Author: trameditor

Taking flight in 1958, the F-4 Phantom was an envelope-pusher, setting 16 different performance records, including for speed and altitude.

Meet the Timeless F-4 Phantom: One of the most adaptable airframes ever used in the U.S. Armed Forces, undoubtedly, was the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.

During a four-decade service run, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps all operated the Phantom – an all-weather, supersonic fighter, bomber, and interceptor.

The Phantom’s adaptability, paired with its commendable, and consistent performance attributed to the fighter earning a ceremonious distinction: the F-4, with 5,195 units built, is the most produced American supersonic military aircraft ever.

Flying Strong and Setting Records

Taking flight in 1958, the Phantom was an envelope-pusher, setting 16 different performance records, including for speed and altitude. The Phantom was well ahead of its time – its speed record remained unbeaten until 1975, when the still-serving F-15 Eagle, with its 50,000 pounds of thrust, set a new mark.

With a top speed of Mach 2.2, the Phantom is quite fast – “Speed is life” was the motto of Phantom pilots – which is remarkable given the Phantom’s brawny dimensions and hulking weight. Measuring 63 feet long, with a max takeoff weight of over 61,000 pounds, one might expect the Phantom to lumber in the air. That is not the case, of course. The Phantom’s two General Electric J79 engines enable 1,400 miles per hour speeds, a service ceiling of 60,000 feet, and a climbing rate of 41,300 feet per minute.

The Phantom was regarded for its acceleration, allowing for smooth engagement and disengagement. However, the Phantom was not particularly maneuverable. Enemy MiGs could typically outturn the F-4, which wasn’t designed for dogfighting and suffered from adverse yaw in tight turns. Instead, the F-4 was intended to fire radar-guided missiles from beyond visual range, not engage in air combat maneuvering, using internal cannons. Actually, the original Phantom variants didn’t even have a cannon, just nine external hardpoints capable of carrying more than nine tons of weaponry. The omission of a cannon was a mistake.

“That was the biggest mistake on the F-4,” John Chesire, who flew 197 combat missions in the F-4 during Vietnam, once said. “Bullets are cheap and tend to go where you aim them. I needed a gun, and I really wished I had one.”

“Everyone in RF-4s wished they had a gun on the aircraft,” Jack Dailey, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, said.

Without guns, special emphasis was placed on the F-4’s heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles, which at the time featured new (unreliable) technology. Often, pilots had to fire multiple missiles at one target. The problem was compounded in Vietnam where rules of engagement required visual identification of the enemy, in effect precluding long-range missile attacks. Regardless, the F-4 is credited with shooting down 107 MiGs in Vietnam.

By the time Saddam Hussein rolled into Kuwait, the F-4 had been in service for three decades. Still, the F-4 proved valuable, operating as “Wild Weasels,” rousting out enemy SAMs. Equipped for a Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) role, the F-4 was vital in protecting coalition aircraft against Saddam’s sophisticated air defense system.

In 1996, the Phantom’s U.S. active-duty service run ended – after nearly fifty years. The jet lives on, however. Greece operates 18 F-4s out of Andravida Air Base. South Korea still has 27 F-4Es. Turkey has 54. And Iran, our former ally, operates 62 F-4s, alongside their still-running F-14 Tomcats.

Russia’s Su-57 Felon is a troubled aircraft, and a poor stealth fighter, with an abnormally high radar cross-section and just 10 in active service.

Fifth generation stealth aircraft are appearing in every major military air arm at the moment. Russia is one air arm that has its own, in the form of the Sukhoi Su-57 Felon. The Su-57 first flew in January 2010, but remarkably the aircraft would not enter service until December 2020. A protracted development program meant that the aircraft suffered from various delays and cost overruns. Even now, a very limited number of the Su-57 are actually in Russian Air Force service.

Furthermore, for an aircraft that should have stealth capabilities, the Su-57 falls remarkably short in this area. Aircraft such as the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II have it beaten in this department. As such, it’s arguable the Su-57 is the world’s worst stealth aircraft currently in service. Here’s why.

The Su-57’s Development Was Full Of Problems

The Su-57 has had one of the most troubled development programs of any modern fighter. What was first dubbed the Tu-50 in its prototype form was initially meant to have three flying prototypes by 2009. However, by 2010, just one had taken flight. The testing program of the ten prototypes build would reveal structural issues within the airframe. This necessitated a total redesign from the sixth prototype onwards. This to resolve the fatigue life problems befalling the earlier aircraft. These issues meant the initial order of 70 aircraft would become hard for Sukhoi to meet.

Western sanctions of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 saw the first order cut down to 52 aircraft. Although that number has since risen back to 76 after further investment. Two Saturn AL-41F1 afterburning turbofans are in the Su-57, which does give it an impressive top speed of Mach 2 or 1,327 mph. So there is no denying that the Su-57 is a fast and punchy aircraft, one that also has shown great agility at airshows. However, thanks to its long and troubled development, the amount of Su-57s in active service barely crosses into double digits even in 2023.

Only A Small Number Are In Service In 2023

According to sources such as United Aircraft Corporation, just 10 Su-57s are in service as of December 2022. The Su-57 has seen some use in the current conflict in Ukraine. However, it’s been strictly limited to use within Russian airspace. Russia would not want to risk any of its Su-57s getting shot down, nor risk the technology it possesses becoming common knowledge among the West. Regarding when an operational regiment of Su-57s is actually expected, this is unlikely to happen until 2025. Showing how delayed the project has become.

It is unlikely that the Su-57 will have any major impact on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Even with 10 in service, it is unlikely all of them are in operation right now. It’s also highly unlikely that Russia will risk using the aircraft beyond their current long-range roles. This thanks to this small service number. The Su-57 then is at the moment one of the most ineffective aircraft in Russian military service. And outnumbered by practically everything else the Air Force is using.

The Su-57 Has A Poor Radar Cross-Section

The idea of a stealth aircraft is to have as low a radar cross-section as possible. The lower the cross-section, the harder it is for the aircraft to get picked up on radar. However, if various reports are to believed then the Su-57 has quite a poor radar cross-section. It is also estimated it has a cross-section between 0.1 and one square meters, considered broadly to be around 0.5. That is on a par with non-stealth fourth-generation aircraft such as the F/A-18 Super Hornet. Compare this to the cross-section of the F-35 which is between 0.0015 and 0.005 square meters. The Raptor is even better at between 0.0001 to 0.0005 square meters.

While this is a bit of a problem for the Su-57, the aircraft does fall within the parameters for a stealth aircraft. And it is still much less detectable than other military aircraft such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-15 Eagle. It’s just in comparison to its main rivals, it has a poor cross-section.

The Su-57 Is A Troubled Stealth Aircraft

So it is fair to say that the Su-57 is quite the troubled aircraft. It has not had the easiest development, and is still suffering from that to this day. So few are in service right now, and Russia is unable to use them effectively. It’s unlikely they will provide any meaningful service to Russia for some time. Currently, it is unclear if the full order of 76 will actually enter service.

In the European Theater of World War II, the P-51 Mustang was the top aircraft when it came to shooting down or otherwise nullifying Axis airpower. In the Pacific, planes like the P-38 Lightning scored major hits against the Imperial Japanese, including killing Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. But the real king of the skies over the Pacific Ocean was the Vought F4U Corsair.

It was a veritable hotrod of a fighter plane, and with a top speed of 446 miles per hour, it was briefly the fastest plane in the U.S. arsenal. it was powered by a 45.9-liter 18-cylinder radial Pratt and Whitney R-2800 “Double Wasp” engine that churned out an astonishing 2,000 hp. For comparison, the 27-litre V12 “Merlin” engine used by the famed Mustang was rated at 1,490 hp. The Corsair engine’s distinctive howl gave earned it the nickname of “the Whistling Death.” Its cockpit was pushed pack to accommodate its huge engine. But the most distinctive feature of the Corsair was its pair of folding gull-wings that allowed it to be more compact on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The P-38 Lightning gets the credit for the most air-to-air kills in the Pacific Theater, primarily because it was in combat longer than the Corsair. Right after it showed up on the scene in 1943, the Corsair proved to be incredible at air-to-air combat against the quickly dwindling power of the Japanese Empire.

The bane of Imperial Japanese fighters

The folding design of the Corsair lent itself to carrier-based operations by the Navy, but that was only a small part of the its story. Problems with the airframe when it was first introduced delayed its Naval ship debut until 1944. It was used to great effect as a land-based fighter by the U.S. Marines during the Allied Force’s island-hopping campaign. The primary air-to-air armament of the Corsair were six .50 caliber machine guns. But it was also capable of carrying bombs, rockets, and whatever else the Marine Corps needed to make life difficult for the Imperial Navy and Army. The Corsair’s versatility and carrier-centric design made the plane infinitely valuable when taking off and attacking from short hastily prepared runways on Pacific Islands.

As the war came to a close, desperate Japanese forces deployed Kamikaze pilots who would intentionally ram their aircraft into Allied targets. When the Corsair saw combat from the deck of an aircraft carrier, it excelled at repelling these attacks and other last ditch efforts by the Imperial Navy.

Into Korea and beyond

The numbers illustrate the Corsair’s story of dominance over the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft. Over the course of the war, the Corsair down a total of 2,140 aircraft for an absolutely mind-boggling 11-to-1 kill ratio. Specifically, the “Jolly Rogers” of Fighter Squadron 17 were responsible for downing 152 planes. The Corsair was also exported to use by British Royal Navy. Flying for the U.S. military, the Corsair stayed in service until after the Korean War. During that conflict, a Corsair flown by Marine Captain Jesse Folmar managed to down a Soviet MiG-15 fighter plane.

Export versions of the plane remained flying until the 1970s, proving the Corsair’s fighting mettle. Much like the P-38 Lightning, the Corsair likely wasn’t going to win any contests in the looks department, but few other aircraft that have ever flown can measure up to the Corsair in terms of sheer combat effectiveness when it was needed most.

Of all the planes produced during the Cold War, one of the most interesting to look at remains the Swedish Air Force’s Saab 37 Viggen (“Bolt”). The plane is easily recognizable for its enormous canards and its delta wing configuration; although both innovations preceded it and were used later on other jets, notably China’s Chengdu J-20 “Mighty Dragon”, it was one of the first modern fighter jets to use either.

Of all the planes produced during the Cold War, one of the most interesting to look at remains the Swedish Air Force’s Saab 37 Viggen (“Bolt”). The plane is easily recognizable for its enormous canards and its delta wing configuration; although both innovations preceded it and were used later on other jets, notably China’s Chengdu J-20 “Mighty Dragon”, it was one of the first modern fighter jets to use either.

The Saab 37 could fly at speeds of above Mach 2 at high altitudes; unusually, it could also operate from runways of 500 meters. By comparison, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, an American jet from the same period, required more than 750 meters to land.

The Saab 37’s efficiency in this regard is a function of its unusual engine design. To keep its landing distance minimal, Saab integrated a thrust-reverser into the Volvo engine, making the Saab the first and only single-engine fighter jet with such a measure included. Flight instructor Thomas Kolb explains the engine on Quora:

“With the Viggen, three triangular metal “petals” in the engine exhaust could be folded down by the pilot pulling out a T-shaped lever on the left side of the dashboard in the cockpit. This would then direct the entire air stream from the engine forward through slits around the back of the fuselage.”

A jet is normally powered by the propulsion of air backward, pushing the plane forward. By covering the exhaust and redirecting the air pressure through forward-facing slits, the plane would be pushed backward, slowing it down on a runway.

Kolb continues: “If the reversor was activated in flight, the system would become armed so that the reversor plates would automatically close as soon as the main and the nose undercarriages became compressed when touching the ground. By pushing the throttle forward and adding power, the pilot could then get the aircraft to a surprisingly short stop.” According to Kolb, this innovation came about because of Swedish defense policy, which dictated that the jets should be able to land within short stretches of flat space, such as on sections of road, in the case of emergencies.

Fortunately, this innovation was never necessary in a time of war. A positive side effect, noted Kolb, was that the planes were able to perform a creative stunt at air shows: land on a short runway, use the engine in alternating directions to turn the plane fully around with a Y-turn, and take off again in the opposite direction. One wonders if parallel parking will be next.

Here’s What You Need to Remember: The Ho 229 might have been a formidable adversary over the skies of World War II, but in truth the plane was far from ready for mass production by the war’s end. While it seems a stretch to claim that the Ho 229 was intended to be a stealth aircraft, there’s little doubt that it pioneered design features that continue to see use in low-observable aircraft today.

Northrop Grumman revealed this year it is developing a second flying wing stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, to succeed its B-2 Spirit. However, it was a pair of German brothers in the service of Nazi Germany that developed the first jet-powered flying wing—which has been dubbed, debatably, “Hitler’s stealth fighter.”

Walter Horten was an ace fighter pilot in the German Luftwaffe, having scored seven kills flying as wingman of the legendary Adolf Galland during the Battle of Britain. His brother Reimar was an airplane designer lacking a formal aeronautical education. In their youth, the pair had designed a series of innovative tail-less manned gliders.

In 1943, Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering laid out the so-called 3×1000 specification for a plane that could fly one thousand kilometers an hour carrying one thousand kilograms of bombs with fuel enough to travel one thousand kilometers and back—while still retaining a third of the fuel supply for use in combat. Such an airplane could strike targets in Britain while outrunning any fighters sent to intercept it.

Clearly, the new turbojet engines Germany had developed would be required for an airplane to attain such high speeds. But jet engines burned through their fuel very quickly, making raids on more distant targets impossible. The Horten brothers’ idea was to use a flying wing design—a tail-less plane so aerodynamically clean it generated almost no drag at all. Such an airframe would require less engine power to attain higher speeds, and therefore consume less fuel.

Flying wing designs were not an entirely new idea and had been used before in both gliders and powered aircraft. During World War II, Northrop developed its own high-performing XB-35 flying wing bomber for the U.S. military, though it failed to enter mass production. Despite the aerodynamic advantages, the lack of a tail tended to make fly wing aircraft prone to uncontrolled yaws and stalls.

The Horten brothers were given the go-ahead to pursue the concept in August 1943. They first built an unpowered glider known as the H.IX V1. The V1 had long, thin swept wings made of plywood in order to save weight. These “bell-shaped” wings compensated for yawing problem. Lacking a rudder or ailerons, the H.IX relied upon “elevons” (combinations of ailerons and elevators) and two sets of spoilers for control. The elevons could be moved differentially to induce roll, or together in the same direction to change pitch, while the spoilers were used to induce yaw.

Following successful tests of the V1 glider at Oranienberg on March 1944, the subsequent V2 prototype was mounted with two Jumo 004B turbojet engines nestled to either side of a cockpit pod made of welded steel tubing. It also featured a primitive ejection seat and a drogue chute deployed while landing, while redesigned tricycle landing gear was installed to enable the plane to carry heavier loads.

The first test flight occurred on February 2, 1945. The manta-shaped jet exhibited smooth handling and good stall resistance. The prototype even reportedly beat an Me 262 jet fighter, equipped with the same Jumo 004 engines, in a mock dogfight.

But the testing process was cut short on February 18 when one of the V2’s jet engines caught fire and stopped mid-flight. Test pilot Erwin Ziller performed a number of turns and dives in an effort to restart the engine, before apparently passing out from the fumes and spiraling his plane into the ground, mortally wounding him.

Regardless, Goering had already approved the production of forty flying wings, to be undertaken by the Gotha company, which mostly produced trainers and military gliders during World War II. The production planes were designated Ho 229s or Go 229s.

Because of the Ho 229’s great speed—it was believed the production version would be able to attain 975 kilometer per hours—it was repurposed to serve as a fighter with a planned armament of two heavy Mark 103 thirty-millimeter cannons. Construction of four new prototypes—numbered V3 throuh V6— was initiated, two of which would have been two-seat night fighters.

However, the Ho 229 never made it off the ground. When American troops of VIII Corps rolled into the factory at Friedrichroda, Germany in April 1945, they found just the cockpit sections of the prototypes in various stages of development. A single pair of corresponding wings was found 75 miles away. The most complete of the four, the V3 prototype, was shipped back to the United States for study along with the wings, and can today be seen under restoration at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the United States Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia.

The Hortens were reassigned to draft specifications for a flying wing jet bomber with range enough to deliver an atom bomb to the east coast of the United States. Their resulting schematics for the Horten H.XVIII “Amerika Bomber” flying wing were never realized, except arguably in the film Captain America.

Was the Ho 229 a stealth fighter?

One word you haven’t seen in this history so far is “stealth”—and that’s because there isn’t any documentation from the 1940s supporting the notion that the flying wing was intended to be a stealth aircraft. And yet, the Hortens had stumbled upon the fact that a flying wing design lends itself to the sort of reduced radar cross-section ideal for a stealth plane.

Reimer Horten moved to Argentina after the war, and in 1950 wrote an article for the Revista Nacional de Aeronautica arguing that wooden aircraft would absorb radar waves. Thirty years later, as the theory behind stealth aircraft became more widely known, Reimer wrote that he had intentionally sought to make the Horten flying wing into a stealth plane, claiming that he had even constructed the airframe using a special radar absorbent mixture of carbon, sawdust and wood glue without notifying his superiors. Two tests were undertaken to determine the presence of the carbon dust, one of which supported his claim and the other that didn’t. In general, historians are skeptical that stealth was a design goal from the outset.

In 2008, Northrop Grumman teamed up with the National Geographic channel to reconstruct a mockup of the Ho 229, which they tested for radar reflection, and then pitted against a simulation of the British Chain Home radar network. Their findings were less than overwhelming—the flying wings would have been detected at a distance 80 percent that of a standard German Bf. 109 fighter.

The Northrop testers stressed that combined with the Ho 229’s much greater speed, this modest improvement would have given defending fighters too little time to react effectively.

But of course, the flying wing’s main feature was always supposed to be its speed, which could have exceeded the maximum speed of the best Allied fighters of the time by as much as 33 percent. Detection time would not have mattered greatly if it could outrun everything sent to intercept it. Furthermore, stealth would have had little usefulness in the fighter role the Ho 229 would actually have assumed, as the Allied daylight fighters ranging over Germany did not benefit from radars of their own.

The Ho 229 might have been a formidable adversary over the skies of World War II, but in truth the plane was far from ready for mass production by the war’s end. While it seems a stretch to claim that the Ho 229 was intended to be a stealth aircraft, there’s little doubt that it pioneered design features that continue to see use in low-observable aircraft today.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II, or Warthog, is one of the most iconic American military planes ever made!

The A-10 Thunderbolt II, affectionately referred to as the “Warthog” or simply “Hog,” was built by the Fairchild Republic and has been adopted and deployed in battle with devastating outcomes exclusively by the United States Air Force since 1976. The aircraft had its first flight in 1972 and remained in production until 1984. Overall, more than 700 units of the A-10 were built with just 390 units of those still active.

Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, the P-47 Thunderbolt, the A-10, which was created in the middle of the Cold War, also wreaked havoc on enemy tanks, armored vehicles, as well as aircraft, becoming a vital component of the AirLand Battle strategy developed by the US. The A-10 is still in active service, and it’s also among the most revered military planes for the reasons we’ve listed here.

10. Purposefully Designed

The threat posed by the Soviet Union’s large numbers of tanks led the US Air Force to request an aircraft specifically designed to carry out CAS missions and make enemy armor useless. The requirements for the design entailed a low-cost aerial unit capable of attacking enemy troops at low altitudes with high-speed weaponry and survivability.

These requirements later expanded to include a maximum speed of 450 MPH and an operating speed of 300 MPH. Six proposals were submitted and the Fairchild Republic was awarded the contract to make prototypes, hence the birth of the A-10 Warthog.

9. Specifications

The A-10 Thunderbolt II is powered by two identical General Electric TF34-GE-100 turbofans. Each engine generates a thrust of 9,065 pounds, making the plane powerful enough for take-off at short distances. It has a length of 16.16 meters and a wingspan of 17.42 meters.

Furthermore, a striking feature of the A-10 is the unconventional placement of its engine and tail. It was designed that way to thwart enemies with heat-seeking missiles.