@pyronuke4768 I wonder if they were trying design a dogfighting missle instead of for straight and level high altitude bomber interception what they could have come up with. Was it the technology that was lacking or were they just designing them for the wrong use?
I remember an interview with Bruce Gordon where he said that the F-4 was given a different targeting computer than was designed to work properly with the aim 4. Said the f-106 had no problems hitting with the aim-4
Bruce Gordon is a fantastic historian from experience especially and his book and channel on youtube are one of thr best for aviation especially cold war aviation and century series history!!
The F-106 was a pure interceptor and never had to contend with aggressively maneuvering fighter-type targets. The targets that F-106 pilots trained against modeled bombers, and I would expect the missile to perform much better in that setting. The F-106 also never deployed to environments as difficult as Southeast Asia. With that said, and as the video says starting at ~33:00, the F-106 had much better automation and didn't require the pilot to master as much "switchology" to fire the missile. In Olds' account he was quite honest that he struggled to master that aspect of the Falcon.
@@patrickchase5614 Bruce Gordon talks about good fighter vs fighter capability of the F-106 and falcon combo, this before the F-106 got a gun pod late in its carrier.
Remember, this was the days of analog vacuum tube electronics. Anything but miniature ! The "computers", inside the aircraft, where specialized analog computers. A completely different architecture, foreign to those of what we think as digital computers. Digital computers, at the same time, were the size of a house !
Summary: Product development is difficult and takes way more time than estimated. Especially dealing with novel problems such as an air-to-air guided missile.
@@huskergator9479 It *is* impressive, but several armed forces in the Western Allies were seriously looking into the concept and potential technological solutions from that date. Ironically, it was the appearance of things *like* Fritz-X, Okhas and kamikazes that were stimulating this new concept: Oerlikon cannons for point-defence of surface units at sea against what were essentially inbound munitions was considered virtually useless by 1944 and the Bofors gun had supplanted it in the USN. But even the Bofors had difficulty fully disintegrating (and thereby stopping) a determined inbound missile - and it hadn't the range to engage bomber platforms using stand-off weapons. The in-development automatic 3-inch gun was expected to solve the Kamikaze issue, but was again expected to be woefully short-ranged given that future bombers and stand-off weapons were anticipated (in 1944) to be jets and, later on, with nukes. This was the paradigm under which Project Bumblebee was started by the US Navy; the project which, although the gestation period was long, resulted in Talos and Terrier. The mighty Talos looked every inch the spawn of WW2 and was, of course, a beam-rider. It's amazing how much impetus there was in the late stage of World War 2 for radar-guided SAMs and AAMs to be developed. There had been an awful capability gap at the start of the war and I think there was a great fear of a new one developing. That's a great driver for innovation, isn't it?
It was rejected because it would only strike a target if the target was a pan of Lasagna. Other targets were ignored. It also caused serious communications conflicts when stored in the same storage depots with the Honest John surface to surface and Hound Dog air to ground cruise missile systems.
The GAR4 missile was NOT a bad missile, about on par with what an AIM9B could do, and certainly better then what the AIM7A was doing. The Falcon mounted on the Voodoo and the F-106 in the sixties were all equipped with a proximity fuse, with the AIM4D on the falcon being the only one requiring a direct hit. The issue was the lack of proper equipment on the Phantom F4C/D and F4E, which were NAVY fighter rushed into USAF service. Those were lacking an internal bay and a functional mean to cool the missile head before it was launched. What Col. Old was referring to, when criticizing the missile was that it was not suited for use on a phantom, which was a NAVY developed design with NAVY equipments in mind. The F-106 was a much more sophisticated airframe, with a missile bay, direct link between the missile and the Radar, cooling capability, and an aircraft mounted IR sensor capable to slave the missile seeker as long as it was needed, so that the Aim-4 seeker was already locked to the target when the missile bay was opened and the internal coolant was used only during the missile flight. The big failure in Vietnam was due to the need, for the pilot to activate the missile seeker before entering combat, and this gave him a very narrow window to shoot the missile before the coolant run out. The need to activate the missile in advance was because the Falcon needed to cool down the seeker before being able to "see" on its own, which was not the case when used by plane that was designed to carry the weapon. The not outlandish difference in hit rate between the AIM-4 and the AIM9 was due to launch issue, related to the lack of proper equipment of the Phantom itself, rather then inferior abilities of the missile to lock and kill the target. The tendency of the IR seeker to lock on the sun or bright spots instead of the target tail cone was common to all the IR missile until the Eighties, when the AIM9L become standard. What a missile like the AIM4 could have become in time is left to speculation. one major advantage, it had on anything else, was the small factor, of both the IR and the Radar version, with minimal differences in the missile itself: this could have brought benefits to the modern fighters which have an internal bay, like the Dagger, the Dart and the Voodoo, the ability to carry more missiles in a single bay, without necessity to have different bay location as in the F22, with AIM120 and AIM9 requiring different launch systems.
"What a missile like the AIM4 could have become in time is left to speculation." Not really, we know what it became: the Phoenix's development and basic design all originate at the AIM-4. The AIM-26 and -47 tied those together. The Sparrow getting a lower hit rate than the Falcon proves it wasn't as bad as commonly thought alone.
@@reinbeers5322 that also ignores the out of envelope firings. Corrected for out of envelope (poor pilot training) the falcon still performed better than all missiles (besides the 9D/G/H) in theater until the 9J, and even the 9J hardly did any better.
The Falcon was likely rushed into service over Vietnam because it was a better performing missile than the AIM-9s that the USAF had access to. The 9B was inadequate for a maneuvering fight and the 9E was so problematic due to poor design and poor build quality that it attained a worse Pk than the 9B in Vietnam. The 4D was the first(second, really, the 4G was the first but that's more complicated) true mid-wave infrared detecting IR AAM, which allowed it true front attack capabilities, given that the target was against a cold enough background. This could be favorably called "limited all aspect". This was most effective against high flying bombers, though, as the contrast was high enough. It also was the first(second, 4G, but again development is so closely linked that I consider them one missile in practice here) to use "conical scanning," which gave better countermeasure resistance and hot spot resistance when properly employed and properly maintained. One of the biggest issues was the wide field of view of the seeker. The 4D did not have all the same advantages as the 4G, and thus had issues with hot spot rejection under certain circumstances. Poor maintenance and handling was also probematic. The 4D was not a 9B. It was complicated and much more fragile, designed to be flown at high altitudes and low temperatures in an internal weapons bay, not at high speed and hot low altitudes for many missions, being loaded and unloaded each time with frankly rough handling.
Can't wait to watch this. Before I hit play, I've got to tell this story, and wonder if it will be part of the video. In 1989 I attended a presentation by general Robin Olds at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson. He described the complexity of preparing a Falcon for firing, and the narrow firing window. If I recall correctly, he started removing Falcons and replacing them with Sidewinders before the official approval came down from Air Force headquarters.
Excellent, in-depth, and nerd-worthy history of the development of this missile system. I really think that the Vietnam experience was a humbling one for the USAF, and taught they the hard lesson that the base foundation of their air power had to be suited to the environment in which they would be fighting. Soon we would have the F-16, F-15 and F-18. Now that's a foundation you can build success upon.
To me, the useage of the AIM-4 Falcon in Vietnam reads like someone trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, then throwing a hissy fit and blame it on the peg rather than admit they hadn't thought the whole thing through. I don't believe that the Falcon is this godawful peice of crap it's often made out to be, it was just the wrong tool for the wrong job, and unfortunately that's the only thing most people are told about it.
In fairness none of the missiles in theater worked all that well...I actually talked to a guy who flew F-4s in Vietnam at an event once, and he said on one occasion he seriously considered blowing the canopy and seeing if his survival pistol was any better. But also in fairness to the pilots, they weren't the ones deciding to use the wrong missile for the Job. for all his bluster, I get why Olds was ticked at the damn thing. all the work to get into a firing position, plus the manual work with the AIM-4, just to watch it go gallivanting off to God knows where? Yeah, I'd be pissed too. And given that the Sidewinder was just better--and Olds probably knew that--I'd have made the same choice he did.
I wonder if an AIM-4M, today, might not be the better dogfight missile. No doubt would have solid state electronics, a proximity fuse, larger warhead, and perhaps better turning performance than the Sidewinder? Maybe it would be similar to the Russian R-60(AA-8).
It's the right tool for the right job the AIM-4D is designed to be a Dogfight missiles in the first place. TAC piss poor culture compounded by the fact that the familiarisation training Pretty much only consisted of a 1 hour PowerPoint presentation and that it made it worse
@@sawyerawr5783 Let's not take the word of a moron who's to busy spending his time being a loudmouth instead of devoting it to trying to understand how to use the missile!
Great video as always. Far more informative than the wiki article and other easily accessible sources online. Your ability to find footage from the period is what really makes your videos of a highly professional quality. How much of a challenge is it finding all the footage for your videos?
Thanks for this video. I hope you’ll do a video about the f101 voodoo. It’s hard to find good information on it. And I also wonder what you would say was the primary air superiority fighter for the U.S. in the 1950’s. The f86 was quickly matched by the MiG 15, and I feel like the f100 wasn’t vastly superior than migs either.
I think the answer is: There wasn’t one. How about the F-86H? It had the 4 M39 revolver cannons of the F-100 and a J73 turbojet of 8,900 lbs thrust. But was still subsonic. The F-100C or D was probably the closest thing to an air superiority fighter. Four M39 cannons equaled the volume and rate of fire of one M61 Vulcan. The F-5E Tiger carried two M39s. If not the F-100, then the F-102? But it relied on the AIM-4 Falcon. Maybe the F-104A? It had Sidewinders and a Vulcan cannon. I think the 60s is what gave rise to the need for the F-15 Eagle, which was probably the first air superiority fighter…if the F-4D, F-4E, F-4J and F-14A were not.
@@Andrew-13579 I also subscribe to the "wasn't one" answer. In the 50s the USAF had interceptors and fighter bombers but dogfighting was not taken seriously at the time. Vietnam caused a shift in thinking and by the 70s the concept of an air superiority fighter was born, resulting in the F-15, a pure air-to-air platform that can intercept and dogfight equally well, and outperform any Soviet block fighter.
The museum at Volk Field in Wisconsin has an example of both a heat seeking and radar guided AIM-4 in the building. I was surprised at how large they actually are. Then I started wondering how big a tip tank on an F-89H must've been as they each housed three Falcons (plus 21 FFARs in three groups of seven.) An F-89H with all six Falcons deployed is a pretty awesome sight!
The excellent book "Sidewinder" recounts how the Falcon needed a "production line" style preflight checking procedure. The Sidewinder team took the piss a little by showing up with a volt meter as their sole test equipment.
Worth noting that it was common for China Lake engineers to exaggerate during that time. They produced incredible capabilities, but given the issues with accuracy in Mr. Westrum's book, I would not take that as gospel. It is, however, true that the sidewinder was easier to maintain. Though the navy then proceeded to overstretch that capability and ended up with many duds in early Vietnam and a significant number of AIM-9Ds that broke apart on launch.
@heatloss9536 Hi. That's interesting. I'm far from an expert about the AIM 9! As a layman I found the book quite interesting. What were the issues with it? Thanks Mark
Given the success of proximity fuses in WWII and the problem of missile guidance, one wonders why proximity fuses weren't included in missile designs from the get-go.
It was largely because at the time they could only fit a 7.5 lbs warhead in the missile, and since the primary target was bombers they were doubtful near miss would do enough damage to bring one down; a direct hit would be far more devastating. This was later proven to be a rather accurate assessment as in testing it was found that a single Sidewinder with it's 20 lbs warhead could not reliably destroy a bomber using it's proximity fuse.
Given the size of your average strategic bomber of the era, it kinda makes sense. plus given the size constraints a proxy fuse would've just cut further into the warhead size.
The amount of work you've done here is impressive. I was only mildly aware of the AIM-4, having been aware of things military and serving during the mid-80's to mid 90's.
Thanks for this video. I really enjoy the days of early missile tech as it's so much more mechanical vs a PCB with chips on it. Those old guys who wore ties and white shirts to work and used slide rules while chain smoking in the office had some hard things to figure out.
This missile deserves a properly written technical treatise, going into detail as to exactly what the problems were and why it performed so horrifically. It seems to have had a good run in 1968. Olds firing so many without result while his wingman plugs a MiG with a single shot seems like the worst luck. And that 11% kill rate on trigger pull is the direct hit rate. Which other missile did as well?
In VN, all AIM-9 variants together were around an 18% kill rate. AIM-7 was a bit lower, around 9%. Really, the problem was that none of these were really designed for the kind of turn-and-burn dogfighting the USN and USAF pilots found themselves in.
@@davidfuller581in 1968 the AIM-9B was doing pretty close to about 12%. The later models you see in the late war like the -9D/E/G had much improved seekers that brought the average up.
I'm working on it myself. I am probably the biggest proponent and defender of the Falcon, though I don't think it was perfect. I think it was better than any missile in theater besides the 9G/H, and I believe it was at least on par with the 9D. However, it achieved these advantages through the seeker system, which was the most misunderstood and poorly trained around part of the missile in Vietnam. The pilot could fire it in one of three modes: slaved to the boresight, like a sidewinder, with manually pulled lead, like a gun pass, or with the seeker slaved to a radar track and the fire control system calculating an intercept point. This is the key point that is often missed: the pilots HAD a proper fire control system, even if it didn't fly the planes for them. All you had to do was center the aim dot and fire. But pilots were only taught one method from what I can find, which sometimes was the radar mode (without the aim dot centering) or the manual lead mode. Depends on the unit.
@@pyronuke4768 The E was a disaster, arguably a downgrade from the B. The D/G were far better than any sidewinder the USAF fielded throughout the war, even the 9J. That continued to suffer from similar issues to the 9E.
I love the last line of the video "the technologies that it enabled Hughes to pioneer, and in particular its planform, were a staging point for much more powerful weapons to come." So you're saying it rose again from its ashes like a Phoenix? (AIM-4 -> AIM-47 -> AIM-54)
Im glad this story was told. The conclusion is also the best one. As far as programs go, it was fine. It just wasn't sidewinder. Even though it is closest to R-60 in size from NATO missile comparison. The two were still different in design and capacity.
I do love your channel, and I watch(ed) every single one of your videos! But I wonder if an on-screen conversion would be possible for those of us who don’t speak in freedom units. Is the non-native English portion of your audience large enough to warrant the extra effort that would require? If not, no biggy then I’ll just keep pressing pause to convert dimensions and weights to SI units 😊
The Falcon family of missles were a learning experience. They were somewhat effective option to raining unguided rockets at close range against Soviet bombers. Against the massive amounts of subsonic Soviet bombers of those times, it was safer, as it allowed our fighters to stay well outside the range if the TU95's guns. It was so undependable, that we ended up putting ballistic guidance and a nuclear warhead in it. Overall, hitting 1 in four targets was better than nothing. Coming in from below allowed it to track a bomber silhouetted against an empty cold sky. It was useless for anything else.
It definitely gives you an appreciation for why modern militaries talk so much about "modular." It's one of those absolutely exhausting buzzwords where they'll slather modularity on a ham sandwich in order to make the modularity more modular. But back in the day they had integrated development programs where interceptors had weapons bays that were exactly big enough for a missile that didn't work, and no quick option for an alternative missile to stick in that bay. Oops. Makes it pretty clear why they are quite happy to constrain modern missile development to for in a VLS cell so they can adopt it if it works or reject it if it fails but have plenty of other missiles to put in the cell in the mean time, and they can swap out the whole VLS system on a ship because it's just a standardized generic rectangle shape rather than some customized conformal shape.
So 'Not a Pound' I'm guessing you have seen the '50 years of Sidewinder history' documentary made by the Technical Information Division NAVAIR Weapons Division, China Lake (2002) here on TH-cam? I remember watching it a while ago and especially the part about the 'fly off' test between the AIM-4 Falcon and the AIM-9. I'm paraphrasing, but.....The 'Falcon' team turned up with truck loads of calibration gear just to get the 'Falcon' ready to fly and fire off of the aircraft. The NAVAIR team turned up with a small group of guys, a single suit case of calibration gear and a Sidewinder. The 'Winder' team had their prototype AIM-9 missile ready to go quickly and had to sit around for hours waiting for the 'Falcon' team to get their missile to work properly. The Navy did not even hesitate to pick the 'winder' after seeing the comparison.
Essentially, the reason the Falcon wasn't just replaced by the Sidewinder in the Air Force is that the F-102 and F-106 physically couldn't use the Sidewinder. Their internal bays physically couldn't fit a Sidewinder, since it's longer than the Falcon.
Very interesting as always. Thank You. If they were envisioning a missile to bring down strategic bombers shortly after the end of WWII, & the Soviets didn't get the A-bomb until 1949, does this mean that they predicted the Soviets would get the A-bomb in a short while?
I do have to say though that I completely disagree with your summation. It was an objectively bad platform. It shot down zero aircraft over its life. And as for innovative technologies that it inspired, what exactly would those be? Aim 7 Sparrow the a9 sidewinder and the a120 was a development on its own. And it's primarily an upgraded Sparrow.
@@michaelfrench3396 yes just Being a pioneer is not enough excuse to be bad. it served along the later ones,had expection of performance and it failed to do so.
@coreyandnathanielchartier3749 If only we had the missile designers from TH-cam.Comments section working on AAM missile design back then. imagine how much better things would have been then.
You have to wonder why the F-4 wasn't set up to perform all of the mechanics of prepping the missile. Of course, Olds was infamous for regarding the Guy-in-Back as a dead weight that should sit there and shut up.
'range gate servo'? Now I'm immeasurably curious. I thought range gates were electronic, how did this work? I couldn't find any info when searching for this term, only getting a handful of text mentions for the term without any drawings or explanations. Have you found any further explanations about it?
My wild guess would be something akin to a mechanical speed controller. The servo would actuate a mechanical wiper that switched between banks of different resistors or a direct connection that netted different motor speeds. Basically only letting a specific amount of power through.
Would you ever want to go into details re: the SAGE system? You made a brief mention of it here. Not related to fighters per se, but certainly an important technical innovation in air defense.
whats the timing of this video dude im walking home as i start thinking about the early air to air missiles and this video just pops up in my recommended when i get on the tram
It's a curious problem when your seeker head is so sensitive it can track the lit end of a cigarette, but gets distracted by literally anything even slightly warm.
It's important to take into account that the cigarette is creating a signal equivalent to maybe a jet exhaust several miles away. The IR sensors were not sensitive enough to lock into anything warm, they locked onto the reflections of the sun in the water/treetops/clouds. The sun being the most powerful energy source in, well, the solar system. The thermal radiation from a warm body or even hot asphalt under the sun would not trigger the photosensitive elements. The wavelength is different. However sunlight features the wavelengths emitted by scorching hot objects.
Apparently it could also track lit campfires or hot engine blocks, or maybe that was just the IRST system on the plane itself which then told the Falcon to go fetch. Either way its quite hilarious.
29:06 I'm imagining some Vietcong sitting around their campfire one night, a jet screams by overhead, and somewhere in the empty jungle behind them, a Falcon missile explodes.
I wonder in an alternative scenario with these missiles integrated into Korean and Vietnamese fighters, what would have been the success rate against American B-29s and B-52s with them playing the role for which they were created?
There is only so much engineers can replicate in the laboratory. There is a learning curve derived from experience in the real world so weapons that represent leading edge technology are naturally expected to be very questionable.
As the missile gets closer, the different parts of the target start reflecting differing amounts of radar energy. There is also side lobe interaction that does weird stuff creating more radar reflections. They missile then starts wobbling around trying to chase the strongest reflection.
I suspect one factor may just be an issue with miniaturization; they just didn't have the technology in the 1950's to fit a decent guidance unit and antenna into the compact chassis of the missile. The Sparrow III (later AIM-7C) had a similar problem, to the point where the following model was increased to a diameter of eight inches just to make everything fit.
Radar is difficult. As others said, once you get closer you get returns off of different parts of the aircraft, and in the early conical scanning seekers were quite bad. The sparrow only fixed this with the M model for the gulf war.
@pyronuke4768 in the case of the F-106, it may also have been that no workable alternatives were available due to the internal carriage. Would an AIM-9 of that era have been compatible with the F-106?
@larrythorn4715 the F-106 has the largest internal bay of any century series, helped by that it is a single bay rather than multiple. So converting the bay to use sidewinders would be rather easy compared to other century series. The main problem is the Sidewinder is half again as long as the Falcon (9 ft vs 6 ft) so you're probably only gonna be able to fit two or three of them in there. The second issue is that the early Sidewinders had to physically see the target to lock on. This wasn't a problem for the Falcon because the 106's fire control computer would program in updated intercept courses and targeting data automatically while the Falcon was still in the bay, meaning it effectively was already locked on and could launch as soon as the doors opened. Sidewinders had to physically see their target, which leads me to the third issue: that being mounted under the fuselage like that left them with a big blind spot above them (there's a reason for why Sidewinders were mounted almost exclusively on the wings). To be honest, mounting Sidewinders on the F-106 is like building a tank and telling the crew that even though they have a cannon they're only allowed to use the machine gun. What's the point of all the sophisticated fire control equipment if the F-106 can't use it? Although I really wish the Delta Dart had a chance to show what it was capable of, I do believe they ultimately made the right call in not sending it to Vietnam.
It's kind of funny that the AIM-7 also had abysmal success at first in SEA, until they realized that the troops were just mishandling them like artillery shells or bombs, and that they weren't designed for the environment. So they fixed handling and upgraded the missile, and got it working. The AIM-4 was probably not treated any differently, and was used without the specific avionics it was designed to be used with in the F-106, and instead of resolving it they just stopped using it. As a result, the AIM-7 is considered a legendary missile and great success and people make such stupid jokes about the AIM-4, even on videos explaining why those jokes aren't actually accurate.
Fallout was minimal at worst, the Air Force did some tests on that where a bunch of higher ups stood a couple thousand feet under one when it went boom. And regardless, it was a better outcome than getting nuked directly.
>An AIM-4 that was readied to fire but returned without firing had to be sent back to the US for refurbishing Jesus Christ, the USAF shoud've stopped using the missile on that basis alone. You can improve the accuracy of a weapon all day long, but it won't mean shit if it needlessly risks becoming a massive logisitical burden. Do you have any idea how many pilots on patrol have had to ready their weapons for a possible contact with a bandit, only for them to disengage because the bandit either disengaged or was identified as a non-threat?
Your intro reminds me that the problem with the F4 is that at one end there's a really ugly tail assembly and at the other end there's a really ugly droop nose. That wouldn't be so bad were it not for the really ugly middle section that connects them ...
It was in service at the same time as the aim 9. Yet we've got an aim 9x and I don't think there's a falcon x as far as I know. I think it got discontinued long before they got to even the middle of the alphabet
I'd like to meet the genius who thought the heavy cockpit framing at 12:00 on the F-102 and F-106 was a good idea. Then, I'd like to meet the procurement officer who looked at it and thought "this is fine."
It was a good idea if it kept the glass from collapsing on the pilot at extreme airspeed. They used flat plates of glass for a reason. This was early 50s technology. At least in the beginning there wasn't a gunsight in the way, and when that was later added to the 106 it really messed with forward visibility.
Robin Olds was also known to have thrown a big hissy fit after one cost him a chance at scoring a jet ace kill. Like, he wasn't a big fan already, but after that incident his attitude turned downright hostile.
Three main problems with the IR Falcon: only an 8ib warhead; had to make a direct hit to go off; once the seeker head was cooled you had 30 seconds to fire ir ...
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A video on the Firestreak and Red Top, and especially comparison to its contemporaries like the AIM-9B would make for an excellent video
Oh please, yes.
A British friend described them as, "Things made entirely of poo."
Red-Top is more from AIM-9E / J era
Ofc anything British is superior and better than anything American
@@Tjecktjeck 9Bs were definitely very common in the NATO inventory, including active USAF use in Vietnam well past the Red Top's introduction
Hey, its called a miss-ile, it most often did as described
That one interview on Dogfights where he says "that's why they're called miss-iles not hit-iles" cracked me up.
I remember that one. I agree! 🤣
At the time (late 60's) missiles were just bad in general. Like, the early Sidewinder wasn't much better, and the Sparrow was even worse.
@pyronuke4768 I wonder if they were trying design a dogfighting missle instead of for straight and level high altitude bomber interception what they could have come up with. Was it the technology that was lacking or were they just designing them for the wrong use?
That's terrible... I love it.
Thanks for giving the Falcon a comprehensive review. There’s so little info on its history on Wikipedia and most of it was “it’s bad”
I remember an interview with Bruce Gordon where he said that the F-4 was given a different targeting computer than was designed to work properly with the aim 4. Said the f-106 had no problems hitting with the aim-4
That explains a lot. Thanks for the new info.
Bruce Gordon is a fantastic historian from experience especially and his book and channel on youtube are one of thr best for aviation especially cold war aviation and century series history!!
The aircraft was designed by the Navy to carry the AIM7. I imagine the the USAF F-4C’s navy targeting computer wasn’t a good fit
The F-106 was a pure interceptor and never had to contend with aggressively maneuvering fighter-type targets. The targets that F-106 pilots trained against modeled bombers, and I would expect the missile to perform much better in that setting. The F-106 also never deployed to environments as difficult as Southeast Asia.
With that said, and as the video says starting at ~33:00, the F-106 had much better automation and didn't require the pilot to master as much "switchology" to fire the missile. In Olds' account he was quite honest that he struggled to master that aspect of the Falcon.
@@patrickchase5614 Bruce Gordon talks about good fighter vs fighter capability of the F-106 and falcon combo, this before the F-106 got a gun pod late in its carrier.
Remember, this was the days of analog vacuum tube electronics. Anything but miniature ! The "computers", inside the aircraft, where specialized analog computers. A completely different architecture, foreign to those of what we think as digital computers. Digital computers, at the same time, were the size of a house !
This is my favorite airplane channel. Love the detail and pictures and narrative focus.
Summary: Product development is difficult and takes way more time than estimated. Especially dealing with novel problems such as an air-to-air guided missile.
"started development in 1944" What? Seriously had no idea this started in WWII
Radar on planes was there by then (night fighters), as were guided missiles (Fritz X, etc), so it makes sense.
Still, that’s the first i have heard of any radar guided weapon that early, let alone an air to air. Pretty impressive.
@@huskergator9479 It *is* impressive, but several armed forces in the Western Allies were seriously looking into the concept and potential technological solutions from that date. Ironically, it was the appearance of things *like* Fritz-X, Okhas and kamikazes that were stimulating this new concept:
Oerlikon cannons for point-defence of surface units at sea against what were essentially inbound munitions was considered virtually useless by 1944 and the Bofors gun had supplanted it in the USN. But even the Bofors had difficulty fully disintegrating (and thereby stopping) a determined inbound missile - and it hadn't the range to engage bomber platforms using stand-off weapons. The in-development automatic 3-inch gun was expected to solve the Kamikaze issue, but was again expected to be woefully short-ranged given that future bombers and stand-off weapons were anticipated (in 1944) to be jets and, later on, with nukes.
This was the paradigm under which Project Bumblebee was started by the US Navy; the project which, although the gestation period was long, resulted in Talos and Terrier. The mighty Talos looked every inch the spawn of WW2 and was, of course, a beam-rider.
It's amazing how much impetus there was in the late stage of World War 2 for radar-guided SAMs and AAMs to be developed. There had been an awful capability gap at the start of the war and I think there was a great fear of a new one developing. That's a great driver for innovation, isn't it?
Not to be confused with the air-to-ground version Gar-field
Was it a lasagna propellent and could only be launched on Monday?
It was quite the maverick.
@@prowlusand only targets Nergle
It was rejected because it would only strike a target if the target was a pan of Lasagna.
Other targets were ignored.
It also caused serious communications conflicts when stored in the same storage depots with the Honest John surface to surface and Hound Dog air to ground cruise missile systems.
Great to see another video on an air to air missile, would be great to see a few on British missiles like the sraams or the red tops
Yep I’d love to know why Firestreak remained in service long after its successor Red Top was retired…
@ absolutely
The GAR4 missile was NOT a bad missile, about on par with what an AIM9B could do, and certainly better then what the AIM7A was doing. The Falcon mounted on the Voodoo and the F-106 in the sixties were all equipped with a proximity fuse, with the AIM4D on the falcon being the only one requiring a direct hit.
The issue was the lack of proper equipment on the Phantom F4C/D and F4E, which were NAVY fighter rushed into USAF service. Those were lacking an internal bay and a functional mean to cool the missile head before it was launched. What Col. Old was referring to, when criticizing the missile was that it was not suited for use on a phantom, which was a NAVY developed design with NAVY equipments in mind.
The F-106 was a much more sophisticated airframe, with a missile bay, direct link between the missile and the Radar, cooling capability, and an aircraft mounted IR sensor capable to slave the missile seeker as long as it was needed, so that the Aim-4 seeker was already locked to the target when the missile bay was opened and the internal coolant was used only during the missile flight.
The big failure in Vietnam was due to the need, for the pilot to activate the missile seeker before entering combat, and this gave him a very narrow window to shoot the missile before the coolant run out. The need to activate the missile in advance was because the Falcon needed to cool down the seeker before being able to "see" on its own, which was not the case when used by plane that was designed to carry the weapon. The not outlandish difference in hit rate between the AIM-4 and the AIM9 was due to launch issue, related to the lack of proper equipment of the Phantom itself, rather then inferior abilities of the missile to lock and kill the target. The tendency of the IR seeker to lock on the sun or bright spots instead of the target tail cone was common to all the IR missile until the Eighties, when the AIM9L become standard.
What a missile like the AIM4 could have become in time is left to speculation. one major advantage, it had on anything else, was the small factor, of both the IR and the Radar version, with minimal differences in the missile itself: this could have brought benefits to the modern fighters which have an internal bay, like the Dagger, the Dart and the Voodoo, the ability to carry more missiles in a single bay, without necessity to have different bay location as in the F22, with AIM120 and AIM9 requiring different launch systems.
"What a missile like the AIM4 could have become in time is left to speculation."
Not really, we know what it became: the Phoenix's development and basic design all originate at the AIM-4. The AIM-26 and -47 tied those together.
The Sparrow getting a lower hit rate than the Falcon proves it wasn't as bad as commonly thought alone.
@@reinbeers5322 that also ignores the out of envelope firings. Corrected for out of envelope (poor pilot training) the falcon still performed better than all missiles (besides the 9D/G/H) in theater until the 9J, and even the 9J hardly did any better.
The Falcon was likely rushed into service over Vietnam because it was a better performing missile than the AIM-9s that the USAF had access to. The 9B was inadequate for a maneuvering fight and the 9E was so problematic due to poor design and poor build quality that it attained a worse Pk than the 9B in Vietnam.
The 4D was the first(second, really, the 4G was the first but that's more complicated) true mid-wave infrared detecting IR AAM, which allowed it true front attack capabilities, given that the target was against a cold enough background. This could be favorably called "limited all aspect". This was most effective against high flying bombers, though, as the contrast was high enough. It also was the first(second, 4G, but again development is so closely linked that I consider them one missile in practice here) to use "conical scanning," which gave better countermeasure resistance and hot spot resistance when properly employed and properly maintained.
One of the biggest issues was the wide field of view of the seeker. The 4D did not have all the same advantages as the 4G, and thus had issues with hot spot rejection under certain circumstances. Poor maintenance and handling was also probematic. The 4D was not a 9B. It was complicated and much more fragile, designed to be flown at high altitudes and low temperatures in an internal weapons bay, not at high speed and hot low altitudes for many missions, being loaded and unloaded each time with frankly rough handling.
Can't wait to watch this. Before I hit play, I've got to tell this story, and wonder if it will be part of the video. In 1989 I attended a presentation by general Robin Olds at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson. He described the complexity of preparing a Falcon for firing, and the narrow firing window. If I recall correctly, he started removing Falcons and replacing them with Sidewinders before the official approval came down from Air Force headquarters.
Wow, the Hughes Corp, back when Hughes was still alive !
Before retreating to Las Vegas to hide from the germs
@@weldonwinand collecting jars of his own urine
Excellent, in-depth, and nerd-worthy history of the development of this missile system. I really think that the Vietnam experience was a humbling one for the USAF, and taught they the hard lesson that the base foundation of their air power had to be suited to the environment in which they would be fighting. Soon we would have the F-16, F-15 and F-18. Now that's a foundation you can build success upon.
Man your videos always deliver!
To me, the useage of the AIM-4 Falcon in Vietnam reads like someone trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, then throwing a hissy fit and blame it on the peg rather than admit they hadn't thought the whole thing through.
I don't believe that the Falcon is this godawful peice of crap it's often made out to be, it was just the wrong tool for the wrong job, and unfortunately that's the only thing most people are told about it.
In fairness none of the missiles in theater worked all that well...I actually talked to a guy who flew F-4s in Vietnam at an event once, and he said on one occasion he seriously considered blowing the canopy and seeing if his survival pistol was any better.
But also in fairness to the pilots, they weren't the ones deciding to use the wrong missile for the Job. for all his bluster, I get why Olds was ticked at the damn thing. all the work to get into a firing position, plus the manual work with the AIM-4, just to watch it go gallivanting off to God knows where? Yeah, I'd be pissed too. And given that the Sidewinder was just better--and Olds probably knew that--I'd have made the same choice he did.
I wonder if an AIM-4M, today, might not be the better dogfight missile. No doubt would have solid state electronics, a proximity fuse, larger warhead, and perhaps better turning performance than the Sidewinder? Maybe it would be similar to the Russian R-60(AA-8).
It's the right tool for the right job the AIM-4D is designed to be a Dogfight missiles in the first place.
TAC piss poor culture compounded by the fact that the familiarisation training Pretty much only consisted of a 1 hour PowerPoint presentation and that it made it worse
@@sawyerawr5783 Let's not take the word of a moron who's to busy spending his time being a loudmouth instead of devoting it to trying to understand how to use the missile!
@@Andrew-13579we have radarr and ir homing missiles combined now in the making.. soooo basically, no, we're fine
Great video as always. Far more informative than the wiki article and other easily accessible sources online. Your ability to find footage from the period is what really makes your videos of a highly professional quality. How much of a challenge is it finding all the footage for your videos?
The "friendly missile"....😅
*Hi! Looks like you are having some issues with these bogeys. Would you like me to help?*
That paperclip had a dad
Emotional support missile!
You should cover the interceptor version of the SR-71.
It's all linked. This missile was the direct ancestor of the AIM-47s that the F-12 would have carried.
The first stealth fighter. And arguably would have been a game changer if built in large numbers.
@@stickiedmin6508Same with the Aim-54 Phoenix! Lots of stuff came from the A-12 and F-12 program… such a small world eh?
@@Truck_Company_84Yes, I think the AIM-54 came from the AIM-47.
Has he done one on the XF-108? Sort of looked like a Mach 3 F-111, with wings permanently swept aft.
Thanks for this video. I hope you’ll do a video about the f101 voodoo. It’s hard to find good information on it. And I also wonder what you would say was the primary air superiority fighter for the U.S. in the 1950’s. The f86 was quickly matched by the MiG 15, and I feel like the f100 wasn’t vastly superior than migs either.
I think the answer is: There wasn’t one. How about the F-86H? It had the 4 M39 revolver cannons of the F-100 and a J73 turbojet of 8,900 lbs thrust. But was still subsonic. The F-100C or D was probably the closest thing to an air superiority fighter. Four M39 cannons equaled the volume and rate of fire of one M61 Vulcan. The F-5E Tiger carried two M39s.
If not the F-100, then the F-102? But it relied on the AIM-4 Falcon. Maybe the F-104A? It had Sidewinders and a Vulcan cannon. I think the 60s is what gave rise to the need for the F-15 Eagle, which was probably the first air superiority fighter…if the F-4D, F-4E, F-4J and F-14A were not.
@@Andrew-13579 I also subscribe to the "wasn't one" answer. In the 50s the USAF had interceptors and fighter bombers but dogfighting was not taken seriously at the time. Vietnam caused a shift in thinking and by the 70s the concept of an air superiority fighter was born, resulting in the F-15, a pure air-to-air platform that can intercept and dogfight equally well, and outperform any Soviet block fighter.
The museum at Volk Field in Wisconsin has an example of both a heat seeking and radar guided AIM-4 in the building. I was surprised at how large they actually are. Then I started wondering how big a tip tank on an F-89H must've been as they each housed three Falcons (plus 21 FFARs in three groups of seven.) An F-89H with all six Falcons deployed is a pretty awesome sight!
F-89 (and to an extent F-94) are less fighters and more giant flying busses with lots of rockets stuck on them.
It staggers me that this exceptional channel has only 50k subscribers.
The excellent book "Sidewinder" recounts how the Falcon needed a "production line" style preflight checking procedure. The Sidewinder team took the piss a little by showing up with a volt meter as their sole test equipment.
Worth noting that it was common for China Lake engineers to exaggerate during that time. They produced incredible capabilities, but given the issues with accuracy in Mr. Westrum's book, I would not take that as gospel. It is, however, true that the sidewinder was easier to maintain. Though the navy then proceeded to overstretch that capability and ended up with many duds in early Vietnam and a significant number of AIM-9Ds that broke apart on launch.
@heatloss9536 Hi. That's interesting. I'm far from an expert about the AIM 9! As a layman I found the book quite interesting. What were the issues with it? Thanks Mark
Given the success of proximity fuses in WWII and the problem of missile guidance, one wonders why proximity fuses weren't included in missile designs from the get-go.
It was largely because at the time they could only fit a 7.5 lbs warhead in the missile, and since the primary target was bombers they were doubtful near miss would do enough damage to bring one down; a direct hit would be far more devastating. This was later proven to be a rather accurate assessment as in testing it was found that a single Sidewinder with it's 20 lbs warhead could not reliably destroy a bomber using it's proximity fuse.
When you're shooting Tu-4s you don't need a proximity fuse.
Given the size of your average strategic bomber of the era, it kinda makes sense. plus given the size constraints a proxy fuse would've just cut further into the warhead size.
Another great video man! Are you planning on doing a video on the other century-series prototypes at all?
The amount of work you've done here is impressive. I was only mildly aware of the AIM-4, having been aware of things military and serving during the mid-80's to mid 90's.
Thanks for this video. I really enjoy the days of early missile tech as it's so much more mechanical vs a PCB with chips on it. Those old guys who wore ties and white shirts to work and used slide rules while chain smoking in the office had some hard things to figure out.
This missile deserves a properly written technical treatise, going into detail as to exactly what the problems were and why it performed so horrifically.
It seems to have had a good run in 1968. Olds firing so many without result while his wingman plugs a MiG with a single shot seems like the worst luck.
And that 11% kill rate on trigger pull is the direct hit rate. Which other missile did as well?
In VN, all AIM-9 variants together were around an 18% kill rate. AIM-7 was a bit lower, around 9%. Really, the problem was that none of these were really designed for the kind of turn-and-burn dogfighting the USN and USAF pilots found themselves in.
@@davidfuller581in 1968 the AIM-9B was doing pretty close to about 12%. The later models you see in the late war like the -9D/E/G had much improved seekers that brought the average up.
@@pyronuke4768 Right, that's why I included them all as one - the data I had didn't separate out each version.
I'm working on it myself. I am probably the biggest proponent and defender of the Falcon, though I don't think it was perfect. I think it was better than any missile in theater besides the 9G/H, and I believe it was at least on par with the 9D. However, it achieved these advantages through the seeker system, which was the most misunderstood and poorly trained around part of the missile in Vietnam.
The pilot could fire it in one of three modes: slaved to the boresight, like a sidewinder, with manually pulled lead, like a gun pass, or with the seeker slaved to a radar track and the fire control system calculating an intercept point. This is the key point that is often missed: the pilots HAD a proper fire control system, even if it didn't fly the planes for them. All you had to do was center the aim dot and fire. But pilots were only taught one method from what I can find, which sometimes was the radar mode (without the aim dot centering) or the manual lead mode. Depends on the unit.
@@pyronuke4768 The E was a disaster, arguably a downgrade from the B. The D/G were far better than any sidewinder the USAF fielded throughout the war, even the 9J. That continued to suffer from similar issues to the 9E.
I love the last line of the video "the technologies that it enabled Hughes to pioneer, and in particular its planform, were a staging point for much more powerful weapons to come."
So you're saying it rose again from its ashes like a Phoenix?
(AIM-4 -> AIM-47 -> AIM-54)
Well put!
Col Robin Olds absolutely detested this missile and worked to get the US Navy Sparrow fitted to his F4's as quickly as he could.
He wasn't wrong.
Im glad this story was told. The conclusion is also the best one. As far as programs go, it was fine. It just wasn't sidewinder. Even though it is closest to R-60 in size from NATO missile comparison. The two were still different in design and capacity.
The swedish RB26 was also used in the swiss Mirage IIIS with the Hughes TARAN-18 Radar
I am looking forward to your vid every friday and as usual I am not disappointed :)
They could have put a genie warhead on it. With 1.5 kt, accuracy can be approximate 🤔
Very approximate. 😂
they could not, the missile body didn't have enough room for it.
@@jwenting
AIM-26, semi-active radar guided instant sunshine.
At least with an AIR-2 you can turn away after launch.
There was a nuclear version of the Falcon.
GAR-11, later AIM-26, and it had a 0.25 kt warhead.
Not sure it was a good for the Air Force, but sure was good for Hughes.
An excellent look at these early AAMs. Bravo.
I do love your channel, and I watch(ed) every single one of your videos!
But I wonder if an on-screen conversion would be possible for those of us who don’t speak in freedom units. Is the non-native English portion of your audience large enough to warrant the extra effort that would require? If not, no biggy then I’ll just keep pressing pause to convert dimensions and weights to SI units 😊
I completely agree.
4:00. YES! The aft firing guided missiles! Someone please figure out how to overcome physics (like in movies) and make this work.
The Falcon family of missles were a learning experience. They were somewhat effective option to raining unguided rockets at close range against Soviet bombers. Against the massive amounts of subsonic Soviet bombers of those times, it was safer, as it allowed our fighters to stay well outside the range if the TU95's guns. It was so undependable, that we ended up putting ballistic guidance and a nuclear warhead in it.
Overall, hitting 1 in four targets was better than nothing. Coming in from below allowed it to track a bomber silhouetted against an empty cold sky. It was useless for anything else.
This is the best b day gift I ever
It definitely gives you an appreciation for why modern militaries talk so much about "modular." It's one of those absolutely exhausting buzzwords where they'll slather modularity on a ham sandwich in order to make the modularity more modular.
But back in the day they had integrated development programs where interceptors had weapons bays that were exactly big enough for a missile that didn't work, and no quick option for an alternative missile to stick in that bay. Oops. Makes it pretty clear why they are quite happy to constrain modern missile development to for in a VLS cell so they can adopt it if it works or reject it if it fails but have plenty of other missiles to put in the cell in the mean time, and they can swap out the whole VLS system on a ship because it's just a standardized generic rectangle shape rather than some customized conformal shape.
So 'Not a Pound' I'm guessing you have seen the '50 years of Sidewinder history' documentary made by the Technical Information Division NAVAIR Weapons Division, China Lake (2002) here on TH-cam?
I remember watching it a while ago and especially the part about the 'fly off' test between the AIM-4 Falcon and the AIM-9. I'm paraphrasing, but.....The 'Falcon' team turned up with truck loads of calibration gear just to get the 'Falcon' ready to fly and fire off of the aircraft. The NAVAIR team turned up with a small group of guys, a single suit case of calibration gear and a Sidewinder.
The 'Winder' team had their prototype AIM-9 missile ready to go quickly and had to sit around for hours waiting for the 'Falcon' team to get their missile to work properly. The Navy did not even hesitate to pick the 'winder' after seeing the comparison.
Essentially, the reason the Falcon wasn't just replaced by the Sidewinder in the Air Force is that the F-102 and F-106 physically couldn't use the Sidewinder. Their internal bays physically couldn't fit a Sidewinder, since it's longer than the Falcon.
Thank you! Always a great watch!
Great work as always, thank you.
Excellent film about the Falcon. That was a lot of research!👌
Very interesting as always. Thank You. If they were envisioning a missile to bring down strategic bombers shortly after the end of WWII, & the Soviets didn't get the A-bomb until 1949, does this mean that they predicted the Soviets would get the A-bomb in a short while?
Is there a source for the thumbnail picture? I'd love that as my wallpaper
30:45 Ground crew wearing white coveralls. Stylin'.
these missile videos are very interesting. will you do one on the phoenix aim54
The Swedes used it for sometime on their Drakens as HM 55 and HM 58.
This was definitely the most informative video I've ever seen on a failed system. Great job!
I do have to say though that I completely disagree with your summation. It was an objectively bad platform. It shot down zero aircraft over its life. And as for innovative technologies that it inspired, what exactly would those be? Aim 7 Sparrow the a9 sidewinder and the a120 was a development on its own. And it's primarily an upgraded Sparrow.
@@michaelfrench3396 yes just Being a pioneer is not enough excuse to be bad. it served along the later ones,had expection of performance and it failed to do so.
@@michaelfrench3396The AIM-4D got five kills, were you not paying attention to the video??
Another 'hot take' from someone who obviously didn't watch the whole video, or knows ANY history of early AAM development.
@coreyandnathanielchartier3749 If only we had the missile designers from TH-cam.Comments section working on AAM missile design back then. imagine how much better things would have been then.
You have to wonder why the F-4 wasn't set up to perform all of the mechanics of prepping the missile.
Of course, Olds was infamous for regarding the Guy-in-Back as a dead weight that should sit there and shut up.
'range gate servo'?
Now I'm immeasurably curious. I thought range gates were electronic, how did this work? I couldn't find any info when searching for this term, only getting a handful of text mentions for the term without any drawings or explanations. Have you found any further explanations about it?
My wild guess would be something akin to a mechanical speed controller. The servo would actuate a mechanical wiper that switched between banks of different resistors or a direct connection that netted different motor speeds. Basically only letting a specific amount of power through.
"The missile does not know where it is...."
I love your content. So much more than just who's got the better planes NATO Vs Russian.
Would you ever want to go into details re: the SAGE system? You made a brief mention of it here.
Not related to fighters per se, but certainly an important technical innovation in air defense.
@@mattpierre891 he goes into greater detail about SAGE in his video about the F-102 if that helps
whats the timing of this video dude im walking home as i start thinking about the early air to air missiles and this video just pops up in my recommended when i get on the tram
It's a curious problem when your seeker head is so sensitive it can track the lit end of a cigarette, but gets distracted by literally anything even slightly warm.
It's important to take into account that the cigarette is creating a signal equivalent to maybe a jet exhaust several miles away.
The IR sensors were not sensitive enough to lock into anything warm, they locked onto the reflections of the sun in the water/treetops/clouds. The sun being the most powerful energy source in, well, the solar system.
The thermal radiation from a warm body or even hot asphalt under the sun would not trigger the photosensitive elements. The wavelength is different. However sunlight features the wavelengths emitted by scorching hot objects.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD I know I was being sarcastic.
Apparently it could also track lit campfires or hot engine blocks, or maybe that was just the IRST system on the plane itself which then told the Falcon to go fetch. Either way its quite hilarious.
Outstanding video
Yay! New video!
Developing an air-to-air missile from scratch? how hard can this be? It's not rocket science.
Oh, wait...
29:06 I'm imagining some Vietcong sitting around their campfire one night, a jet screams by overhead, and somewhere in the empty jungle behind them, a Falcon missile explodes.
I wonder in an alternative scenario with these missiles integrated into Korean and Vietnamese fighters, what would have been the success rate against American B-29s and B-52s with them playing the role for which they were created?
There is only so much engineers can replicate in the laboratory. There is a learning curve derived from experience in the real world so weapons that represent leading edge technology are naturally expected to be very questionable.
Very interesting thank you 😊
Great video
Why was the Radar version so terrible?
The concept is so simple, they didn't even fly ballistically. All it had to do is maintain the angle.
I suspect that guidance near the target was bad. The signal level changes rapidly and the signal comes from a large angle.
As the missile gets closer, the different parts of the target start reflecting differing amounts of radar energy. There is also side lobe interaction that does weird stuff creating more radar reflections. They missile then starts wobbling around trying to chase the strongest reflection.
I suspect one factor may just be an issue with miniaturization; they just didn't have the technology in the 1950's to fit a decent guidance unit and antenna into the compact chassis of the missile. The Sparrow III (later AIM-7C) had a similar problem, to the point where the following model was increased to a diameter of eight inches just to make everything fit.
Radar is difficult. As others said, once you get closer you get returns off of different parts of the aircraft, and in the early conical scanning seekers were quite bad. The sparrow only fixed this with the M model for the gulf war.
AIM-4 could not have been too bad. The USAF kept it in service at least until the F106 was retired in the late 1980s.
The very late models weren't absolute garbage, but by that time the PR damage had been done and the USAF was losing interest.
@pyronuke4768 in the case of the F-106, it may also have been that no workable alternatives were available due to the internal carriage. Would an AIM-9 of that era have been compatible with the F-106?
@larrythorn4715 the F-106 has the largest internal bay of any century series, helped by that it is a single bay rather than multiple. So converting the bay to use sidewinders would be rather easy compared to other century series. The main problem is the Sidewinder is half again as long as the Falcon (9 ft vs 6 ft) so you're probably only gonna be able to fit two or three of them in there.
The second issue is that the early Sidewinders had to physically see the target to lock on. This wasn't a problem for the Falcon because the 106's fire control computer would program in updated intercept courses and targeting data automatically while the Falcon was still in the bay, meaning it effectively was already locked on and could launch as soon as the doors opened. Sidewinders had to physically see their target, which leads me to the third issue: that being mounted under the fuselage like that left them with a big blind spot above them (there's a reason for why Sidewinders were mounted almost exclusively on the wings).
To be honest, mounting Sidewinders on the F-106 is like building a tank and telling the crew that even though they have a cannon they're only allowed to use the machine gun. What's the point of all the sophisticated fire control equipment if the F-106 can't use it? Although I really wish the Delta Dart had a chance to show what it was capable of, I do believe they ultimately made the right call in not sending it to Vietnam.
It's kind of funny that the AIM-7 also had abysmal success at first in SEA, until they realized that the troops were just mishandling them like artillery shells or bombs, and that they weren't designed for the environment. So they fixed handling and upgraded the missile, and got it working. The AIM-4 was probably not treated any differently, and was used without the specific avionics it was designed to be used with in the F-106, and instead of resolving it they just stopped using it. As a result, the AIM-7 is considered a legendary missile and great success and people make such stupid jokes about the AIM-4, even on videos explaining why those jokes aren't actually accurate.
Oh, BTW... how does nuclear tipped rocket intercept deal with EMP burst and the eventual fallout over friendly territory? I wonder...
Fallout was minimal at worst, the Air Force did some tests on that where a bunch of higher ups stood a couple thousand feet under one when it went boom. And regardless, it was a better outcome than getting nuked directly.
Sixes were defending Alaskan airspace well into the 1980s with the AIM-4.😂
Please do one on the aim 54
At least the F-89 had six of the things. Decent chance of one of them hitting a bomber.
That is why whenever I play warhammer 40k it is only to be referred to as a missile launcher
It must have so frustrating to squeeze the trigger and not get the result you wanted.
>An AIM-4 that was readied to fire but returned without firing had to be sent back to the US for refurbishing
Jesus Christ, the USAF shoud've stopped using the missile on that basis alone. You can improve the accuracy of a weapon all day long, but it won't mean shit if it needlessly risks becoming a massive logisitical burden. Do you have any idea how many pilots on patrol have had to ready their weapons for a possible contact with a bandit, only for them to disengage because the bandit either disengaged or was identified as a non-threat?
Where is Naval Aviation in all of this?
But how?
The Shafrir 1 was probably worse
Your intro reminds me that the problem with the F4 is that at one end there's a really ugly tail assembly and at the other end there's a really ugly droop nose. That wouldn't be so bad were it not for the really ugly middle section that connects them ...
Ah, too bad. That just means there’s more -4 for me!
Ugly, but fast and maneuverable
The success of thrust over beauty.
Well the Navy likes heavily built aircraft. McDonnell listened and gave them what they wanted, a brick with wings.
@@blackhatfreak Maneuverable? Yeah, into the ground maybe.
Am I too early?
AGM-65
03:16
Locksmith: 'you want me to build a custom gun ?'
- 'Yes. Shoulder mounted. On automated joints. Firing tiny missiles.'
th-cam.com/video/Zt09Uak1_OE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=y3UAn3awh7Cbq-9n
Horrible missile! Alot of Mig kills screwed!
It was in service at the same time as the aim 9. Yet we've got an aim 9x and I don't think there's a falcon x as far as I know. I think it got discontinued long before they got to even the middle of the alphabet
AIM-54.
I'd like to meet the genius who thought the heavy cockpit framing at 12:00 on the F-102 and F-106 was a good idea.
Then, I'd like to meet the procurement officer who looked at it and thought "this is fine."
Plane almost flew itself, it's fine. The 106 later got a canopy with less framing.
It was a good idea if it kept the glass from collapsing on the pilot at extreme airspeed. They used flat plates of glass for a reason. This was early 50s technology. At least in the beginning there wasn't a gunsight in the way, and when that was later added to the 106 it really messed with forward visibility.
Robin Olds referred to the Falcon quite eloquently as a "piece of s***..."
Robin Olds was also known to have thrown a big hissy fit after one cost him a chance at scoring a jet ace kill. Like, he wasn't a big fan already, but after that incident his attitude turned downright hostile.
Three main problems with the IR Falcon: only an 8ib warhead; had to make a direct hit to go off; once the seeker head was cooled you had 30 seconds to fire ir
...
How to tell someone didn't watch the video without them telling you as much:
@notapound >>> Great video...👍
Plays far better at 1x25 for me, thanks again Sir 🇬🇧🫡
Outstanding video.