From World War II through the Cold War and up until the present day, this is the story of how America's greatest fighter jets became more lethal, faster, more badass.
The Tomcat was not initially envisioned as a multirole aircraft. Its initial design precept was strictly as a Fleet Defense Interceptor, bolting out to a spot far from the fleet as quickly as possible and using the AWG-9 and AIM-54 Phoenix missiles to engage at extreme range to stop bombers and attack aircraft from engaging carrier groups. It was only used in a ground attack role during and after Desert Storm/Shield when there wasn't really any threat to the fleet. And we didn't get the ST-21 follow-on (which would've had a multirole AST-21 variant) because Boeing snowed the DOD into thinking the Super Hornet was just an upgrade from the legacy F/A-18s instead of an entirely new aircraft that just looked a lot like the legacy Hornet.
@@slate4687 exaclty and its ground capability was added from the begining but not used because it was so important for the Fleet to keep it as a fleet defender (fighter interceptor)at the time. there is a difference between requirements and capabilities that most people miss when they coment here
I guess someone didn't watch all the documentaries on it. The Tomcat was designed and air to ground capable from day one. All the systems were already designed into the A model including CCIP and CCRP. The Navy though didn't want to risk its Fleet defender in the role that they had plenty of other platforms for. Desert storm however highlighted a need for long range self-escort precision strikes which Snodgrass worked with Lockheed Martin to make that happen with the LANTIRN TPOD using the budget the Navy was going to use to integrate the AMRAAM in the Tomcat.
The legacy f-18's served from 1983 until 2021 in the US , They replaced the f-14 , f-4 , a-7 aircraft over time . I was in the first f-18 hornet squadron on the east coast VFA-131 Wildcats NAS Cecil Field fla. The Blue Angels took delivery of the first f-18's in 1986 VFA-106 same base .
Many mistakes in the video. One mistake that I think no one pointed out is that the F-4 Phantom is still in active service in Turkey and Greece (maybe in South Korea and Iran as well).
Your channel has the single most amount of mistakes of any channel that does military stuff. I stopped counting at some point. You’d think if this is what you do… you’d get better. I don’t mind a mistake here and there but they’re always riddled with them.
The airframes are old. But they all have been retrofitted and upgraded quite a few times. The technology and high wear items and electronics, radar gets updated as technology advances. Which honestly is not cheap either. Each one taking millions to upgrade. But each jet new cost over 100million per jet. The f35 is 177million last I checked. F22 super hornet is around 140million dollars. So yeah. They use them as long as possible. Its actually quite interesting tho. When you look into aviation or personal aircraft that civilians fly or private pilots. A lot of cessna airplanes are close to 50-60yrs old. So it seems aircraft are used for a much longer time. These aircraft are not cheap either. A good one on good shape is approx 30,000 or so. Depending on how well it was maintained. The engines have most likely seen an overhaul or two and maybe multiple engines. But the aluminum airframes last a long time. It's quite interesting tbh!
Good video but you made a glaring mistake in your graphics: what you presented as the F-106 Delta Dart was an image of the earlier F-102 Delta Dagger. Note the 102's pointed tail and fairings alongside the exhaust.
At 07:53, I think you meant 1620 MPH as top speed for the F-16, not 2620 MPH. Although the conversion for 2454 KPH is approximately 1524 MPH, that also seems a little high for this plane.
F-111 is not pronounced F triple 111. It is pronounced F-One-Eleven. Also even though the F111 had the F for fighter designation, it was a close to the ground hugging bomber or electronic warfare role in the EF-111. Not a traditional fighter.
The German jet fighters of WWII were never a threat to take over the air war, too few, too late and not enough quality pilots left to fly them effectively, yes they were a rude awaking to the Allied pilots, but never a real threat.
F15 still had the highest speed and highest range. I suggest watching documentary “how panic created the best fighter jet” about F15. Incredible and not so many people know about this but it’s amazing .
@@MrDino1953 It's the official name of the plane. It's like pronouncing "F-16" as "F One Six". Everyone in the governments, armed forces, military historians and aircraft industries around the world call it the "F One Eleven".
I can't help but notice you missed the F-102 Delta Dagger, the predecessor of the F-106 Delta Dart. The Delta Dagger flew for a long time with the Air National Guard.
Wow never heard of any F-16 that could fly Mach 3😂 And what happened to the legacy hornet that is always forgotten and the f-8 crusader one more thing the F-35 has short takeoff capabilities not full vertical takeoff
Ah yes, Fighter jets, the peak of men made machines badassery 😈👊🏻🔝😎 My personal most favorite ever, although is not American, it’s the mighty Eurofighter Typhoon 😎☝🏻
The F111 was capable of a lot of things, but it wasn't a fighter, despite McNamara 's idiotic fixation, and the Navy (wisely) refused the B version, choosing to develop the F14.
@@SUNNYSTARSCOUT365 Yeah, it was ground attack and electronic warfare (in the guise of the EF-111 Raven aka The Sparkvark). One of the Ravens even managed to get a maneuvering kill on an Iraqi Mirage F-1 during Desert Storm, though credit went to an F-15 pilot flying CAP high above. The Air Force's explanation was that even though the Raven was outflying the Mirage on the deck, the F-15 at 15,000 feet got radar lock on the F-1 and that spooked the pilot into flying into the terrain.
I concur; the F-111 became a very capable strike aircraft. I believe that the USAF would use them in operational (versus tactical) level strike missions. The FB-111 variant served as a SAC strategic bomber.
All in all not a bad presentation. Just a small nit-picky point though regarding the F-111: it is an F One Eleven not an F Triple One If you are not that interested in aviation however, and simply a narrator making a recording according to a script it is an easy mistake to make. Whomever put this presentation together did a great job
Um...shouldn't the F-117 Nighthawk be on this list someplace? Granted that it wasn't designed as an interceptor or dogfighter, but it DID introduce the design concept and performance parameter of stealth into future generations of fighters.
Don't know about evolution but there seems to be a lot missing here due to the lack of earlier Naval aircraft. Some may say, there's a couple of examples here that could be considered a retrograde step?
Yeah, as mentioned elsewhere, the posted F-16 max speed is very incorrect. It is NOT 2,620 mph [Mach 3.5], ffs! It's max speed is about 1353 mph [mach 2.1]...
@@b1646717 it was designed as a fighter initially for the TFX program, hence the F designation. It got relegated to the tactical bomber role because neither the Air Force nor the Navy liked it for the fighter/interceptor role. Still won a dogfight against a Mirage F1 though!
The information is not accurate about the F-16 and F-111. The F-111 was not a good fighter but rather the USAF turned it into a great attack and electronic jamming aircraft while the Navy ditched it for the F-14. The F-16 was not introduced because the USAF needed a "light fighter" rather the USAF wanted a throw away aircraft for their Hi/Low strategy where the F-15 was more specialized in air to air and the F-16 was more specialized in air to ground but also cheaper to produce and maintain. The fact that General Dynamics was able to make the F-16 so agile was a plus not a necessity. The F-18 lost the light fighter competition to the F-16 but due to ignorant and an old mentality the Navy picked up due to its need to consolidate airframes and it had two engines something the USAF knew was nonsensical by the 1970s as prior decades jet engines had much higher failure rates. This is why the Navy finally listen to the USAF about the F-35 as it produced tons of data on single engine aircraft like the F-16 and European Aircraft.
There are so many technical errors, over simplifications and gross generalizations that this video has no credibility. It fits in nicely in the class of You Tube videos that someone who knows nothing about the subject reads a few Wiki articles and creates content. I really suggest some military area experts editors review before you put out this sort of embarrassment.
MISTAKE #1 - @4:00, you listed the F-104 having a top speed of 1,528mph, but then immediately said it could "go 1,400mph." Who's typing your scripts, & better yet, DOING YOUR RESEARCH?!? Can you go just 1 video w/out a clear & obvious mistake?!? It's ridiculous!! 👎👎
Germany did not build the first fighter aircraft :). I think you meant to say the first fighter *jet*. Which would also be wrong, it was the British who built the first fighter jet. The Germans were however the first to deploy one in to combat. The F-111 is not really a Fighter. It's a multirole jet used for bombing, ground attack, recon and electronic warfare. One of my all time favorites, I was sad to see it retired.
Germany in fact built the first Jet fighter aircraft, the Heinkel He 280, that flew for the first time around a year after the first Jet powered aircraft, the He-178 had it's maiden flight in 1939. However the He 280 wouldn't become the first jet fighter in actual service, this credit goes to the Messerschmitt Me262
Stop calling them "fighter aircraft". Propeller driven fighters are still "fighter aircraft". You referred to the ME-262 and P-59 as the first "fighter aircraft" within barely a minute into the video.
