, no, not that great at retaining energy in a WVR fight.

>>30519900
>Half my job is translating the autistic spergrage of engineers so normal, sane people can understand it.
kek
how the fuck you do that when its obvious ITT that you can't understand basic statements from aeronautics engineers?

>>30521580
>He thinks Spain skies are always sunny and calm
(I know, you said "mostly", I was just going for comedy value.)
But the important part is "used as fighter" -read: as intended. The "mostly in good weather" part is less important (if it was the only factor, Germany and Spain losses would have been more similar - climate in most of Spain is totally continental).

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>>30506516
What was wrong with the hustler?

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>>30522778
>The low-altitude speed record (using a highly modified F-104) is one thing. Using that in combat is another. To my knowledge, it was never used as a low-level sprinter. Nor was it ever employed in any naval attack.
>IIRC (might be wrong here, I'll have to check), the Marineflieger only used the F-104s as high-level interceptors to protect their ships against incoming raids.

AS.34 Komoran anti-ship missile has been integrated to two platforms. Starfighter and Tornado IDS.

>>30525663
>AS.34 Komoran
That is not a low flight level launch weapon, anon. Those were designed to use the launching plane's altitude and speed as extra energy at maximum range.

>>30508441
Get me a souvenir.

>>30519733
>Political Science
>thinks engineers are shit
>actually failed at engineering college so he chose "political science"

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/k/ art and aesthetic thread?
/k/ art and aesthetic thread!

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>>30526924
>>30526942
>swing wings on a GEV
>REEEEEEEEEEE

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>>30522839
>Yes. That's exactly what he's saying. Most aircraft optimized for excellent high altitude, straight line speed are actually very poor at retaining energy in high delta turn rates. This is actually in the sources you quoted above, by the way.

>still conflating sustained turning with one or two quarter-turns to gain angles for a shot

this is the worst hell

>>30527044
>still assuming that no F-104 would ever have to make a 180 degree course change in a fight

You know, it's funny. I count at least three different pilots/aeronautics engineers ITT pointing out to you that you are incorrect.

Gotta be one hell of a case of asbergers to keep screaming at them to go fuck themselves when your technical education ended with high school. Journalists. Not even once.

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>>30527025

>>30527076
>>still assuming that no F-104 would ever have to make a 180 degree course change in a fight

A degree in engineering or aeronautics does not make you an expert in Air Combat Maneuvering, as every cunt in this thread has nicely demonstrated.

>>30527109
>as every cunt in this thread has nicely demonstrated.
>I AM THE LAW
>I AM THE LAWS OF AVIATION
>I AM THE ARBITER OF THE LAWS OF AVIATION

Man. It must be nice to be that sure of yourself while operating on that little data.

Sometimes I wish I could just shut down logical and scientific uncertainty and just be delusionally and completely certain.

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stupid sexy forward swept wings

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>>30527109

I mean, check it. This diagram shows the effects of gravity on maneuvering. Now consider that in the Starfighter's era, fighters didn't yet have a thrust/weight ratio of greater than 1:1; i.e. they couldn't keep climbing straight up indefinitely (like many can in the modern era.) And the Starfighter's TWR was... well, hell, judge it for yourself. Here's a quick link: http://www.russiadefence.net/t4374-fighters-comparison-thrust-to-weight-ratios-of-all-fighter-planes You can see how it stacked up against its contemporaries. Unsurprisingly for an aircraft that was little more than a gigantic engine bolted to a fuel tank with the minimum wing area to make it lift off, it could climb like a bat out of hell.

So, if you want to make a 180 degree reversal in a Starfighter, you accelerate straight a bit to gain speed (i.e. accelerate out of gun range,) then you pull up into a near-vertical climb, because of your opponent tries to follow you to take a shot, he'll fall out of the sky before you do. If he DOES do that, you just loop over and clobber him as he's recovering from the stall, having quickly reversed onto his six (the so-called "rope a dope".) If he's not that stupid, then you're still reversing while keeping well away from his gunsight.

This is the go-to method of fighting for aircraft that climb/accelerate well but turn like shit. Which would be the Starfighter.

And yet.

And yet, you faggots are *still* whinging on over technical details of wings and shit, even though it STILL isn't going to win you the argument, even if you DO prove you're right. It's the autismo special; the complete inability to see the forest for the trees.

Are you getting an inkling, yet?

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>>30516914
You do realize that that whole scene in The Right Stuff with the F-104 was completely made up from beginning to end, don't you? The only things the movie got right were the facts that Chuck Yeager was in the NF-104 test program and that he was involved in a crash in one where the ejection process severely injured him.

Yeager was on a regularly scheduled test flight of the NF-104 and was flying according to the flight plan, because Yeager is a fucking pro. The crash occurred because there was an incorrect forecasting of the density of the atmosphere above 100,000 ft. It was denser than expected which meant that his reaction jets wouldn't work above 100,000 ft. The control surfaces were hydraulically actuated and ran off of accessories pressure generated by the engine, which couldn't run at that altitude. He re-entered the lower atmosphere at the wrong angle of attack and entered a flat spin, which meant that he couldn't restart the engine because it required ram air flowing through the intakes. He used the braking chute to stabilize the aircraft and tried to restart the engine. However, when he jettisoned the chute to get more forward speed to start the engines, the plane immediately stalled and entered into the flat spin again. With no ability to control the aircraft, Yeager ejected. Unfortunately, because the ejection seat wasn't rated for that low of an airspeed, when he separated from the ejection seat to release his chute, the red hot rocket nozzles of the seat spun around and hit his helmet's face mask, breaking it and throwing molten rocket nozzle into his helmet and onto his face.

He lived, obviously, but he was severely burned by this.

>>30506852

Big whoop.
An Iowa class BB can dump 2.5 million pounds of ordinance on a target per hour.... Which is equivalent to 50 B1s.

And it would cost less money, too.

Battleship fanboys have this ace to play, never forget

>>30527325
>And it would cost less money, too.

What about the money to pay 1600 crewmen long enough to sail the fucker there? To say nothing of the bunker oil costs, maintenance of a warship that size, etc.

>>30527252
>And yet, you faggots are *still* whinging on over technical details of wings and shit, even though it STILL isn't going to win you the argument, even if you DO prove you're right. It's the autismo special; the complete inability to see the forest for the trees.
As a technical journalist, what does it tell you when two or three people with more education and experience in a subject you yourself are not educated in suggest to you that your views on a subject may be incorrect, misapprehended or simply muddled?

Because if screaming at them like you did >>30515824
>>30517598
>>30515688
>>30515701
just doesn't bode well for keeping your job for any length of time.

>>30527325
>An Iowa class BB can dump 2.5 million pounds of ordinance on a target per hour.... Which is equivalent to 50 B1s.
Except that they cannot access most of the relevant targets, whereas bomber or strike aircraft can go anywhere they need to. Those 16"/50s only had a 24mi range, anon.

>>30527357
>1600 crewmen
try 1800 (1980s) to 2700 (WWII/Korea)

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>>30527369
>As a technical journalist, what does it tell you when two or three people with more education and experience in a subject you yourself are not educated in

They're not. They are, at best, aeronautical engineers. They are not fighter pilots, nor are they experts in Air Combat Manuvering, which is what we're discussing here (specifically, the merits of the F-104 Starfighter at performing them.)

This is exactly how a conversation on "instantaneous turn" resulted in said geniuses constantly telling me that the F-104 is a bad at sustained or extreme turns - which everyone already knows. They literally cannot understand the method in which the aircraft is used, and thus they have no inkling of what physical properties are relevant.

And then some clown like you drops in to start with the appeal to the majority game - "three people disagree with you on the Internet, and they are citing non-applicable knowledge to back up their incorrect claims!"

I mean - I see this kind of stupidity in my day to day work, and yet, it still gives me pause to encounter it here. It's just so... so *thick.*

>just doesn't bode well for keeping your job for any length of time.

Oh no, I called someone a cunt on 4chan! How terrible.

>>30527325
Oh shit it's MUH 2.5 MILLION PER HOUR retard again.

>>30527508
>They are, at best, aeronautical engineers. They are not fighter pilots, nor are they experts in Air Combat Manuvering
So you, as a "technical journalist", are somehow more qualified to be an expert on BCM? That seems ridiculous.

>They literally cannot understand the method in which the aircraft is used, and thus they have no inkling of what physical properties are relevant.
Aeronautical engineers cannot understand how aircraft are employed. That's what you're saying? That's your argument?

I want to you stop and consider the lunacy of that for a moment.

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>>30505335
>The F-104 was an amazing interceptor, and was a pretty good analog to the MiG-21.
Except it got its ass completely handed to it when it went against the MiG in Kashmir.

>>30527613
Don't mention the Pakis or the overall F-104 combat record. He has a fucking stroke every time.

>>30527595
>So you, as a "technical journalist", are somehow more qualified to be an expert on BCM?

Considering that I've been reading, studying and practicing this shit since I was in grade school? Yes. They do have actual textbooks on this sort of thing, and I have read a few of them.

>Aeronautical engineers cannot understand how aircraft are employed. That's what you're saying?

Don't beat that strawman too fucking hard, bro. These few have repeatedly demonstrated that they do not understand ACM, so I very, very much doubt that they engineer combat aircraft. Maybe one of them works for Boeing designing long-endurance drones. Maybe one of them works for a fucking model airplane company building kit-builts or Almost Ready to Fly R/C stuff. But whatever they do, they don't actually understand ACM, much less any of the terms associated with it.

>I want to you stop and consider the lunacy of that for a moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Note that I consistently and repeatedly explain what I'm talking about. I don't just say "A Starfighter can reverse in the vertical." I describe how it works, and why it works, in detail - which should leave me wide open to detailed debunking/rebuttal by someone who knows more than me.

Except they never did that. They just say "I'm an engineer and you are Wrong." As far as I'm concerned, they've offered zero real proof that they know what the fuck they're talking about, that they have a degree, etc. You're basically taking them at their word, because they claimed to be Authorities, despite a manifest lack of evidence to back that up.

>>30527651

oh no le epeek trole ex de de de de de

>>30527357
>>30527369
>>30527577

You assholes.

That 24 mile range is to this day the majority of population centers on earth.

And 24 miles... Today a 5 inch cannon can reach out 80 miles.

Battleships deserve recognition for their possibilities. Kinda like the Orion battleship.

You should be scared to build one.

And if you want to knock old tech, the USS Constitution is to this day the only active navy ship that has sunk an enemy ship.

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>>30527706
>Battleships deserve recognition for their possibilities. Kinda like the Orion battleship.

Okay, listen. Here's the thing.

We have. The military has. Look at this picture. This ship has two fast-firing cannons that can fire precision-guided shells that fly almost 70 miles. It's the modern incarnation of the battleship.

Because Congress is a bunch of cheapskate cunts, they slashed procurement hard and now we only have three of them. And yet - AND YET - the Iowa class battleships are being kept on indefinite reserve status so they can technically be re-activated for combat, because certain fuckheads in Congress have more nostalgia than brains. They allocated money to repair the training gears and such on one ship (which the Navy had deliberately welded in place so Congress couldn't fuck with them like that) while they bitch and moan about the modern battleship being too expensive.

We COULD have more of these modern warships, but stupid nostalgiafag cunts like you are trying to cling to hideously obsolete, utterly useless relics that are useless in modern warfare. It's not funny anymore. It's not a joke. It's causing actual fucking harm to our defensive capabilities, and it needs to fucking stop.

>>30527768
Actually 85 miles on the low end, over 100 for the highend estimate.

>>30527508
Allright guys, let me set this straight. All the comments explaining the technical things in this thread have been coming from me. Apart from being an aeronautical engineer i also have a lot of experience in flightsims and dogfighting.

I can say for sure that starfighter was pretty shit at turning, not that it really matters because thats not what its supposed to do.

The whole instantaneous turning is a bunch of bollocks if you'd ask me, yes some planes can flip their nose up really quickly for a short amount of time, but definitely not at high speeds. Even if they could, it would be an extremely bad tactic (considering it can outrun its opponents quite easily).

The f104's design is decent but it just was extremely unreliable. However, it never was and never will be a good dogfighter.

>>30527705
>Considering that I've been reading, studying and practicing this shit since I was in grade school? Yes. They do have actual textbooks on this sort of thing, and I have read a few of them.
How exactly do you "practice" BCM?

I know the answer, I know it's coming. And I bet I'll still laugh my ass off when he drops the name of a video game or "simulation".

>Don't beat that strawman too fucking hard, bro.
It's literally what you said.

>These few have repeatedly demonstrated that they do not understand ACM
When the smartest and best educated guys in the room on a given topic are repeatedly suggesting that you've got it mixed up...

>But whatever they do, they don't actually understand ACM, much less any of the terms associated with it.
Right. And your reasoning for this is that you cannot possibly be wrong, yes?

>I don't just say "A Starfighter can reverse in the vertical." I describe how it works, and why it works, in detail - which should leave me wide open to detailed debunking/rebuttal by someone who knows more than me.
Yes, you describe how it works. Completely ignoring the fact that it is a completely ineffective maneuver in combat. Losing that much energy with anyone on your six is suicide. Period.

>Except they never did that. They just say "I'm an engineer and you are Wrong." As far as I'm concerned, they've offered zero real proof that they know what the fuck they're talking about, that they have a degree, etc. You're basically taking them at their word, because they claimed to be Authorities, despite a manifest lack of evidence to back that up.
Actually, at least two of them offered in depth analysis of the different types of aircraft friction, wing profiles, the practical differences between instantaneous and sustained performance, how compressability/transonic drag affects wings and control surfaces and flap practical effects and operation. All of which you hand waved away or completely ignored. So there's that.