The Way of the Planefag

File: Fiat_G91-R-3,_Portugal_-_Air_Force_JP7513048.jpg (298KB, 1024x683px) Image search: [Google]

298KB, 1024x683px

>>32504233
oh neat that was me.

Just dig around for sources and binge read. Wikipedia's a good starting point, but it's by no means the end-all and often times can misrepresent details. It also depends on what exactly you're interested in. There's a lot more to it than just aircraft specifications to determining how good a plane is, and there's tons of "soft" factors that really heavily impact things. Understanding the science behind aircraft is also really helpful. You don't need to fully understand every single governing equation (I'm about to graduate with an aerospace engineering degree and I don't even fully understand all that), but knowing generally how things work and why things are the way they are really helps.

If you've got any specific questions, I can try to help. Are you looking for aircraft immediately after WW2? Or do you mean everything 1945 onwards?

>>32504509
I was refering to jet aircraft, actually, but prior planes provide background which I feel is important in order to understand early development of jet aircraft.
Do you happen to remember the subject of the first of your series? I can't seem to find it.

http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/air-force-aviation/air-power-101-new-members-12457/

start here ^^ (that forum is your friend, make sure to lurk, they're very ban-happy but it keeps the quality of discussion up)

And https://www.reddit.com/r/F35Lightning/ has some very good links

About delta wings, I always wondered why european planes seem to favor them while the only US fighters that used them (or planned to use them) were the F-102 Delta Dagger, the XF-108 Rapier, the F-6 Skyray and the proposed FB-22, though that last one is a bomber.

File: AMX International AMX.jpg (294KB, 1200x812px) Image search: [Google]

294KB, 1200x812px

>>32504542
First one was a really shitty one about interceptors. I redid it later (something like "super interceptors" IIRC). Pretty much all of the earliest threads were fairly shitty compared to the later ones and I redid the worst of them.

So you're looking at 1st-generation jets? Depending on what you're looking for, I'd say a good place to start (beyond looking at the histories of individual aircraft themselves) is looking at operational use of the planes. Personally I'd say it'd be better to avoid meme-tier operations like the MiG Alley in Korea or much of the Vietnam War (unless you're really willing to spend a long time looking into the campaign to really understand it). Usually smaller-scale conflicts can make things a bit easier to understand on a per-aircraft basis. That means conflicts like the Ogaden War, Indo-Pakistani Wars, various African conflicts, or the Bekaa Valley air battle.

Failed projects are also a good thing to look at because they usually give you a better idea of the driving design concepts of the time and the political situation that the aircraft were designed in.

File: Danger Zone.jpg (275KB, 1800x1200px) Image search: [Google]

275KB, 1800x1200px

>>32504233
On the web there's Wikipedia and Vectorsite.
>http://airvectors.net/idx_wmil.html
Off web check for books like the International Air Power Review series (great but expensive), the Modern Fighting Aircraft series (older but relatively inexpensive), and the Arco Illustrated Guide series (shorter, cheaper, also old). All of those can be found on Amazon, and are frequently at good used book stores. In my experience the older (early 80's or so) books do a better job than the newer, flashier books on this subject.

>>32504233

REVOLT OF THE MAJORS is exactly the right place to start.

http://etd.auburn.edu/bitstream/handle/10415/595/MICHEL_III_55.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

File: 92576_1312855131.jpg (456KB, 1024x702px) Image search: [Google]

456KB, 1024x702px

>>32504651
As there are 102 episodes in the series, which ones are skippable? (No offense meant, obviously).
I'm thinking about starting with 1st generation before moving on to the next, chronologically.

So it is advisable to study the battles themselves in order to get an idea of the aircraft's performance? I'm actually more interested in the history of the development itself, in understanding the changes of design philsophy behind it. I'm, truth be told, not all that interested in finding out whether "X is better than Y".

I've been told that the fascination in insanely fast interceptors during the Cold War comes from the higher-ups having been through WWII, where speed was life, and thus asking for faster aircrafts. And as absurd speeds reduced the range of an aircraft and were barely used; the higher-ups that followed lowered those requirements and hence why modern jets have lower top speeds than some Cold War era fighters.
How much truth is there to that? I feel that it might be an over-simplification.

File: 57-928c.jpg (177KB, 1000x777px) Image search: [Google]

177KB, 1000x777px

>>32504782
It's been a while since I've done one, so I'm not really sure, but I'd say your best bet would be to start from the latest ones and work back unless you've found a particular thread that hits the topics you're interested in. I'd say the "SEAD" and "Aircraft Carriers" (not the carrier fighters episodes though) are definitely skippable.

Operations are helpful to understanding things because they reveal things that aren't always obvious - things like effective sortie rates, operational radius with given payloads, how effectively the aircraft can complete its mission, actual performance in a regular mission, etc.

If you're looking at history of development, the Vectorsite that
>>32504737
posted is a good start.

The obsession with super-fast interceptors was the result of a variety of factors actually. Bombers were flying ever higher and faster, and the earliest AAMs had very short effective ranges. Bombers were expected to come from directions where early warning networks just couldn't feasibly provide good coverage - across northern Canada or Siberia - so you had comparatively short time between detection and the bombers reaching the point where they could release weapons. So they needed something that could get up to altitude as fast as possible and dash to the bomber formation to intercept before they reached their targets.

The advent of SAMs like the SA-2 killed off the conventional strategic bombing practices of old, reducing the need for such interceptors, while better AAMs (and higher capacities on individual aircraft) meant that aircraft could now engage more targets from longer ranges (meaning speed wasn't as important). In tactical aircraft, there was a doctrinal shift away from nuclear strike that limited the utility of aircraft optimized for carrying a single tactical nuke.

>cont

File: Republic_F-105_Thunderchief_-_Vietnam_War_1966.jpg (157KB, 1007x676px) Image search: [Google]

157KB, 1007x676px

>>32504915
>>32504782
>cont

Otherwise you're mostly right - the on-paper performance of many of these high-performance fighters didn't translate to practical performance, and it led to major compromises in areas such as range, payload, and cost.

The epitome of this would be the F-104 - insanely fast and capable but with such a short range and small payload that it was dropped very fast by the USAF - but there's plenty of other examples. The F-105 and F-4 both offered very high payloads and theoretical Mach 2 performance, but when laden with bombs they became expensive subsonic bomb trucks. The A-7 ended up being a cheaper subsonic solution that could do the job better than either of them for low per-flight-hour costs. Sure, the A-7 was slower on paper, but the A-7 was just as fast as the F-4 when they were laden with bombs.

As far as fighter performance goes, they found that the majority of combat takes place at high subsonic and low supersonic speeds, so many designers have determined that high supersonic speeds aren't necessary for all but the top-of-the-line fighters. This ends up vastly simplifying the design, as you need to put a lot of effort into designing variable geometry intakes and nozzles for speeds above about Mach 1.6. Coupled with the vastly improved performance of missiles, very high top speeds aren't really worth the effort for most aircraft anymore.

File: F-104.jpg (796KB, 2288x1712px) Image search: [Google]

796KB, 2288x1712px

>>32504737
Great link, the content is impressive. I have much reading before me.
>>32504981
So the F-104 being dropped has nothing to do with it's "Widowmaker" reputation? In Spain, we actually called the C.8 (F-104 in the Spanish Air Force) the "Flying Coffin".

File: 550492main_starfighter-inflight.jpg (2MB, 3000x2008px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 3000x2008px

>>32505039
Nope. The USAF dropped the F-104 before it really saw significant service with foreign users. It always was a tricky plane to fly, thanks to a combination of high wing loading and its sharp, thin wings stalling fairly easily, and it did suffer higher than normal crash rates in USAF service, but it was retired because it was difficult to use operationally. SAC didn't want it because it didn't have the range they needed in an interceptor, and TAC found that its endurance was too short for keeping constant CAP or flying escort and payload was too small for anything short of carrying a single nuke.

The F-104G was the infamous "widowmaker" variant, which strengthened the airframe and added hardpoints to turn it into a tactical strike aircraft. That made it a tricky plane to fly, and, given that it tended to be flown by operators with less money and manpower to throw at training and maintenance than the USAF and was flown in a role far different from the original design, loss rates tended to be high. However, take a lot of the claims of it being terrible with a grain of salt - the Luftwaffe had even higher loss rates in the F-84s that the F-104G replaced, and the Spanish Air Force had plenty of their own issues that contributed to their loss rates (like funding issues hurting maintenance).

Loss rates can't just be blamed on the operators, however. USAF F-104s had high loss rates, and even the Italian F-104S (the most advanced F-104 variant) had higher than average accident rates.

Really I'd say the F-104 is an interesting case study of overdesigning an aircraft for a role without paying attention to operational factors like range, payload, and pilot workload. It's still an impressive aircraft even today though.

>>32504572

Following up with more links

https://www.scribd.com/document/261173525/CSBA-Trends-in-Air-To-Air-Report

https://www.scribd.com/document/283768737/Sharpening-the-Spear-The-Carrier-the-Joint-Force-and-High-End-Conflict

https://www.scribd.com/document/238666331/FINAL-Weapon-Systems-Factbook

File: ha-220_super_saeta_01_of_17.jpg (520KB, 1000x496px) Image search: [Google]

520KB, 1000x496px

>>32505124
Actually, none of the F-104G in spanish use were lost before they moved on to the Mirage III (C.9) as their interceptor. On that note, the F-104G were used as intercerptors, the first strike aircraft of the SAF being the C.10C or HA-220 Super Saeta in the 70s.

>>32505210
Oh shit you got me there. That might explain their lower loss rate:
>Flying them as designed
>don't have money to fly them enough to crash them

File: acm.jpg (511KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

511KB, 1920x1080px

>>32504233
Read actual books, particularly biographies and memoirs, STAY AWAY from wikipedia. Just reading basic information, like 'X' aircraft has a top mach speed of 1.8, or weights 'Y' amount of lb's isnt going to teach you shit.

In order to understand air combat and the strengths of the fighters themselves, you need to learn about the art and science of 3 dimensional dog fighting, and the physics of acm.

For that, there is no better way than to get into a sim

File: bfm.jpg (220KB, 707x841px) Image search: [Google]

220KB, 707x841px

>>32508200
If that's not an option, then at least read books like Robert Shaw's aircombat

http://www.jg-51.com/topsecret/Fighter_Combat-Tactics_and_Maneuvering.pdf

>>32504233
If you join the Air Force you'll also get a better cultural context - ie, you'll understand that certain types of people / MOS's will always complain about all aircraft, you'll understand how much red tape and safety talk there is, you'll see how long it takes to turn jets around, etc.