I noticed several clips of A-7s mixed in there. While they look similar on the surface, they are very different. A-7 is shorter, slower, no AB, 20mm Vulcan on the left chin and didn't have the tilt wings, just to name a few.
An old Marine Fighter Jock told me "The F-8 was a pure shipborne fighter plane. It flew on it's wing. A good stick could really make one dance in a dogfight. The F-4 was a barn door blasted into the sky by it's engines. But it flew like shit and and you had to be a genius to fight your own airplane, the enemy's airplane - and then live to tell about it."
John Glenn flew one of these early in the program and was told by a young engineer named Chris Kraft there was a problem with the air intake scoop warping at high speeds. Glenn scoffed him off but Kraft was determined to prove he was right and convinced Glenn and Vought his data was correct. He did and gained the young Marine's respect who later flew America's first orbital flight under Kraft's supervision. Glenn also flew the Crusader on a coast to coast record breaking flight with a Kraft modified intake.
@@tomdis8637 i thought so i have only ever known of 4 ground attack unguided rockets used by american aircraft from ww2 through the cold war those being hvar tiny tim mighty mouse and zuni
I make it a habit to learn something every day. The F-8 went out of service as a fighter when I was learning avionics at NAS Memphis. I was surprised to learn of the Mighty Mouse FFAR tray--those were sealed shut in service as redundant. Thanks for helping me achieve my daily learning goal.
The thumbnail image is misleading - I thought this would be about the XF8U-3, but that radically-upgraded variant is never mentioned, despite many colour clips of it in its day-glow paint!
Agreed. I'm certain many narrators miss the paychecks they would have earned. They're not all highly payed actors like Liam Neeson, who, by the way, is a great narrator.
I'm not sure if the Author of this video realized that some of the footage included is of the F-8's little cousin, the Vought "A-7 Corsair". This was the aircraft that I specialized in during my twelve years in the navy, also aboard 3 Carriers.
Seems like you mixed in a bunch of footage of the super crusader. Also, theyre called 'cheek' pylons because they are attached to the 'cheeks' of the aircraft. Same for 'chin' pylons.
"The origins of the Vought F8U Crusader" narration at 1:22 is matched with video of USAF officers. Ah, next we see a USAAF P-39 to illustrate that the F8U had 20mm guns. Seen enough of this!
Captain Dale 'snort' Snodgrass had said his second choice in flight school was the F-8 Crusader if he didn't make the cut for the F-14 Tomcat and anybody who's an aviation geek knows how that turned out.
Some of your F8s…. Aren’t. They are the prototype replacement that lost out to the f104. This would have been soooo much better with a human narration and accurate data….
I think you're referring to the opening shot - and others - of the XF8U-3 Supersader prototype which lost out to the Navy's F-4 Phantom, not the Air Force's F-104 Starfighter. The Navy wanted two seats, two engines and two sets of eyeballs aboard in spite of the fact that John Konrad, Vought's Chief Test Pilot stating that "the XF8U-3 would literally fly circles around the F-4". The F-4 was proof that given enough thrust, a brick building would fly... as an interceptor, which is what it was designed to be. Not a fighter.
Visual range is seriously degraded by the absence of daylight and the presence of bad weather. The 'Winder was good for about five miles, target's rear quarter only.
My Uncle would come visit on occasion in his F8 He would light the afterburner over house then we would drive to Oxnard Air force base and pick him up.
The "Last Gunfighter" only had two gun kills. All of the rest of its kills were sidewinder kills. Just trying to get that out there because while the F-8 had a gun, it didn't use it much.
There was another kill with the guns used to finish off the target after all the Sidewinders had been expended. It was a combination missile/guns kill.
my step dad was the first to recover from a flat spin in this thing; I think 3 or 4 failed before him. Needless to say he had a very long debriefing after that incident.
called "cheek pylons" because they somewhat resembled cheeks, the same way that earrings are called that because they somewhat resemble ears and headlight because they look like heads
Let's REALLY be honest: I didn't get past :07. The F-8 was NOT the last gunfighter: every US fighter today has a gun or gun option. The only fighter that was built without a gun were the initial models of the F-4. Sorry for the facts.
They may all have guns today but they also have only 4 seconds of ammo and only use them as a last resort. Not in the same spirit as this fighter where the 4 cannons were the main armament.
@@paladin0654 Yeah, they are guns. Which I believe in the F15, 16, 18 and also I believe the 14 have never been fired at, let alone shot down another aircraft. Obviously the doctrine is what they meant by "The Last Gun Fighter".
@@blakegoulds8313 My original comment was about the term "last gunfighter", that the F-8 clearly was not. If you want to quibble about fighter guns, find someone else.
The "last gunfighter" reference isn't to a fighter jet having a gun - it's because missiles were becoming the primary armament, and the F-8 was considered the last of the fighters that focused (initially) on guns only.
The first 5 A-12's used the same 29,500 lb class J-75 that powered the F8U-3 Super Crusader until the J-58 was ready, then those 5 were retrofitted with the J-58. All the rest of the A-12's and all the YF-12's and SR-71's used the J-58. ^v^
Nope.....F-8 used most powerfull version of the J57 at 18,000 lbs thrust. More powerful than the often touted "mighty" J79 in the F4. The J75 uprated to it's 29,500 lbs for the Super Crusader/early A-12 was a BEAST of a motor. Now it's common for AB TurboFAN fighter engines to make thus power but a PURE TurboJET to make that was awesome. ALL the mass flow through the motor reached multiple sonic velosities in the exhaust, pushing planes easily to mach 2.8 or higher. J58 in Blackbird was a turbo/ramjet configuration. An AMAZING feat done with sliderules. My dad worked at PWA during this time. Smart guys!!!!!!
What a lazy, BS video. For the first time I'm considering blocking a channel just because it's a waste of time. Why tell us about axial flow jets? ALL jets of this era were axial flow. Why tell us about the 20mm cannon? All fighters of this era had 20mm cannon. Why describe the Sidewinder as useful for engaging targets beyond visual range? NO Sidewinder, even today, can go BVR. Why would cheek pylons allow missiles to be "deployed rapidly in battle?" They're no faster to deploy than belly-mounted or wing-mounted missiles, are they?
While the F8 had a beauty hard to describe, it’s offspring, the super crusader; took on the appearance of a sword fish. Not so attractive as a fighter, but more appealing to fishermen I suppose.
More appealing to pilots as well. Speed is life. The mach 3+ design was still accelerating during high-speed test runs but that was terminated after the plexiglass windscreen began to melt. The maximum speed of the XF8U-3 was never reached.
