Despite being rejected (or perhaps never having been seriously courted) by a series of secondhand buyers, and in an unhappy relationship with the RAF, the sexy 28-year-old fighter aircraft is doing just fine by itself. The RAF’s Tranche 1 Eurofighter Typhoon is hard to upgrade – and what to do with them has long been a problem for the air force. But according to this European stunner, he’s OK by himself.

A spokesperson from the RAF noted, “When I met him, he said this and that about what he was capable of – but he just isn’t maturing enough and we’ve grown apart. At the beginning it was magical, he had so much more energy than my ex (the Tornado). But he just refused to change and grow up. I started seeing Tranche 2 Typhoons years ago and we had so much more in common. The Tranche 2s are even cool with me seeing a younger model, in the gorgeous Tranche 3. Tranche 1 is needy, high maintenance and unable to accommodate my needs for an open architecture pan-European relationship. He says we don’t need AESA, but when we see F-35Bs bowling past us and laughing, I realize something has to change.”

The Tranche 1 Typhoon had an altogether different view, “I don’t really think I am defined by my relationship status..but a lot of this is hurtful. Yes, I know the RAF and MoD have long considered leaving me. They told me we would be together until 2040, then panicked and changed that to 2025. It leaves me feeling insecure. Banishing me to the fucking Falklands was a huge insult. Ok so I can’t carry Meteor, but the RAF only has about 3 of those so why all the fuss? Oh, and I can’t carry an AESA…like the T2 and 3s are carrying one…but they’re not! Or maybe it’s an issue that I can’t be fitted with conformal tanks that don’t exist? Or that my computers are too old, when the T1s and T3s ain’t exactly the latest iPhones themselves. I’m less than middle-aged in flight hours. It’s just bullying. I’m quite capable of catching a Bear or a Flanker thanks, and I would even play second fiddle as an aggressor (as I was once promised) if I had to…I’d be a damn sight better than a flipping Hawk. It’s all fine. Good luck with maintaining fleet numbers without me I say.”

After sobbing on our shoulder, the fourth-generation fighter added “I’m fine…I’m fine OK.”

Further salt in the wound for the ill-treated hunk came with the news that Spanish Tranche 1 aircraft were receiving upgrades.

The Tranche 1 Typhoon phoned us back at 2AM shouting about the unfairness of the F-35B getting a pass on being needy before singing Ode to Joy and passing out.

Order The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes here

Russia’s T-10 family, known in the west as the ‘Flanker’ series, is a heavyweight fighter aircraft range that forms the core of the Chinese air and naval air- forces. China’s Flankers (some of which may be illegal pirate copies) are so varied it’s hard to get your head around them, so we went to a leading authority on Chinese air power, Andreas Rupprecht, to find out more.

How many Chinese flanker variants are there?

Besides the Russian-imported variants (Su-27SK, Su-27UBK, Su-30MKK and Su-30MK – and Su-35), it is simplest to think of three individual branches: the fighters; the twin-seater multirole fighters; and the carrier-capable variants, let’s have a look in more depth.

1. The fighter versions: Within the first branch these are the J-11, J-11A and J-11B as well as the twin-seaters J-11BS plus their equivalent naval (but not carrier-capable) variants, the J-11BH and J-11BSH. And finally, their updated variants J-11BG and J-11BHG. The final and probably most capable variant within this branch is the radically modernised J-11D, which did not enter service.

_______

Russian imports

The Su-27SK is a simple fighter variant, the Su-27UBK is a simple fighter-trainer variant. The Su-35 is an advanced single-seat multirole fighter.

_______

1A. J-11 series

J-11 = Su-27SK built under license by SAC

J-11A = slightly improved type

J-11B = indigenous fighter variant with updated Chinese avionics, weaponry, and WS-10 engines

J-11BH = land-based naval variant

J-11BS = indigenous fighter trainer comparable to J-11B

J-11BSH = land-based naval variant of J-11BS J-11BG/BHG = upgraded fighter variants after MLU new radar + AAMs)

J-11D = projected variant with new AESA and structural changes, not purchased

2. The twin-seater multirole fighters

The second branch consists of the J-16 and the EW-variant J-16D

Russian imports

________

Su-30MKK = imported from Russia, simple twin-seater multirole fighter variant

Su-30MK2 = imported from Russia, simple twin-seater naval multirole fighter variant

________

J-16 = indigenous twin-seater multirole fighter variant with updated Chinese avionics, weaponry, and WS-10 engines

J-16D = indigenous EW-/jammer variant

3. The carrier-capable

This is all the J-15 variants, namely the J-15,

J-15S twin-seater, the J-15D EW-jammer,

the J-15T catapult testbed and the most recent J-15B.

Once again simpler: J-15 = indigenous carrier-borne multirole fighter variant with updated Chinese avionics and weaponry

J-15S = indigenous carrier-borne twin seater

J-15D = indigenous carrier-borne twin seater for EW-/jammer role

J-15T = catapult capable demonstrator / prototype

J-15B = improved catapult capable serial variant based on the J-11D avionics

In fact this plethora of variants and subtypes was one major reason to add a recognition guide in my latest book.

What is the most advanced radar used on a Chinese Flanker and how does it compare to Russian radars?

If I knew such classified information, I would no longer work as a teacher! Depending on the role, the most capable fighter radar is the AESA type installed in the J-11D, which is now integrated into the J-15B (which is currently in production for the Type 003 aircraft carrier Fujian). For the multirole, air-to-ground and anti-shipping mission, the AESA installed in the late production J-16s, is said to be the second most capable AESA after that fitted to the J-20. However, for both no performance data is given, and not even their designation is known (but it can be assumed). But based on a very interesting interview with a former test pilot, who flew both the Su-35 and the J-16 – the latest Chinese radar is more capable than its Russian equivalent. This is mainly because the Chinese radar is an AESA type (a technology Russia has yet to field. But again, nothing is confirmed known.

What is the most capable Chinese flanker and how does it compare with the best non-Chinese Flanker?

Overall, I don’t like such questions, since we don’t know enough for a conclusive answer. However, as a fighter, I would most likely rate the J-11D project as the one with the biggest potential, as for ones in actual service these are the updated J-11BGs (which use the J-11D’s radar) and the soon-to-enter service carrier-capable J-15B, which is without any doubt the most capable carrier-borne Flanker ever. For strike and multi-role, it would be the J-16. Comparing this to Russian Flankers, I would rate the J-11BG on par with the Su-27M3, while the J-16 is more modern – based on radar, avionics, cockpit display and weaponry – than the latest Su-30SM (albeit without canards and thrust vector control engines.

How many Flankers does China have?

Difficult to say, for the regular Su-27SK/UBJ and J-11/J-11A series there are about 120-130, for the improved J-11B/BH/BG series I think about 150 (I’m quite certain of this number) plus around 90-100 J-11BS twin-seater. For the J-15 series perhaps 60-65 are in service and for the J-16 there are about 250-260 available.

<this gives an upper estimate of 705 aircraft>

Does China manufacture Flankers?

Yes, all of the variants currently in production are produced in China for China only.

Can China produce all components itself?

As it seems, yes. At least it is no longer reported that Russia contributes anything.

How good are the cockpit displays?

Sorry, here I have no confirmed facts, but given that the Chinese Flankers have been using a fully digital cockpit with multi-functional displays for decades, and that the J-16 even has a cockpit with two large flatscreen panels (and we all know where most LCD-screens are built), anyone can draw their own conclusion.

What are the best operational Chinese air-to-air missiles used by Flankers?

For the long-range air-combat scenario it is surely the PL-15, an AAM comparable in configuration and size to the AIM-120C or even AIM-120D. It is said to use a dual pulse rocket motor which could extend its kinetic range up to 200km; for the export version 145km is confirmed. As a short-range IR-guided AAM it is the PL-10, a new generation missile in the same class as the AIM-9X, ASRAAM, A-Darter, AAM-5, and IRIS-T. It features TVC and enables a range of 20 km. And finally, there is the PL-17 – its designation was just confirmed two weeks ago – which is an ultra-long-range AAM for a range of more than 300km against high-value targets like EW/AEW assets and tanker.

Does Russia approve of all Chinese flanker developments?

In fact this is one of the most controversial topics and also included as a sub-chapter in my book. This is easy to answer, at first glance at least. Based on what is known about the contracts, every Chinese ‘Flanker’ from the J-11B onwards is an illegal copy or illegal further development. According to the original contracts, China had the right to build 200 J-11s under a fairly strict licence manufacturing agreement. This specified an exact copy of the Su-27SK, no more, no less. But not everything here is as black and white as some would like to portray. The original J-11 and J-11A are clearly not illegal copies. They were all built according to the contract and are as such legal. The J-11B, however, is a different story. Here, most analysts agree that the moment SAC decided to add a Chinese radar, engines and weapons the aircraft must be rated as illegal. This is even more valid for the two-seat J-11BS since the licence agreement never included the trainer version, and again for the carrier-capable J-15 and the multirole J-16. Consequently, there is nothing to debate. All these are illegal copies and develop­ments since Russia did not – at least not officially – agree to them. But at the same time, the situation is less straightforward than some would like us to think. Consequently, there have been several attempts to explain this. One theory revolves around still-unknown paragraphs in the original contract under which any further Russian debt could be compensated by additional ‘Flankers’. Other explanations suggest that Russia may have simply accepted the fact that there was nothing it could do about the situ­ation. And since Russia has recently depended more on China’s money than China does on Russia’s technical expertise, Russia simply tried to maintain a good level of relations. And finally, there may have been a secret agreement according to which Russia continued to be paid or was paid differently via parallel trade or by other offset deals.

I don’t know for sure, but if Russia really considered that the production of more ‘Flankers’ was a breach of contract and the J-11BS, J-15 and J-16 were illegal developments outside the scope of the license, why was there not more political outcry? Why have there been no sanctions? Why have there subse­quently been additional contracts for other Russian products, including engines, and finally the Su-35 deal? I’m sure this mystery will only be solved when the full contract is revealed but I don’t expect this to happen.

What are the strongest and weakest areas of Chinese avionics?

This is the most difficult question to answer. Overall, I think, the biggest strong points are that Chinese avionics are modern, fully digital and built indigenously. Since China manufactures most modern Western digital devices it, therefore, has a very clear understanding of what’s high-end – and China has the production capabilities to rapidly include more modern systems and updates in large numbers. Its weakness is at least said to be in sharing information: but how capable Chinese systems are in terms of netcentric warfare and joint operations is beyond my knowledge.

Will J-20s replace Flankers?

As it seems, no. Or at least not all units have been former Flanker operators. According to the first transitioned units, they were Flight Test & Training units replacing Su-30MKK and also the first operational unit at Wuhu, was flying Su-30MKK. Other units more recently converting were former J-10A/AS, J-10B, J-10C and J-11B/BS units.

Does China use thrust vectoring technology?

It is not yet operational on the J-20 but it seems like confirmed that the WS-15 will be a TVC-engine similar to the J-10B testbed shown on Zhuhai 2018 with the WS-10B-3 engine. Similarly, it is said that the same engine was tested on a Flanker and since June 2021, a single WS-15 engine with a TVC nozzle was fitted on a J-20 prototype testbed at CAC. The axial-symmetrical TVC nozzle appears similar to that of the WS-10B3 engine tested and these tests were continuing at the CFTE since late 2021.
In operational service, the PLAAF only uses 24 Su-35.

How good are the Chinese engines?

That’s probably the biggest question mark in an overall more than unconfirmed and often speculative topic. Yes, they had issues with the early WS-10-series of engines, but at least since 2009 no new-built Chinese Flanker – with the exception of the carrier-borne J-15s – is using Russian AL-31F engines and as such, since the crash rate is at least not an issue discussed in the public – comparable to several crashes of J-1A fighters related to failures of the AL-31FN – it seems to be stable, reliable and powerful enough. Especially since from mid-2019 on also all J-10C and J-20A are using variants of the WS-10 Taihang, it seems to be reliable enough for operational use. Any technical data and especially failure rate or lifecycle are speculative but said to be better than the Russian ones.

What should I have asked you?

Why I am so obsessed with Chinese military aviation and the PLAAF? Why I share all this information more or less for free on social media and why I’m not working for an institute or agency for a much better income? 😉

What roles do Flankers perform in Chinese service?
In PLAAF and PLAN Naval Aviation service the J-11-series is surely still most of all an air-superior fighter like the F-15. As such a fighter is primarily armed with air-to-air missiles. The J-15 was always more aimed for multirole including attack and anti-shipping roles besides being a fighter and the J-16 is a true multirole fighter developed for long-range precision strike and fighter roles.

Do they have a high accident rate?

Few Chinese Flankers have been lost. Or at least few reported – and even fewer are reported with the reason for the crash made public. It is reported, that besides a handful of known crashes in operational service, one J-11BS prototype was lost. The J-15 suffered a few more accidents. This is best explained by the fact they were the most frequent and intensively flown types during their early operational career – and that PLAN Naval Aviation initially had very little experience in operating aircraft from a carrier.

For more on Chinese Flankers we recommend Andreas’ new book Red Dragon ‘Flankers‘

The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes is out very shortly, get your order in while stocks last here

No pilot has spent more time flying faster than the speed of sound than Mike Bannister. From becoming Concorde‘s youngest pilot to flying the iconic aircraft’s final commercial flight, on which passengers included Tony Benn (the man who put the ‘e’ in Concorde) and Jeremy Clarkson, Bannister’s flying career encompassed a time when flying was faster and more glamorous. We met Bannister to find out more about the most beautiful manmade object that ever flew.

Describe Concorde in three words...Fast, Elegant, Sublime

Was Concorde harder to fly than subsonic airliners? If so, why? No, just different and more complex.  She was four aircraft in one – high, low, fast and slow.  And aerodynamically different too.

What was the best thing about Concorde? The people.  The people who flew in her, who designed her, who supported her and who cheered for her

..and the worst? Only 2.5 million people got to fly on BA’s Concordes

Biggest myth about Concorde? That she didn’t make money for BA

How would you rate Concorde in the following categories?

A. Take-off – Like a rocket

B. Landing – Like a swan

C. Pilot comfort – Like a limo

D. Cockpit ergonomics – Like a Chess Board

E. Acceleration – Staggering

F. Agility – Phenomenal

G. Ease of operation  – A skill.  That’s why it took Concorde Crews 6 months to learn to fly her rather than just 2 months for any other airliner

How many supersonic hours do you think – and do you know anyone who has more? I have almost 10,000 Concorde hours, of which almost 7,000 are supersonic.  I’m told that is more than anyone else.

What was your most memorable flight and why?  Flying at 325mph, at just 1,000 feet, with the Red Arrows down the Mall for HM The Queen’s Golden Jubilee – Why?  It was huge fun!

Tell me something I don’t know about Concorde – She stretched up to 8 inches in flight as she heated up due to her speed through the air. As Concorde rushed along at Mach 2, 1350 mph, it heated up due to air friction and compression. The heating effect was huge. With outside temperatures of around minus 53 degrees, the nose of the aircraft would climb to as much as plus 127 degrees – a 180-degree rise. Heating metal causes it to expand.  Concorde was made of metal – so it grew in flight.  Up to 8 inches. The designers knew about this and built-in expansion joints. The one that could be seen was on the Flight Deck. A gap that was just fingernail thin on the ground could take your whole hand in flight. Fortunately, it cooled down again, and shrank, before landing.

Did Concorde make money for British Airways?  Yes – about £500m in 2002 pounds.  Almost a billion pounds in current values

What is the highest Concorde ever flew? With BA, 62,500 feet (almost 12 miles)

.and the fastest?  She crossed the Atlantic, from New York to London, in 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds

Would you like to see the return of supersonic transport, and do you think it will happen? Absolutely and absolutely

What should I have asked you? Why did people always look up when Concorde flew over?  The psychiatrists tell us that she appeals to both sides of the brain – the technical side for all of the ‘gee-whizz’ things she could do and the artistic side because she was so beautiful

How did you feel on Concorde’s retirement? Sad, but proud and privileged to have flown her for over 22 years.

Mike Bannister has written a book about his Concorde experiences you can order here

You can order The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes here.

10 more terrible warplanes from the United Kingdom

Back in 2016 we lambasted 10 air-shits from the land of curry-stained sportswear, regret and high-speed prime ministerships. Today we return to Europe’s dodgy uncle, to handpick a further 10 appalling aeroplanes to drag through the cobbled streets, lock in stocks and throw rotten Greggs pasties at. Some were diabolically dangerous ideas, some wayward money pits and others the unfortunate victims of bad luck, either way they all are aircraft that should have never left the hangar. Gulp down your tea from a polystyrene cup, wrap your body in Union Jack bunting and talk a drizzly walk down a Zone 6 suburb named shame, for here are 10 more terrible British military aircraft.

(The Beardmore Inflexible was saved from inclusion by being German)

10. RAF BE.9 ‘Pulpit’ (1916) ‘Hellfire from the pulpit’

The worst aspect of the BE.9 was undoubtedly the precarious position of the gunner: ahead of the propeller in a pulpit-like plywood nacelle. The reasoning for this alarming configuration was that it would combine the best feature of a pusher, an unrivalled forward field of fire, with the high performance of a tractor (an aircraft with the propeller at the front). However, the propeller was unshielded, and the only thing that prevented the gunner from being sucked into the propeller and processed into human pastrami was his deathly tight grip on his Lewis gun. This successfully made what was already one of the most dangerous jobs in human history, even more perilous. To add to the danger, the placement of an engine and propeller between gunner and pilot effectively prevented meaningful communication, something vital for any reasonable chance of survival. The ‘Pulpit’ was too mad for even the Royal Flying Corps, and its mediocre performance was not worth the likely risks.

The BE.9 was an attempt to counter a German technological lead that was costing British lives. The German Fokker Eindecker had arrived on the Western Front in 1915 armed with machine guns that could fire safely through the propeller arc thanks to interrupter gear. This allowed easy accurate fire and proved devastating to opposing Allied aircraft. The BE.9 was developed as the British had so far failed to create a reliable comparable interrupter gear. However, in August 1916, at the time the BE.9 was first being flown, a more practical solution to forward-firing machine guns had arrived in the form of the Constantinesco interrupter gear, happily allowing plans for BE.9 production to be quietly dropped.

-Joe Coles

9. Westland PV.7 (1933) ‘Penrose in the thorns’

The story of how test pilot Harald Penrose ended up breathless in a field, frantically trying to hold up his buttonless trousers, is a cautionary one.

The chief designer, of the PV.7, Arthur Davenport, had been reluctant to accept that the aircraft had issues with wobbly insecure wings. In an early flight he had been on board, Davenport demanded Penrose dive to prove the aircraft safe. A modest dive satisfied Davenport, but Penrose insisted on showing the over-confident designer a faster dive with full aileron. Davenport, secretly knowing the limitations of his design, interrupted by shouting, “Stop it! You’ll tear the wings off!”

Despite this test flying continued. The Air Ministry wished the PV.7 to perform overload diving tests with the centre of gravity moved further back. As Penrose took off for this test, a telegram arrived from the manufacturer to the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment urgently warning that the flight must be cancelled. The manufacturer, Westland, claimed that they had just discovered the aircraft was too weak to withstand such an experiment. The PV.7 was a high brace winged monoplane and, like its stablemate, the rather weird Pterodactyl, had a tendency to wing torsional flexure (overly bendiness) at higher speeds. The telegram arrived too late and Penrose carried out the manoeuvre. While diving through unexpectedly rough air, the port rear main bracing strut failed catastrophically. The left wing left the aircraft, slicing off the tailplane as it did so. Penrose battled high Gs to escape through the tiny side door and successfully parachuted from the cartwheeling aircraft (the first escape from a British aircraft with an enclosed cockpit). Penrose’s ankles were badly injured by a hard landing, after which a strong gust of wind caught his ‘chute and dragged him across a stubble field. Fortunately, a hedge stopped the bewildered test pilot and he struggled to his feet. An ‘attractive young lady’ peered through the hedge as the pilot struggled to hold up his now buttonless trousers and asked him if needed help.

The aircraft had been built to meet Air Ministry specification G.4/31, which included dive-bombing. Dive-bombing requires an extremely strong airframe, something the PV.7 clearly did not have. (The overly ambitious G.4/31 requirement was then won by the Vickers-Armstrong Type 253 biplane. But Vickers designers knew the 253 to be obsolete and instead schemed a far superior monoplane, which with a similar Pegasus engine was 70mph faster, could carry twice the load and had twice the range. This monoplane was the extraordinary Wellesley.) Westland failed to kill Penrose with the PV.7, but tried again with the Welkin (which gave him pneumonia) and the Wyvern (which would give any pilot the chills) – but he somehow survived all of these assassination attempts.

In the same way that most 20th century biographies feature a horrible father siring a great hero or heroine, the beastly PV.7 led to the wonderful Westland Lysander.

-Joe Coles

8. BAC TSR2 ‘Tory ‘spiracy rants 2’

In nominating the TSR2 as my choice of the worst British aircraft, I do so without making any adverse comment on the efforts of those highly skilled personnel at the British Aircraft Corporation and its predecessor companies who were engaged in the programme. Yes, it experienced teething troubles during its truncated flight test effort, but which advanced new aeroplane doesn’t? In that sense, there have been many far worse British aircraft — plenty, indeed, that should never have progressed any further than the drawing-board, if that. The likelihood is that those maladies would, given time, have been ironed out, with the result being an effective operational type. Again, nothing unusual there.

Rather, my antipathy towards the TSR2 concerns the way in which it has become totemic as a symbol of British decline, and, worse, of the simplistic notion that the nation’s military capability is unsafe under a Labour administration. Most readers of this piece will be familiar with the arguments. They have it that, with the TSR2’s cancellation, Britain’s aviation industry was dealt a blow from which it never recovered; that without the infamous decision by Harold Wilson’s government, we would have gone on producing indigenously designed front-line military aircraft in our own factories, without the need to engage in multi-national collaboration. Oh, I nearly forgot: I should have stressed, as so many authors for some reason feel the need to do, that it was down to Harold Wilson’s Labour government, lest anyone forget which party wielded the axe.

In both cases, its symbolism is entirely specious. It would, in my view, be a romantic, even a naïve observer who feels a go-it-alone attitude could have persisted much longer in the case of major programmes such as the TSR2. Never has any credible, hard evidence been presented to support theories of deliberate American sabotage of broader TSR2 sales prospects, such as to Australia. In any case, an Australian order would in no way have ridden to the programme’s rescue, and it is generally considered not to have been the right aircraft for the Royal Australian Air Force — unlike the F-111, which was selected instead. Those who similarly contend, with hindsight’s benefit, that the TSR2 was the wrong aircraft for the RAF also have a point. This was an air force increasingly optimised for conventional operations on NATO’s Central Front, rather than the delivery of tactical nuclear weapons east of Suez or deep inside Warsaw Pact territory. Again, the TSR2 and its crews may very well, once in-service maturity had been achieved, have performed most effectively in any assigned role. But, in a quote attributed to various individuals down the years, it was a very expensive way of delivering high explosive.

And therein lies the nub of the TSR2 issue. It had simply become too costly. To cancel a project on the basis of significant budget overruns, both existing and projected, was and is nothing unusual. In this instance, it can be seen to make sense. Without canning the TSR2, the pan-European MRCA programme would likely never have been embarked upon, yet in the resulting Tornado the RAF received a type very much optimised to the realities of both the developing strategic environment and the prevailing economic situation. Yet still, after more than half a century, there is widespread refusal to face up to these basic truths. Britain couldn’t afford it. International collaboration was inevitable and advantageous. None of the conspiracy theories about overseas interference, the rapid destruction of the jigs and toolings, Harold Wilson being a clandestine Commie and so forth hold water. And Conservative governments were responsible for just as many significant project cancellations during their contemporary periods in office as were Labour ones.

The TSR2 was not a bad aircraft. But its influence on decades of discussion about British aviation, and specifically British defence procurement, has been uniquely malign.

–Ben Dunnell, Editor of The Aeroplane

7. Hawker Tornado ‘Shitenado’

The fast well-armed Tornado got everything right, well apart from the wings, cockpit and engine. It is saved from a higher ranking by dint of rarity, as mercifully, only four were created. Its tiny cursed life makes it all the stranger that the name would make a comeback in the 1970s starting a convention of naming European fighter-bomber after flawed Hawker designs from the 1940s. Weirder still, the namesake designs would be twin-engined, an approach detested by Hawker.

6. Nimrod AEW.MK 3/MRA.4 ‘Psychopathia Cometrosexualis’ + ‘Black Rod’

“Is it not a fact that the Mark 3 Nimrod saga is the worst procurement scandal since World War II? Will my right honourable friend have the courage to grasp the nettle and not put more good money after bad, but rather procure the E3A Sentry, which works, and which will bring commonality with the rest of air defences in western Europe?” – MP John Wilkinson, House of Commons debate, 11 February 1986

Perhaps subconsciously, was there a modicum of nostalgia in Britain’s overly long relationship with the Nimrod? The Nimrod was a derivative of the first jet airliner, the Comet and as such, looking to US airframes may have been a sad reminder that grand British visions of aviation supremacy were long gone. The Comet and later the Nimrod had a protracted history of representing the best and worst of British aeronautical endeavours. The odd mixture of great ideas let down by carelessness, bodging improvisation or overly ambitious attempts at domestic solutions.

By the 1980s, the bizarre British reluctance to properly funding AEW&C aircraft left them what was essentially a 1940s bomber with a 1940s radar set. The Shackleton had no place in 1980s warfare and Britain set a course to make its next AEW&C, the best in the world. This new aircraft was intended to be better than the US’ E-3 as it would not have the obvious blindspot that a radar dish on the upper side has, instead the radars were in obscenely bulging nose and tail fairings and their ‘radar picture’ would be cleverly stiched together to form one fabulous all-round view. This advanced notion would have one element of risk and cost removed by using an existing proven airframe, that of the RAF’s Nimrod, a superb anti-submarine and maritime attack aircraft. Like pretty much all British defence programmes that happened during the Thatcher years (see SA80 for details) it was a disastrous and expensive project. The technology was really pushing the limit of what was possible, the central computer was expected to process data from the two radar scanners (which refused to sinc), the ESM (signal gathering) system, IFF (to identify friends or foes) and inertial navigation systems with a comically tiny 2.4MB. Meantime between failures was two hours (despite data loading taking 2.5 hours). There was also technical issues relating to detection and resolution of slow moving targets, such as maritime and land vehicles. The US JSTARS (below) aircraft would use Sideways Looking Airborne Radar to perform the latter, but the AEW3 antennae ‘looked’ fore and aft, not side-to-side, and were unsuitable. Among myriad other issues, the sensors were also confused by ocean waves. The technology could not be made to work and it left the British taxpayer with a staggering £1 billion loss with nothing to show for it. Essentially, the project’s aspiration was a good one: two antennae pointed in opposite directions can be integrated to provide a 360-degree picture (very much like today’s successful electronically scanned Wedgetail). The BIG problem being that airborne e-scan radars hadn’t been invented yet.

Britain learnt its lesson and never attempted a high-tech upgrade of the Nimrod again. Well, not until the 1990s anyway, when it decided to junk all the systems in the trusted Nimrod MR.2 and replace them all, including wings, engines, sensors and weapon systems, with lovely new stuff. Pretty soon, it was £789 million over-budget and over nine years late. Rumours abounded that the irregularities in the size of pre-digitally constructed aircraft had not been taken into consideration and many components simply did not fit. Safety tests in 2010 found there were several hundred design non-compliances, including bomb bay doors functionality, and question marks about the landing gear and fuel pipe safety. The MRA.4 cost billions, and its failure left the UK without adequate defence of its waters for several years.

Some would argue that the MR4 was a missed opportunity, and could have been excellent. The case for the MRA4 would cite its superb mission system, which formed the basis of the Poseidon which eventually took the role, coupled with a massively more efficient propulsion system than the older Nimrod. Concerns leading to its cancellation included the risk of converting old airframes, each of which was likely to have had different corrosion issues, and worries regarding airworthiness management raised by the Haddon-Cave report into the tragic loss of Nimrod MR2 XV230 over Afghanistan in 2006. The aircraft was brought down by a British tradition more foolhardy than cheese-rolling, that of adding a dangerous new flaw to the Nimrod every ten years*. But, recognising the risks, the aircraft were to have new-build wings, and the issues concerning XV230 should have been able to be resolved given lessons learned from the report. However, the government lost confidence in the suppliers’ ability to deliver the programme, and later opted for the US P-8 Poseidon instead, where risks generally fall on the US Navy and Australia. BAE Systems had also been very wary about its commercial position in relation to the project and the rising costs. Regardless of ‘what-iffery’ the actual result of MRA4 was a ‘capability holiday‘ and lot of money lost.

* “Design flaws introduced at three stages played a crucial part in the loss of XV230. First, the original fitting of the Cross-Feed duct by Hawker Siddeley12 in about 1969. Second, the addition of the SCP by British Aerospace13 in about 1979. Third, the fitting of the permanent Air- to-Air Refuelling modification by British Aerospace in about 1989.”

5. De Havilland Venom NF.3 ‘Steamy Widowmaker’ (1953)

Quite how the superb Vampire transmuted into the nightmarish NF.3 is anybody’s guess, but what is clear is that as an all-weather night fighter the NF.3 was a catastrophe. Let us start with the NF.3’s single engine, which had a tendency to flame-out, stop or catch fire. As much of the aircraft was ‘fuel-soaked wood’, fires spread extremely rapidly. One would hope for a reliable fire warning system for such a risky aircraft, but this would have been unjustified optimism, as the erratic system often gave false warnings. Crew were instructed to escape the aircraft in the event of an engine fire, though no ejection seats were provided. The two crew sat cramped side-by-side with a cockpit insufficiently roomy for the new ‘bone-dome’-style helmets. Visibility was practically zero from the windshield in rain (hardly ideal for an all-weather fighter), it would mist up at high altitude, and had a tendency to crack. The A.I.21 radar, the primary sensor, suffered extremely poor serviceability. The fuel gauges lied, the electrical system was unreliable, the aircraft was exhaustingly unstable demanding constant attention, it had lower performance than the earlier far lighter NF.2, the air brakes were poor and provided no use at all below 200 knots… the catalogue of failings goes on and on. We’ll leave the final word to Flying Officer Paul Hodgson as quoted in Peter Caygill”s brilliant book, Jet Jockeys, ‘The Venom NF.3 was the most unpleasant aircraft I have ever flown, and perhaps, the least suited for its intended role.’

4. Supermarine Attacker ‘The Spiteful Death of the Spitfire”

Flush from the success of making 22 slightly different versions of the same aircraft during World War Two Supermarine submitted a design to fill an Air Ministry requirement for a single engine jet-propelled fighter with a laminar flow wing. At this point the cynical aerosexual may think Joe Smith’s design team were phoning it in. While the good comrades at Mikoyan-Guervich were developing the MiG-15, Supermarine devised a way to put the same Nene turbojet in a Spiteful. Which if we’re being honest should just have been called the Spitfire Mk 25.
After the RAF lost interest in an aircraft whose performance was no better than the jets it already possessed Supermarine needed to find someone with a vague contempt for its aircrew to sell the Attacker to. Enter the Admiralty. To navalise it Supermarine added an arrestor hook and, showing the contempt for naval aviation that produced the Seafire, a derisory wingfold that reduced each wing’s span by about three feet. This would lead to the loss of at least two Attackers which had their controls lock up in flight after one of the wings folded, the first conducting a ‘safe’ 200 knots landing while the pilot of the second made the perfectly reasonable decision to eject. The use of an enlarged, but otherwise unmodified, Spiteful wing also meant the Supermarine design team provided the RN with the last tail dragging jet fighter to enter front line service, three years after the Yak-15.
By the time this happened in August of 1950 the US Navy’s F9F Panther had already scored its first kill over Korea. Which showed what you could do with a straight wing and a Rolls-Royce Nene derivative if you put your mind to it. For example, it had the benefit of hydraulicly boosted controls which gave Grumman’s cat lighter control forces and a faster roll rate. While a Panther pilot managed to down four MiG-15 in 35 minutes the Attacker was attempting mock dogfights with the Meteor where its performance was described as that of a ‘very average aircraft’.
Only in front line service from 1950 to 1954 true to form Supermarine managed to cram three variants into this short period, the final FB2 allowing the option of carrying bombs or rockets in addition to the four 20-mm cannon. In an apparent attempt to damage relations with the newly formed nation of Pakistan a de-navalised version of the latter was pressed on their air force as the only foreign sale, entering service in 1951 and equipping one squadron until they were replaced with F-86 Sabres in 1956. Which is what they probably wanted in the first place.
Some may attempt to excuse the Attacker’s lacklustre capabilities as Supermarine’s first try at a jet. But given how woeful the follow-on attempts were maybe fighters just weren’t their thing.

–Bing Chandler is a former Lynx Observer and current Wildcat Air Safety Officer. If you want a Sea Vixen t-shirt he can fix you up. He is a contributing author to The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes

3. Tarrant Tabor ‘Godalminger’

Walter George Tarrant was a developer in Surrey and the Tarrant Tabor serves to demonstrate that it is not necessarily a good idea to let a builder make an aeroplane. The first thing one can’t help but notice is that the Tabor was, appropriately enough, the size of a building, and quite a big building at that. On completion it was, in fact, the world’s largest aircraft, and was intended to fly from British bases to bomb Berlin. Designed by Walter Barling and Marcel Lobelle (who would later be responsible for the highly successful Fairey Swordfish), the Tabor featured a vast and beautifully made lightweight wooden monocoque fuselage built of layered ply veneers that possessed great strength and an excellent aerodynamic shape. As originally designed it was to be a biplane featuring four 600hp Siddeley Tiger engines mounted in push/pull pairs. Unfortunately, production of the engines was delayed and the decision was taken to use six 450hp Napier Lions instead and add a third wing above the existing two. Four of the Lion engines were mounted in pairs as before but with the further two added between the upper two wings, a decision that was to have calamitous results.

The war for which the Tabor was designed came to an end before the aircraft was complete but construction continued as it was thought that it might make an excellent transport aircraft. Completed in May 1919, the Tabor was awesome to behold, with a wingspan 6 metres greater than an Avro Lancaster this was an aircraft that was vast by the standards of the day but its 11.36 metre (37ft 3in) height was utterly unprecedented. On 26 May after taxiing in a mile-wide circle to check ground handling, the first take off was attempted. Pilots Dunn and Rawlings accelerated the huge machine across the field, then the two upper engines were throttled up, the Tabor pitched forward and buried its nose expensively in the ground and all five of the crew on board were seriously injured (sadly Dunn and Rawlings both died later of their injuries).

To be fair, it may not have been entirely due to the problematic placement of the engines that the Tabor’s first attempt at flight proved so disastrous. The situation may also have been affected by the half ton of lead that was shoved into the nose just before the first flight (against the designers’ wishes) due to fears the Tabor might prove tail heavy. 

And that would have been that – but then General Billy Mitchell somehow contrived to have Walter Barling design a distinctly familiar-looking six-engine triplane bomber of enormous size, the XNBL-1, for US service. No one could accuse Barling of failing to learn from his mistakes as this time all the engines were sensibly mounted between the lowest wings. Unfortunately the triplane layout proved to be essentially a built-in headwind and the huge aircraft could not exceed 154km/h (96mph) and boasted the tremendous range of 270 km (170 miles) rendering it essentially useless. This also suggests that, had it flown, the only thing that would have proved impressive about the Tabor were its insane dimensions. The XNBL-1 was unceremoniously burned in 1930. Meanwhile WG Tarrant built many houses all over Britain and, perhaps wisely, never attempted to construct an aircraft again.  

• Edward Ward, contributing author to The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes

2. Hawker Typhoon ‘The Sabre Rattler’

by Edward Ward (with some nitpicking by Calum E Douglas)

An undoubtedly charismatic aircraft, the wartime RAF would nonetheless have been better off had it never had to deal with the brutish Typhoon. Despite being the first British fighter with a genuine 400 mph capability, and eventually possessed of a fearsome reputation as a ground attack fighter (a role, significantly, for which it had never been intended) the fact is that there was little that the Typhoon offered that could not be matched or bettered by other aircraft and with significantly less chance of experiencing engine seizure, or catching fire, or gassing the pilot, or simply falling apart in the process. No other major combat type used by the British Commonwealth caused so much heartache.

Intended as a replacement for both Hawker’s own supremely successful Hurricane and an obscure little fighter called the Spitfire, the new Hawker F18/37 airframe was sensibly ordered with two alternative brand new (massive) engine designs, the Vulture from Rolls-Royce and Napier’s Sabre powering aircraft named the Tornado and Typhoon respectively. Both offered power in the 2000 hp class and in the event one were to prove unsuccessful the programme could go ahead utilising the other. Unfortunately both proved to be, at best, highly problematic. To be fair to Napier, although the Sabre was (initially at least) woefully unreliable and prone to catastrophic failure, the Vulture was worse still and quickly discarded. Nonetheless the heavy and complicated Sabre’s reliability was appalling: when the Typhoon entered squadron service in 1941 the time between major overhaul of the Sabre was a mere 25 hours (though regularly it failed to achieve even this pathetic total and seized). For context, the recommended time between overhaul of the Rolls-Royce Merlin in the same tine period was 240 hours. 25 hours is the same figure as the famously unreliable Jumo 004 turbojets of the Me 262 of 1945 but the Jumo represented the application of a completely new technology in a failing state where the supply of even basic materials was impossible and the industrial complex was in the process of collapse – a situation that could not be said to apply to Napier’s Acton factory in 1941. Throughout 1942 Napier farted about with experimental superchargers trying to improve the Sabre’s altitude performance without attending to its basic reliability issues. So bad was the situation that the Government enforced the takeover of Napier by the English Electric company who promptly cancelled the supercharger development and improved reliability with impressive speed.

Despite the huge improvement in the Sabre’s reliability, the engine remained difficult to start, particularly in cold weather and was prone to catching fire. If the pilot inadvertently opened the throttle more than 5/8ths of an inch, the engine would flood and fail to start (and probably catch fire). Even were the pilot to adjust the throttle correctly, if the engine failed to start first try, there was an 80% chance of it catching fire on the second attempt. This all sounds like marvellous fun and probably serves to explain why there are no Sabre powered aircraft flying today. Provided the engine started successfully, the pilot then had to contend with carbon monoxide leaking into the cockpit, a problem that was never entirely solved, necessitating the use of an oxygen mask at all times the engine was running, which was just dandy in an aircraft known for its unpleasantly high cockpit temperature. To further delight pilots and ground crew alike, the Sabre was a very loud and high-pitched engine, which may not have been dangerous but was profoundly wearing.

Happily for the pilot the Typhoon was generally easy to fly and handled well. As a fighter it was noted for its exceptional steadiness, and despite possessing 24 cylinders and weighing over a ton, the Sabre was a notably smooth engine when it wasn’t catching fire or seizing. Unfortunately the Typhoon had a bunch of other disappointments and potentially deadly problems on offer. Firstly, although it could get to 400mph it was never as fast as Hawker said it would be and its speed performance was a disappointment to manufacturer and customer alike. The relatively thick wing was prone to compressibility, a condition where localised airflow exceeds the speed of sound, which results in very high levels of drag. Furthermore climb performance was below expectation due also to the wing thickness and high wing loading – the aircraft had ended up considerably heavier than intended. But to be fair the average Typhoon pilot was probably more concerned with the propensity of the tail to fall off – an aerodynamic quirk of the elevator led to aeroelastic vibration in the tailplane (flutter) at relatively low speeds when no ‘g’ was being applied. The flutter, over time, would lead to metal fatigue and failure in the rear fuselage and the inevitable loss of the aircraft and although easily solved by structural strengthening and adjusting the elevator balance, locating the problem in the first place was difficult with many Typhoons destroyed before the problem was rectified. And if you were unlucky enough to find yourself in a Typhoon without a tail, your mood probably would not have been lifted by the fact that it was extremely difficult to get out of. Early Typhoons were fitted with car-style side-opening doors which were virtually impossible to open at speed. The top of the canopy could be jettisoned in an emergency but the fact that this configuration was nicknamed the ‘coffin hood’ gives a fair idea of the affection in which it was held and in the first nine months of its service, more Typhoon pilots were killed in accidents than through enemy action. The very first Typhoons were also possessed of an extremely poor rearward view from the cockpit. When air ace Hugh Dundas complained to designer Sydney Camm, Camm retorted that his aircraft was “so bloody fast you will not need to look behind you!” Thanks Sid. It is notable that the Typhoon eventually got one of the earliest teardrop canopies fitted to a fighter and is said to have inspired the same modification to the superlative Mustang. 

That the Typhoons problems were not just the result of exaggerated historical revisionism is made plain by the serious consideration given to cancelling the entire programme during 1942, the very moment when as the fastest British fighter it was most sorely needed to combat the Luftwaffe’s highly successful campaign of ‘tip and run’ raids utilising the new Focke Wulf Fw 190. Indeed a Typhoon contract for 270 aircraft actually was cancelled at this time. Nonetheless, the aircraft staggered on largely due to the enthusiasm of one man: Roland Beamont, CO of 609 squadron, who introduced the Typhoon to its second career of ground-attack sorties over Europe. This was lucky for the Typhoon as the Spitfire IX was available by the second half of 1942 and also possessed the performance necessary to deal with the Fw 190. Its career as a fighter bomber was famous but there is a lingering suspicion that the Typhoon was an overrated ground attack asset – postwar analysis of destroyed tanks found that only 4% of Typhoon tank claims by rocket attack could be verified but the results of this analysis are themselves questioned. What is not in doubt is the psychological effect of these attacks – however had they been delivered by another aircraft would the results have been any different? The Hurricane had already operated as a rocket firing aircraft for example, with sufficient escort to protect against interception would their losses have been any different to the more expensive and troublesome Typhoon? For Typhoon losses were themselves appalling, for example 90 were lost during August 1944 alone, virtually all to ground fire. Like all liquid-cooled aircraft, even a small calibre bullet hit to the radiator will cause the engine to seize within minutes and the almost inevitable loss of the aircraft. The P-47 Thunderbolt (coincidentally another fighter originally intended for high altitude combat), was fulfilling the same rocket firing tank-busting role for the Americans at the same time as the Typhoon was making its mark as a ground attack asset. But the Thunderbolt, with its air-cooled radial engine had an almost unbelievable ability to take battle damage and survive, there were occasions when Thunderbolts returned with entire cylinders shot off. Would British needs have been better served by simply buying or licence-producing Thunderbolts?

Even once the worst of its traits were largely ameliorated, the Typhoon programme was arguably a huge misappropriation of resources that could have been better spent elsewhere, simply on more Spitfires for example, a fact that did not go unnoticed even at the time. That the Typhoon painfully matured into a (probably) effective ground attack aircraft was due to almost superhuman persistence and was attained at the cost of many lives. Its greatest contribution was to give rise to the superlative Hawker Tempest II, powered by the Bristol Centaurus radial engine (flown on a Typhoon back in October 1941) which was likely the best RAF fighter to enter production during the war. It seems oddly fitting to the whole sorry Typhoon saga that the Tempest II failed to enter service before the end of hostilities.

-Edward Ward

1. Avro Manchester ‘Manchester, so much to answer for’

Of 193 Avro Manchesters that saw service, 123 were lost. It was with good reason that assignment to the Manchester was seen by many in Bomber Command as a death sentence – and the aircraft described as a ‘bastard’. Mournfully underpowered by two unreliable Vulture engines, loss of  power in one engine (an all too common event) was often disastrous. Up to February 1942, the average amount of serviceable Manchesters at once never exceeded 31*. When the Manchesters were not grounded or catching fire in flight, their were cases of hydraulic fluid spraying into the cockpit and temporarily blinding the crew. Even without engine or other system failures the unlucky aircrew were extremely cold, as there was initially no heating systems and the heated clothing intended to solve this proved dangerous. The Manchester was introduced in November 1940, and sensibly out out to pasture in 1942. The replacement of the two troublesome Vultures with four Merlins, showed the true promise of the airframe and merited a name change, to Lancaster.

-Joe Coles

(*which may seem terrible but astonishingly was better than the respective figures for the Halifax which was 23 and the Stirling at 21).

The first aircraft designed and built by James S. McDonnell’s new company, the Army’s XP-67, is one of the most unusually-shaped aircraft of all time and also one of the least documented. Its combination of pure curvaceous sexiness and a tantalizing (and frustrating) lack of photographic coverage have made it a cult favorite among aviation history buffs for decades. Attempts had been made to tap into historical records at Boeing (merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997) but the results were meager, to say the least.

We had retired from Boeing in St Louis and were looking for a project. We both love doing research. What better challenge could we have than to take a crack at XP-67? We started by revisiting the Boeing Historian’s office, but nothing new was found there. The National Archives and Records Administration was the next obvious place to look, and in fact there were a number of production drawings of piece parts in their collection. COVID disrupted our plans there, with NARA shut down to visitors for the entire time that we had been given to write a history of XP-67 for Osprey Publishers’ X-Planes series. We had to find other sources, and quickly.

Having made a number of contacts with individuals and organizations, we slowly began to piece together the history of XP-67 that included a variety of photos and drawings that had never been published. This research kept expanding in scope, bringing in all kinds of factors that we hadn’t been aware of. Along the way we uncovered many things that surprised us, given that we had previously only known the top-level story that has been repeated so many times over the years. Here are our top 5, and they may surprise you, too:

1. XP-67 actually did have a nickname! “Moonbat” wasn’t used at the time, but it’s completely understandable why it’s stuck informally for so long. The airplane does look bat-like, thanks to its use of extreme blending of the engine nacelles into the wing and the wing into the fuselage. In conventional aircraft the blending is much more restrained, and is called “filleting.” So, XP-67’s most distinctive external feature is what led Army test pilots to give it a nickname in their official report: “The XP-67 is known as the ‘Flying Fillet’; any longitudinal cross section through the airplane being an airfoil section.”

2. XP-67’s engines weren’t particularly troublesome! And they definitely weren’t prone to catching fire. Contemporary records don’t always make a clear distinction between overheating and actual fire, but in all but one case those events were due to McDonnell Aircraft Corporation (MAC) designed peripherals such as ducts and valves rather than anything failing in the engines. Literally the only time that an engine component failed and started a fire was during XP-67’s last flight, after 8 months of flight testing had been completed. It’s worth noting that the only other aircraft ever to fly with the same Continental I-1430 engines was Lockheed’s XP-49, and no fires or serious mechanical failures occurred there either. It’s been said many times that they failed to deliver their full rated horsepower, which led to sluggish takeoff and high-speedperformance. But in fact, an Inter-Office Memorandum dated 19 January 1944, so early in the program that flight testing had barely begun, the Army program coordinator for XP-67 to the Chief of Aircraft Projects at Wright Field noted that as a result of extensive engine testing in the full-scale nacelle fixture “it is the opinion of this office that the engine has performed satisfactorily. This opinion is borne out by tunnel tests of the full-scale nacelle at Wright Field, during which engine difficulties were practically non-existant [sic] and the engine delivered its rated 1600 hp for protracted periods of time.” Later in the program, as rumors of fires apparently started to spread, the Chief of Technical Staff at Wright Field noted that apart from a fire on the first flight (resulting from failure of a duct carrying exhaust gases, nothing to do with the engine itself) – “The fifth flight occurred on 25 March 1944. Approximately fifty flights have been accomplished and no serious functional difficulties have been encountered.”

3. Army pilots only flew XP-67 a handful of times! Virtually all of the XP-67’s test flying was done by MAC Chief Test Pilot Ed Elliott. Three Army pilots flew a total of just five flights and a total of around 4 hours split between them, hardly enough time to become familiar with the aircraft, much less make more than superficial judgements about its performance. Some of their critiques are baffling, such as comparing the large twin-engine XP-67’s maneuverability and turn radius with that of a small single-engine P-51B and naturally finding that the latter was superior, a complete irrelevancy since XP-67 was meant to destroy bombers with its six 37mm cannon (never actually fitted) rather than dogfight with enemy fighters. There are indications in the surviving program correspondence that other Army pilots may have made single flights at times, but they appear to have been opportunistic rather than part of any organized test activities. 

4. XP-67’s rollout and final demise happened very close to each other! McDonnell’s facilities at Lambert Airport in St Louis were at the north side of the field, and that’s where XP-67 was rolled out in November 1943. On a windy day in September 1944, it made its last flight, landing on fire and being abandoned by its pilot on a taxiway that was on the then-southwest corner of the airport, less than 1,000 yards from where it had been rolled out. We got permission to go inside the perimeter of today’s St Louis Lambert International Airport and stood on both sites, which were easily visible from each other.

5. XP-67 wasn’t the only “X-fighter” at Lambert Airport in 1943-44! McDonnell’s facilities were directly across the runway from the huge new plant that Curtiss-Wright had constructed for building mostly variants of the SB2C Helldiver family. At the same time that XP-67 was being developed, Curtiss-Wright was building their XP-55Ascender, which they rolled out in July 1943, just 4 months before XP-67 made its first appearance, and was lost in November 1943 while flying from Lambert, just two weeks before XP-67 left the assembly building. The second XP-55 saw daylight in January 1944, while XP-67 was in the process of making its first four flights from Scott Field in Illinois. But the XP-55 number 3 emerged in April 1944, while XP-67 was actively test flying from Lambert. It’s very likely that both aircraft were within sight of each other at one or more times, but sadly no photos have been found to show this. This near-neighboring of two Army WW2 fighter X-planes is unique!

Those were some of the most interesting things that we discovered while researching and writing our book. But on a personal note, the one that doesn’t get a mention is the fact that much of XP-67’s test flying and XP-55’s too, including (we believe) XP-67’s catastrophic final flight, took place in the airspace directly over our house! At the time it hadn’t yet been built, of course, but it’s still something that we like to imagine when we look up at the sky.

– Steven Richardson was an aero engineer who worked at McDonnell and Boeing, and Peggy Mason was in comms at Boeing, You can order their McDonnell XP-67 “Moonbat” (X-Planes) book here. Review here.

The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes can be ordered here, Vol 2 of The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes can be supported here

The deeply unconventional Vickers Wellesley had a vital and seldom discussed part in the Allies’ victory in World War II. An utterly unorthodox combination of cutting-edge technologies and decidedly old-fashioned thinking, the Wellesley was a world-record-setting aeroplane of beastly good looks.

10. Led to the Wellington

The redoubtable Vickers Wellington was the best bomber of Bomber Command in the early years of the War and found gainful employment in every RAF command. Key to its effectiveness was its ‘basket-weave’ geodetic construction that was both light and remarkably strong. The Wellington could not have happened without the maturation of geodetic aircraft construction via the Wellesley.

9. Low weight

The Wellesley’s structure weighed only two-thirds that of the more conventional Vickers Vincent

8. The mystery of Wellesley K7734

Shortly before midnight on the 23rd February 1938 two Vickers Wellesley aircraft of the RAF’s Long Range Development Unit took off from Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire. The aircraft were tasked with a long-distance ‘endurance flight’ around Britain. One of the aircraft never returned. Despite a vast air-sea search effort and news appeals for information, the aircraft and its aircrew were never found. No Mayday was sent, and its last signal was at 7.15 am on Thursday 24th February. The mystery has never been solved definitively, but on 22nd March 1938, a Dunlop tailwheel was found floating off Karmo, 25 miles north of Stavanger in Norway. The type matched that of the Wellesley.

7. Hercules testbed

The Hercules radial engine was a massive success, powering over 25 different aircraft types. The Wellesley Type 289 engine testbed was used to test the Hercules HE15 and was vital to its development.

6. Massawa naval base attack

Egypt contains the strategically vital Suez Canal. In the War, the Suez Canal connected Britain with its Empire, which was supplying huge amounts of critical material to the war effort. Without the Suez canal, Britain would be dangerously starved of oil and other vital supplies: it could easily have meant the end for the Empire. When Italy declared war on Britain and France in 1940, it left Egypt extremely vulnerable. The Italians had the Suez canal in their sights and massive numerical superiority in Africa, the Italians also had a powerful local naval force which was composed of nine destroyers, eight submarines as well as a squadron of fast torpedo boats.

Though the British lacked the most advanced warplanes in this region, there was a Wellesley force. No 14 Squadron, along with two other RAF squadrons, was equipped with Wellesleys and based in Sudan. On 11 June nine aircraft from No 14 Squadron mounted an audacious raid against the Italian naval base at Massawa. Massawa was the homeport for the Red Sea Flotilla of the Italian Royal Navy. At sunset 14 Squadron attacked at extremely low level, lower than 500 feet at times, and ignoring the tempting ships, ravaged the port’s fuel stores. The resultant firestorm destroyed an estimated 10,000 tons of fuel.

It is likely that the attempted Italian invasion of Sudan in July was stalled by fuel shortages caused by the raid, buying time for the arrival of later Indian reinforcements that would turn the tide of war. The plucky nine aircraft and their extremely brave crews achieved a great deal in their bold sunset raid on Massawa.

5. It didn’t kill Jeffrey Quill

The 2nd prototype Wellesley flown by test pilot Jeffrey Quill went into a spin and lost control at 10,000 feet on 5 July 1937. Quill pilot baled out and survived. The aircraft landed in the front garden of house in New Malden in South London, photographs taken by a schoolboy on his Box Brownie reveal how remarkably intact the airframe remained, a testament to its extremely tough construction. Quill was the 2nd test pilot to fly the Spitfire and masterminded the development and production test flying of all 52 variants of the Spitfire.

4. Incredible strength

To ensure new aircraft of the time were able to survive the extreme flight loads safely, they were subject to brutal tests that added weights to the airframe equivalent to five times the maximum expected flight loading. Whereas the Vickers Valiant barely survived this test, the prototype Wellesley’s fuselage had successfully endured a factor of 8! The wings had stood up to an astonishing factor of 11. Tests were only halted to prevent the destruction of the test rig. The Wellesley was built like a brick shithouse.

4B. Its looks

The Wellesley looked tough as hell.

3. Geodetic construction

 A geodetic construction makes use of a rigid, lightweight, truss-like structure constructed from interlocking struts formed from a spirally crossing basket-weave of load-bearing members. Put simply the basket weave style is stronger and lighter than equivalent conventional structures. This style of construction was first adopted in German airships, then tried in an experimental French aeroplane before reaching maturity in the Wellesley from the design board of Barnes Wallis (famous for his renewable energy generator wrecking ‘bouncing bomb’). Wallis’ famous Wellington bomber could not have been developed without the pioneering design of the Wellesley.

2. Insanely long-range

 The long-range capabilities of the Wellesley were astonishing. To demonstrate the startlingly effective work the RAF Long Range Development Unit (LRDU) had carried out on the Wellesley, a widely publicised long-range flight took place in November 1938. The flight was to use three of the five LRDU Wellesleys. These aircraft differed from standard Wellesleys in several ways each designed to maximise range, the most immediately obvious being the replacement of the characterful Townend ring with a slick NACA-style low-drag engine cowling housing a more powerful Pegasus XII engine. Less visible, but as important, was the addition of a slew of cutting-edge technologies that included a constant speed propeller, three-axis autopilot and automatic mixture and engine boost controls. The aircraft was also given plentiful additional extra fuel capacity, bringing the total load to 1,290 gallons. The three aircraft set off on a daunting adventure to fly non-stop from Ismailia, Egypt to Darwin, Australia, a distance of 7,162 miles (11,526 km) on the Fireworks Night 1938. Two days later two of the three aircraft arrived at Darwin (one landed to refuel at Koepang 500 miles short of Darwin, Australia). The result was a world distance record that smashed the previous Soviet-held record by a decisive 1500 kilometres. The record would stand for over seven years when it was beaten by a B-29.

1. Recovering the Engima key

It is widely acknowledged that the cracking of Germany’s Enigma code was hugely important to the eventual Allied victory. Key to cracking the code was obtaining a codebook and an Engima machine, both of which were recovered from the German submarine U-559, thanks to a dramatic combined operation which featured an RAF Sunderland and four Royal Navy destroyers, and of pivotal importance – a Wellesley. At 12.34 on 30 October 1942, the 47 Squadron Wellesley spotted the periscope of the invaluable U-559 and attacked with depth charges. The submarine crew eventually surrendered without having time to destroy the coding equipment providing the greatest intelligence windfall of the War.

When it comes to German World War II aircraft, busting myths is a risky business. There’s such a wealth of surviving primary source material sitting around in archives that it would take a brave individual to stick their neck out and attempt to disprove what’s commonly regarded as fact today. With suitable caveats firmly in place then, Dan Sharp, author of Messerschmitt Me 262 Development & Politics, presents 10 ‘myths’ about the famous German jet fighter

10. The Luftwaffe and Air Ministry threw all their resources at the Me 262 because jets were cheap.

The Jumo 004 was cheaper to produce than, say, a DB 605 or BMW 801, but the Me 262 needed two of them. And the debate about whether to cancel piston engine production continued essentially until the war ended. It was acknowledged that although jets worked well as bomber interceptors, poor acceleration and a very wide turning circle meant they weren’t ideal for combatting enemy fighters – particularly low-flying fighter-bombers – nor could the 004 maintain power above 11,000m (36,000ft – some de Havilland Mosquito variants, for example, could fly significantly higher than this). And range was poor compared to piston engine types. Therefore, the Luftwaffe continued to invest a great deal of time and vast resources in piston engine types such as the Fw 190/Ta 152 and Do 335. Even the Bf 109 somehow struggled on in mass production till the end.

9. The glass-nosed Me 262 variant with prone bomb-aimer was a weird curiosity.

Widely known today as the Me 262 A-2a/U2, from June to December 1944, this type – known then as the Me 262 A-3 – was regarded as the most important one. When Hitler decided that the 262 had to be a pure bomber, Messerschmitt was immediately tasked with working out how to change the design from that of a fighter (don’t call it that!) to a bomber. Downwards visibility from the standard 262 was rather poor and the aircraft was very fast, so it was decided that a dedicated bomb-aimer was needed. Early designs involved a second crewmember seated behind the pilot – like the trainer variant. However, this would have required a 2m long periscope to give the back-seater a view past the bomb hung below the aircraft’s nose. Therefore a prone bomb-aimer seemed like the best compromise. Work on it largely stopped when Hitler rescinded his ‘bomber-only’ order in November 1944.

• How East Germany made the world’s worst airliner
• McDonnell XP-67 “Moonbat” X Planes book review
• We flew the F-14 Tomcat, here’s why it was the most important Cold War warplane
• The Scopophiliac’s Guide to Aircraft Manufacturers Part 2: Convair aircraft ranked by beauty
• I flew the SR-71 Blackbird in the Cold War, here’s why it was so important

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8. The Me 262’s full designation has a little ‘a’ on the end, i.e. Me 262 A-1a or Me 262 A-2a. The little ‘a’ seems to have first appeared in October 1944 when the 004 engine shortage likely to occur in December 1944 was first identified. It was hoped that this anticipated shortfall could be mitigated by fitting some 262s with BMW’s 003. That being the case, 004-engined machines would get the little ‘a’ and 003-engined ones would get a little ‘b’. So a BMW 003-engined standard Me 262 fighter would be Me 262 A-1b. But of course, the 003 wasn’t ready in time and the 004 shortage proved to be fairly brief. Some contemporary sources do continue to use the little ‘a’ but many don’t. Any Me 262 made before October 1944 was certainly an ‘A-1’ or ‘A-2’ without the little ‘a’ and even for those made thereafter, it’s not really essential to add the ‘a’.

7. The Me 262’s final configuration wasn’t determined until the autumn of 1944. Preparations for full series production of the Me 262 had commenced before the end of 1943 – with full blueprints drawn up and ready to use. The standard A-1 design appears to have been completed during the autumn of 1943. In April 1944, the Luftwaffe officially accepted delivery of 17 Me 262s – some of these were pre-production models but the basic configuration had been established.

6. The Jumo 004 jet engine had a service life of only 10 hours in the Me 262.

Horror stories of the 004’s incredibly poor endurance appear to be somewhat exaggerated. The 10-hour figure was evidently the worst-case-scenario period between engine-out overhauls. The 004 B-1 wasn’t a disposable unit but it does seem as though actual total service lifespan was initially still only around 25-30 hours. It could last somewhat longer if the pilot was careful but most weren’t. This wasn’t much of an issue though, since very few Me 262s apparently lasted beyond 25-30 hours – most being wrecked due to pilot error, according to official figures. Engine lifespan was dramatically increased – to 100 hours or more – with the introduction of ceramic turbine blades in early 1945.

5. It was the poor state of the Jumo 004 engine which delayed the Me 262.

Given the tremendous difficulties faced by BMW, Heinkel and indeed Daimler-Benz, Anselm Franz and his team at Junkers Motoren seem to have had a relatively easy time designing the 004. By early 1943 they were lobbying the Air Ministry for more airframes in which to test their engines because Messerschmitt had hardly built any of the 20 that had been on order since July 1940. The 004 A ate up too much in the way of scarce metals, the B-0 used too few scarce metals and the B-2 programme collapsed but the B-1 represented a sweet spot that was relatively economical to make and worked passably well. Contemporary records appear to show that there were sufficient engines to power every 262 airframe built, up to around December 1944, when there was indeed a brief shortage. At no other point were there airframes sitting around waiting for engines.

4. Bombs didn’t delay the Me 262.

Willy Messerschmitt told Hitler during a personal audience in September 9, 1943, that the Me 262 would make a great aircraft with which to bomb Britain. Hitler seems to have thought about this and on October 27, 1943, issued an order that every Me 262 should be built as a fighter-bomber. The distinction here between fighter, fighter-bomber and bomber is crucial. Göring passed this order on to Milch and his senior staff on October 28, who then passed the message on to Willy Messerschmitt. From this time on, the Me 262 would have to carry bombs – but it could also be flown on fighter operations as needed. Fast forward to May 1944 and the first 100 Me 262s are in production. At a meeting with Hitler on May 23, Milch and his staff reassure Hitler that everything is fine with the Me 262 fighter-bomber. But on May 24, at a meeting without Hitler, the German Air Ministry’s chief of development Siegfried Knemeyer expresses concerns to Göring that not only are the first 100 not being wired-up to carry bombs, but that no Me 262 will be capable of carrying bombs owing to centre of gravity issues. Göring is horrified – did his staff just lie to Hitler yesterday? Eventually, it’s worked out that this is actually wrong and everything IS fine, but Hitler has already, somehow, got word of the confusion. He’s furious and issues an order on May 26 that now the 262 must be a bomber. Not a fighter-bomber. A bomber. He expressly orders that it CAN NOT be used for fighter operations. It is forbidden even to refer to it as a fighter. Limited fighter testing can still take place, but henceforth, the Me 262 is to be called a ‘fast bomber’. It will be operated by bomber units as a bomber. But no Me 262 has ever dropped a bomb. They haven’t even designed bomb racks for it, nor fitted a bomb-aiming device. Hitler refuses to revoke this order till November 1944.

3.

Willy Messerschmitt was the Me 262’s greatest champion, battling Luftwaffe and Air Ministry indifference. This is the narrative that both Messerschmitt himself and his staff presented to Allied interrogators shortly after the war ended: the failure of the Me 262 to reach the front lines in time was down to the German Air Ministry. The truth, however, is somewhat different. In fact, the Minister of State for Aviation, Erhard Milch, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and General der Jagdflieger Adolf Galland decided in May 1943 to cancel the Bf 109 and build the Me 262 in its stead, with production of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 being ramped up in the meantime to cover the unavoidable dip in overall fighter production. Willy Messerschmitt appears at this time to have experienced the revelation that his company had developed a product in the Me 262 which made practically all of its existing products obsolete. Building the Bf 109 (and Bf 110, Me 210 and Me 410) was a vast and vastly profitable enterprise involving huge supply chains. Not only that, Messerschmitt had been banking for years on building a successor to the 109 – initially the 309 and by this point the 209, which was intended to share around 50% of its parts with the 109 to minimise supply chain disruption. Dismantling all that in favour of the Me 262 would be a disaster for the company, particularly since very little work had been done on the 262 for around 18 months. Messerschmitt, therefore, went to Hitler and had him overturn the 109/209 cancellation, which effectively kicked the 262 into the long grass. In truth, while the Luftwaffe and Air Ministry were desperate for the 262 by May 1943, Willy Messerschmitt, through his friendship with Hitler, was able to successfully frustrate their efforts to get it into production early, thereby rescuing his company from another disaster.

2. There was a big celebration following its first successful flight with Jumo 004s. Mano Zielger described the scene at Leipheim on July 18, 1942, in his book Hitler’s Jet Plane: “The flight had lasted 12 minutes in all. And then it was all jubilation: onlookers running from the airfield buildings, the groundstaff crowding round to offer their congratulations, an exultant Willy Messerschmitt.” This appears to be a work of fiction. By all (contemporary) accounts, no one other than those physically involved in the flight test were really aware of it, and none of them was aware of its significance. Willy Messerschmitt, in particular, was thoroughly distracted, struggling through the aftermath of a rolling catastrophe which threatened to destroy both his company and his own career – the failure of the Me 210. Immediately after the war, Messerschmitt commercial director Rakan Kokothaki confessed that no one in management noticed the Me 262’s first successful jet-powered flight at the time.

1. The Messerschmitt Me 262’s nickname was ‘Schwalbe’, German for Swallow.

This name appears all over the place in connection with the Me 262. It’s on the cover of books, the National Air and Space Museum in the US uses it in its official description of the aircraft, ditto the Imperial War Museum, so it must be right, right? Well, yes and no. Delving through archival material you might expect to find references to the ‘Schwalbe’ sprinkled through various German documents. You would soon discover, however, that ‘Schwalbe’ doesn’t seem to appear in… well… ANY German WW2 documentation. ‘Sturmvogel’? Yes, various sources. ‘Silber’? Also yes, albeit from fewer sources. ‘Schwalbe’? Not a one (at least nothing yet discovered!). So where did it come from then? Curiously, British and American publications – magazines and newspapers – seem to have begun using the ‘Schwalbe’ name at least a year before the war ended. It reached a point where practically every photo of a captured Me 262 was captioned using ‘Schwalbe’. Could it be that the Swallow name was actually an invention of the Allies? It seems at least possible.

Messerschmitt Me 262 Development & Politics by Dan Sharp is available here

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Baade 152 Baade to the Bone 

That the wretched Baade ever got built says much for the charm of its designer Brunolf Baade. From 1936 he worked for Junkers and was involved in the design of the Ju 88, Ju 188, Ju 388 and Ju 287. Following defeat and partitioning, the Soviet Union took many German aerospace experts — including Baade—  to aid in the development of new military projects. The Soviets had a pressing need for a fast twin-engine jet bomber, and the German boffins set about designing one. The resultant EF 150 was conceived by Baade, Hans Wocke and other former Junkers staff. Hugely delayed by engine problems, the aircraft ended up having to compete and lose out to a greatly superior aircraft from a newer generation, the Tu-88 (which became the Tu-16 ‘Badger’).

Despite this, Baade may not have been having such a bad time. It is rumoured that Baade’s winning personality made him a favourite with his Russian masters, and that while his colleagues were enduring the biting 1947 Moscow winter he was enjoying a holiday in Crimea. In 1953 the Germans were sent back to East Germany, where some attempted to start an aviation industry for the new nation.

A new jetliner was desired, and Baade initiated a project — dubbed the Type 152 — based on the EF 150. This was a terrible basic design for a jetliner. For a start, it had a bicycle undercarriage — meaning the aircraft could not rotate promptly on take-off and it required great precision to land precisely (something they attempted to rectify with a  later, somewhat bizarre, configuration). It also had terrible engines, Pirna 014s based on wartime technology, which offered a miserly 3:1 thrust-to-weight ratio (compare this to the 4.5: 1 of the Pratt & Whitney JT3D which first ran a year earlier than the Pirna) and lousy specific fuel consumption. The wings were the wrong shape and in the wrong place: a low aspect ratio broad chord slab that was far from ideal for cruising efficiency. The high placing of the wings obstructed the cabin, while the space under the floor was occupied by the undercarriage.

The maiden flight of this aircraft took place on 4 December 1958. Four months later the aircraft took its second flight and crashed killing all on board. In mid-1961 the East German government stopped all aeronautical industry activities, as the Soviet Union did not want to buy any of these aircraft or support a potential rival to their own Tu-124. This mercifully put an end to what would have certainly been a horrible airliner.

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As far as I am aware this is the first book solely about the lusciously sexy XP-67. This is a very welcome subject as the cancelled ‘Moonbat’ is certainly one of the most charismatic aeroplanes ever flown.

Whereas most other aircraft of the time (1944) were of the conventional ‘sausages with planks’ configuration, the XP-67 interceptor was of sleek blended form and featured a raft of radical new technologies, but it was not the Moonbat.

For Moonbat fans such as myself, the rather brutal dismissal of the nickname ‘Moonbat’ in the introduction (apparently it was not used at the time of the project) was disappointing – as this nickname was perfect for the aircraft, and certainly superior to the ‘Flying Fillet’ title actually used by the USAAF. The XP-67 is deeply Batmanesque in appearance, and the name Moonbat seems absolutely apt. The word ‘moonbat’ is a pejorative term in the US to describe a person with extreme left-wing political views (which considering how far right much of the US has swung today, would include anyone not in favour of invading and colonising Canada). Its origins may lie with the Great Moon Hoax of 1835 when the New York Sun ran a fake story about a civilisation of winged bat people on the moon – or a poem from 1890 that employed the term to refer to unsound ideas. Significantly it was also used as a name for a spaceship in the 1947 sci-fi short story Space Jockey by Robert A. Heinlein, himself an aeronautical engineer, and naval officer

The blended approach used by the XP-67 was an idea put forward by Russian aerodynamicist Nicolas Woyevodsky in 1921, and explored by the British aircraft company Miles. The form was intended to add additional lift from an aerofoil cross-section fuselage and provide greater interior volume at a smaller drag penalty. On a blended platform, the wing and fuselage are blended together for superior aerodynamics. This is described in excellent detail in the book as are the many other weird and appealing technologies featured in ’67.

The authors

Steven Richardson was an aero engineer who worked at McDonnell and Boeing, and Peggy Mason was in comms at Boeing and USAF, and their insider access has clearly been a help as the selection of photographs and diagrams are an absolute feast. The text is dense with technical insights and a great deal has been packed into this 80-page paperback. The density of information is relieved by some first-class profiles and action-packed digital artworks by Adam Tooby. The research effort that has gone into this book is extremely impressive and suggests a labour of love. Perhaps the authors’ professional backgrounds led them to a fascination with this as the first real McDonnell design. This is the aircraft that started McDonnell’s legacy and led to its dominance of the fighter world from 1960 until the end of the 20th century.

The XP-67 came at the most exciting time in fighter development when the need was greatest, the piston engine was reaching its performance zenith and the immediate future form of fighter aircraft was utterly unpredictable. As the book describes, the influence of the Moonbat (there I said it!), like many innovative aircraft, was subtle and long-lived. The curves and the research data would inform the Phantom I and Banshee, and in turn, Phantom II, and the culmination of the blended wing effort can be seen in today’s B-1B and B-2, as well as many UCAVs and future airliner concepts. Along the way, some other extremely beautiful blended forms were studied, notably (as the book mentions) the wonderful somewhat Bugatti 100-like McDonnell-Douglas Model 226 Quiet Attack Aircraft, an early US Navy stealth study that inherited much from the Flying Fillet.

I wholeheartedly recommend this as the go-to book for anyone interested in the magnificent XP-67. This an extremely illuminating book on the sexiest aircraft McDonnell ever built. A word of caution though, it comes out on exactly the same day (November 24 2022) as the incredible Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes so you should start saving!

RATING: 4/5

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By former F-14 pilot Jon Schreiber, with former Topgun instructor and F-14 RIO Dave Baranek

The F-14 Tomcat, born of lessons learned and policy denied¹, became a star of the US Navy’s combat weaponry and the silver screen but more significantly, it was the most important warplane of the Cold War. Yes it was! Here’s why.

The F-14 embodied the broadest capabilities of any airplane ever designed for and flown in combat. It was a tactical airplane with strategic capabilities. Genius.

For today’s mission we won’t compare the Tomcat /AIM-54 missile combination to the Flanker /AA-10C. Instead, we’re going back to when the F-14 first brought sensational performance to American carrier flight decks.

The F-14 had the capability of destroying ANY opposing aircraft ANY where in the world. No other Cold War aircraft had the single mission capability to send two nuggets on a “standard” mission from the CV and trap two Aces a few hours later. The AIM-54 and the AWG-9 enabled incredible combat capability. With the AWG-9 able to track two dozen separate targets and feed the data to a swarm of million-dollar missiles doing their job, two J.Os³ could find themselves at the tactical pointy end of a powerful strategic spear. This capability was on American flight decks SEVENTEEN YEARS before the AIM-120 provided multi-shot capability to other American fighters. Additionally, the F-14 was armed with weapons that can kill from inside 1000 feet (the M61 Gatling gun) to 70 nautical miles with the Phoenix air-to-air missile, and the Tomcat was designed with an incredibly versatile performance envelope that boasted high-g manoeuvring, high-speed, great endurance. The Tomcat’s godlike potency captured the aviation world’s attention when it was introduced as one of the earliest 4^th generation fighters.

Leveraging the Tomcat’s versatility during FleetEx 83 (April 1983), several F-14s reportedly overflew a Soviet military base near the Kamchatka peninsula – proving the assertion of Admiral Watkins, then CNO, that the USSR was “as naked as a jay-bird” in that AOR. Following the FleetEx 83 F-14 flyover, which caused a political stir, Able Archer 83 demonstrated NATO’s first strike capability in November 1983. Coincidence? We think not. The F-14 demonstrated it was capable of first strike. But how did a tactical airplane enable such a strategy?

In 1986, the F-14 proved that its extraordinarily capable weapon system and its endurance could create a “strategic-tactic,” variously known as Chainsaw and Tanksaw, enabling a single F-14 to achieve a kill volume covering approximately 2% of the Pacific Ocean. Kills at 700NM from the carrier meant anti-ship missiles carried on aircraft like the Bear and Badger were no longer a sure threat to the U.S. Navy’s fleet, allowing carrier-based and other long range strike aircraft to be flown feet dry over the USSR. The F-14 had completely amputated the air leg of the Soviet triad.

In a scenario where a Tanksaw F-14 shoots down outbound Soviet bombers while they are still feet-dry over the USSR, the cognisant Soviet Air Force General, who was just handed his retirement by a couple of Navy flyers, will need to temper his response to losing those capital assets so early in the campaign. His problem is not the aggressive F-14; his problem is that the standard USN F-14 always travelled with a team of “goodfellas.”  Goodfellas in the form of one or more Battle Groups, and during the cold war a Battle Group deployed with organic strategic capabilities. If F-14s are able to kill bombers feet dry over the Soviet Union then the organic assets of the Battle Group have the ability to strike critical C4 targets in country. By severing critical C4 links across several Soviet regional C4 facilities the U.S. will have gained a great advantage of shortening the Soviet strategic decision-cycle time from about 40 minutes to less than 10 minutes. That advantage could disable initiation of the Soviets MAD³ response thus decapitating the entire context of the Cold War conundrum. Tactical to strategic, indeed.

The versatility of the F-14 was a triumph, forged in titanium, of the West’s ability to thwart any threat, thus ending the cold war and reserving a spot for the USSR on the “ash heap of history.” ² While many other aircraft can claim a supporting role in ending the cold war, the key aircraft that crippled the air leg and MAD response of the Soviet Stratigiya was, unquestionably, the Tomcat.

Notes:

1. The F-14 incorporated many lessons from the ongoing air war in Vietnam, as did the F-15 Eagle. These included the importance of good maneuverability and cockpit visibility, the value of a built-in gun, and many more. As far as policy denied, this includes the failed attempt to force the Navy to accept the F-111B when it needed a versatile fighter and the missile-only armament of other recent American fighters.
2. In his “Westminster Speech” of 18 June 1982, US President Ronal Reagan said, “…The march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history….”
3. Abbreviations used in the article that may not be common knowledge: J.O. = junior officer; CNO = Chief of Naval Operations; AOR = area of responsibility; MAD = Mutually Assured Destruction.

Authors:

• Jon “Hooter” Schreiber is pappy to three cute as the dickens girls, father of two cool sons, and husband with limited fashion sense. He is a retired US Navy fighter pilot (F-4s and F-14s) and active GA pilot. Opinions offered free of charge. 
• Dave “Bio” Baranek is enjoying retirement with his wife. He occasionally writes and creates aviation-related videos. He is a retired US Navy F-14 RIO and former Topgun instructor.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and are not endorsed by any organization.

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