Air Combat Maneuvering, not gun use was the main reason for the improved kill/loss ratio in Naval Aviation. F-4’s simply did not believe in ACM because of the radar Sparrow missile; Beyond Visual Range (BVR) didn’t require ACM. And then the F-4 met up with the small and agile MIG-17, had to deal with Rules of Engagement that negated BVR…
The F-8 community was the only one that kept the faith in terms of ACM, and eventually 4 F-8 pilots went to Udorn in 1972 to instruct the USAF on the lost art of ACM.
The Crusader had the best kill/loss ratio in SEA, 6:1. USN/USAF Phantoms combined for a 3.8:1 ratio in comparison. Heatseeker kills totaled around 80; gun and radar kills were around 52 each.
F-8 pilots that had transitioned to F-4s began the Top Gun program in 1969 in order to utilize the corporate knowledge of ACM that was prevalent in the Crusader community. Top Gun’s charter was written by Capt. Frank Ault.
I’m sorry, I guess I should have used the proper term to describe what Fighter Weapon School and especially “Duke” Cunningham were trying to teach. Answer this for me. Why did the pilots during the Vietnam conflict persuade Mcdonnell Douglas to equip the F-4 with “guns?”
If anyone is curious about Duke Cunningham, check these places out:
Because of the dumb rules of engagement. Our pilots had to have visual conformation of any aircraft before they could take any action. The AIM-7D and AIM-9B was not good at close range maneurvering targets. The Aim-7 was most effective when fired at mediam range where the missile had time to track and guide. It would then catch the enemy un aware and it would be hard to see because the rocket motor would have burned out and the missile was in the coast mode. At short range the missile would not have time to stabilize and get on a good track.
The AIM-9B was a back shooter and only worked when fired at the rear of the enemy aircraft. It would be very easy to dodge the missile as it wasn’t very maneurverable.
The F-105 and F-8 scored more kills with the gun than the F-4E.
berny13 is right on about the ROE in Vietnam negating use of BVR missiles, and once in visual range only effective weapons were AIM-9 and cannon fire. Since the F-4 had no gun they were at a disadvantage once the MIG-17 was inside of AIM-9 minimum parameters. The F-4 pilots had no reason to practice ACM since they were counting on using the Sparrow; the radar missile would be fired before a bandit even knew there was a threat to them, so there was no reason for an F-4 to jink around to avoid being shot at.
The early AIM-9 wouldn’t track until it was released, but later was able to track while still on the rack,proved its ability to intercept a target as it came off the airplane. Much later its sensitivity was increased to allow a head on shot as it sensed the heat coming off the leading edges. The Sparrow was worse in its unreliability as it couldn’t stand up to being manhandled by ordies loading the plane and it didn’t take G’s well while mounted to the aircraft.
Hmmm… AFAIK, the corporation was McDonnell Douglas/Northrop. It then bought out Grumman shortly thereafter. Its been a while since I paid attention to defense contractors. You may be right. I’m still thinking its a Hughes AH-64! BUT, your comment was that the F-22 used more off the shelf materials than the F-23. I was simply saying that it was the other way around. Tweaking the APG-63 has been done numerous times, (APG-70, and several new mods on the original 63 sets in the F-15C fleet that have brought em up to modern standards) but that’s not the point. The F-23 used off the shelf components and was a formidable aircraft. It lost out in the ATF competition because of politics and never got to perform the full test program because of it. Its one major flaw was low speed instability in the yaw axis, something that could have easily been corrected
The F-23, made by McDonnell-Douglas-Northrop-Grumman-Whomever was the better airplane. Just dealt a crappy hand.
in Aviation Weekly a few years back Hughes was trying to get the APG-63 for the F-22 but the AF showed studies that the newer APG system still had a lower pulse id then the older 63, the 63 could track target up to 100 NM but the Advessary would be able to pick it up too, I agree that the Black Widow II was a better A/C but the manufacturing tooling was of the same of the F-15’s & F-16’s and N/G would need to pruduce the tooling for the new A/C that’s what I meant by sharing the same parts sorry for the parts I meant tooling (I worked for Martin Marietta for a few years and they call tooling = parts)
I’d love to see what the capabilities of the new LPI radar for the 22 are. Pretty cool stuff. Then again, I’m happy with the APG-78 in the Longbow Apache!
