Talk:F-8 Crusader

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Contents 1 Untitled 2 Design philosophy 3 Rewrite 4 Accidents 5 Split 6 Last of the gunfighters, huh? 7 French missiles

[edit] Untitled

Someone was after nice PD pix of the "Gator"? Try Paul Nann's site. He's very easy on use and will likely authorize PD distribution of a small image of some of his very nice stuff.

Greg Goebel / www.vectorsite.net

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the F-8 up to the E-mnodel have one fuselage mounted zunipod (the small blister on the left side)? And only two sidewinders, not four mounted on the fuselage?

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How is it if I search "F8U" I don't get a redirect here? Trekphiler 21:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

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> as proven when several hapless Crusader pilots were ejected off catapults with the wings folded.

Were the hapless pilots ejected, or launched from the catapult? DanB 03:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Design philosophy

I rewrot this:

"During the Vietnam War, the Crusader was the best American fighter for dogfighting with Vietnamese MiGs, as all other planes relied on missiles as their sole air-to-air weapons, and thus manouverability was not factored in their projects."

It's N wrong, but I added mention of the change in philosopy. Trekphiler 21:20, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

That whole statement is POV and historically flawed. The F-8 was supposed to be the last great gunfighter but most of its Vietnam kills were achieved with AIM-9s (in fact, no gun kills at all by 1968). Its kill ratio vs Navy Phantoms was only 19:13 (Donald 2002, see article for citation). - Emt147 ^Burninate! 08:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the F-8 was the last fighter designed at a time when cannons were deemed as important as missiles, and not like the F-4 where cannons were ignored all together in the first versions. Bjelleklang - talk 09:11, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That's not what the sentence says -- it says F-8 was the best dogfighter and implies it used cannons for most of its victories. Btw, using agility to win dogfights has been largely out since World War I -- most fighters from WW2 on relied on energy tactics instead. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 16:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That's not exactly true - the reason the Russians were so effective on the eastern front was their aircraft were more agile than the Germans' at low level. Likewise, British designs tended towards being turn fighters, while American were energy fighters. The whole reason MiGs in Korea and Vietnam wound up being more deadly than expected was that they were agile and designed as gunfighters. ericg ✈ 15:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

In any pair of aircraft, one will always end up an angles fighter and one an energy fighter. Spitfire, agile as it may be, becomes an energy fighter against Yak-3. The boom-and-zoom tactics were preferred by the vast majority of pilots for this exact reason -- you didn't want to engage in turning if you were flying an energy aircraft and your opponent would not let you engage them if you were flying an angles fighter. Aircraft that started as angles fighters evolved into energy fighters by the end of the war due to increases in weight and engine power because an angles fighter could not survive against energy tactics. This is why P-38 could beat the Zero, why Mosquitos were so hard to intercept, and why Phantoms could score victories against Frescos and Fishbeds half their size. FWIW,

MiGs were designed as bomber interceptors, hence the 37 mm and 23 mm cannon armament (Soviets knew from their WW2 experience with the likes of Yak-9T and Yak-9K that large-caliber cannons were extremely difficult to use against fighters) and lack of boosted controls -- no one expected them to engage in high-speed high-G dogfights. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 03:59, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

This article is badly in need of a complete rewrite. There is no information at all on the development, very little on the variants, and what's there is largely POV. Any F-8 fans willing to take charge of it? (I'll get to it eventually if no one else wants it). - Emt147 ^Burninate! 08:11, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

some add the fact that the chengdu j-8 is also someimes called f-8 in export designation

[edit] Accidents

I thought I heard that some people were sucked through the large intake on the front.

Chin-intake fighters are often referred to by the nickname of "sailor inhaler," doesn't mean it has any basis in actual fact. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iceberg3k (talk • contribs) 20:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

--- There is a very common film where one misses the cable and the pilot ejects as it dives into the water.

[edit] Split

Oppose: Not enough content to warrant a separate article, especially without pics and/or drawings. In addition, the usual practce is to wiat mor that 10 minutes (usually a week) after proposing a split before actually creating the article (unless its a test, in which a test page should be used. - BillCJ 19:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

Bill, the Crusader III is a completely different airframe by Vought's own admission. Do you mean to suggest that they should share the same article because they have the same name? —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 20:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Joseph, it's not unheard of on Wikipedia for related aircraft to share a page, espcially for a non-production off-shoot of a production design. To me, it's better to have related designs on a full page than on a stub. That said, if you have material for expanding the F8U-3 page beyond its current content, especially with a couple of good pics (with at least one color for the lead), then I'd support it. Having seen the page now, it's longer than I thought it would be.

Btw, I placed the Bell 214ST on the Bell 214 page for those exact reasons, even though they aren't the same aircraft but do share the same model number and heritage. - BillCJ 20:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

My point is that it's pretty much not the same aircraft. Think Hornet vs. Super Hornet. And IMHO the Crusader III article has sufficient content on its own already. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 21:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

My opposition was to the page as stood in the F-8 article. I did not beleive there was enough content to justify its own page. If only 5 Rhinos had been built, and only 3 had flown (passed over in favor of the Tomcat 21!), and the page had minimal content, I would support retaining it in the Hornet article. Even now though, a lot of Super Hornet material continures to creep into the Hornet article.

As the Crusader III article now stands, I do support leaving it there. Obviously I came upon the page in the middle of your second thoughts on having a split vote. Such are the dangers of instant editing! - BillCJ 01:31, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Support, as it's plenty large enough to stand as its own article. There are undoubtedly some USN photos available online as well with some poking about. ericg ✈ 19:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Last of the gunfighters, huh?

The F-8 Crusader is often touted as the "last of the gunfighters", even though both the F-104 and F-105 had internal guns. It's an amazing, little-known fact that the F-105 scored at least 27.5 kills in Viet Nam, 2 with the Sidewinder.

From http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf105.html:

Flak and SAMs were the worst hazard, taking down 312 F-105s. North Vietnamese MiGs claimed 22 Thunderchiefs, but the Thuds more than evened the score, with the F-105 credited with the destruction of 27.5 MiGs. Interestingly, 24.5 of these kills were performed with cannon alone. This is very much the opposite of the kill records of the other major fighter types in the war, the Vought F-8 Crusader and the F-4 Phantom, in which most kills were achieved with missiles.

This record is probably as much to the credit of the M61 internal gun as to the F-105 itself. - BillCJ 03:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

So the F-8 had guns and missiles. The fighters we have today have guns and missiles. What makes the F-8 any more of a gunfighter than our modern aircraft? 68.106.216.203 18:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• Fighters went away from cannons for in the late 1950s and into the 1960s. They thought missiles could do it all. Dogfighting wouldn't be required and so forth. The F-4 was designed this way for example. In any event, I think the article explains it with this sentence: The F-8 Crusader was the last U.S. fighter designed with guns as its primary weapon.. -Fnlayson 19:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] French missiles

I noticed that the French navy section has a link that doesn't work, and no information on the R.530 missile, but it is referenced. Here's some basic information on this missile, for those who want to know:

I) It could be fitted with one of two seeker heads-a rounded nose heat seeking head, or a pointed SARH head, matched to the aircraft's radar system.

II) It was the first generation French AAM-it armed the first mirage III's.

III) it had a rather short range(especially the IR seeker-also only locked in on very hot tail pipes)

IV) Being the first attempt, it was, well, unreliable.

But this small simple missile fathered the R.550, and every other French AAM in use today. That is no small feat! Please note that the forward fusaloge hard points could carry 2 R.530, @ R.550, or two sidewinders. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.208.38.26 (talk • contribs) 19:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• Looks like Super 530 and R550 Magic are the missiles you describe. -Fnlayson 23:08, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no. The orginal R.530 preceded the super 530 by several years. As well, the super has no Ir homing head-and the R550 has no SARH Head. The old R.530 had both heads. In fact, as I said Earlier, the R530 fathered the super 530.216.208.38.26 18:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)Trainman the second

• In any event, those are the closest articles I could find. They'd be a better place for this type info. -Fnlayson 19:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)