I'm regularly asked what I've got in the works for another book. I've given bit of a fling at fiction and find I can't pile the fantastic on fast enough to make it believable. I used to think I was pretty good at spinning whole cloth out of nuance and shadowy misperceptions until a few months ago my wife told me I'd never gotten away with a thing. Sort of bursts my J. K. Rowling/Stephen King dreams there.
So I guess I'm stuck with memoirs and I'm not sure I've dredged the bottom of the bowl of aeronautical escapades yet. I went rummaging around the old memorabilia from pilot training days and dredged up this from flight school:
Yep, old Flasheart knew how to inspire a class.
8 comments:
Ed, as my Dad always said, "never let the truth interfere with a good story". And you've got good stories.
Ed,
Thanks for the update. I hope something comes out of what might be called "Fighter Chicks". While we disagree ideologicaly I sure do enjoy reading what you write. "Fighter Pilot" was definitely informative and entertaining.
~Leadfoot
"Future History" is a time-honored science fiction genre, Ed - and it need not be about events that are centuries from now.
Imagine instead that it is a mere decade from the present when, on the anniversary of the president's fateful Executive Order to delay the 2012 elections indefinitely, the only remaining squadron of F-22s and a wing of F-15Es turn up missing - along with all of their ground personnel, equipment, and munitions.
A day later, the mystery was solved, as the anti-Marxist revolutionaries released their demands - including videos of aircraft loading operations with GPS-guided B61-11 deep penetrators, (inside an unidentifiable hangar).
The return to the rule of Constitutional law in America was underway.
(Fiction, of course . . .)
Appropos of nothing (perhaps tangentially related to this post of yours), here's my top ten fighter aircraft of all time to date:
10. Fokker Eindecker (it was the first fighter, so it had to be on the list).
9. At the other end of the spectrum, the F-22 (incredible piece of technology, but limited production and no combat record of yet get in the way of a higher ranking).
8. F-86 Saberjet (war-winning fighter over Korea, most heavily produced U.S. jet figher, fairly innovative and widely exported...but short service life keeps if from a higher ranking).
7. Ilyshihn IL-2 Sturmovik (most heavily produced airplane of any type in history, first dedicated anti-armor close support fighter, critical component of victory in the largest war ever fought between two countries).
6. MiG-21 (most heavily produced and widely used supersonic fighter in history, usually on the losing side of every air war it fought with the exception of the Indo-Pak war of '71, but greatly respected by those who fought against it).
5. F/A-18 (first true 4th generation jet fighter right out of the box; despite complaints over high acquisition cost and very limited unrefueled range/endurance, very respectable combat record).
4. P-51 (technically innovative, war-winning fighter in ETO during WW2, long service history for a plane of that generation, used to significant effect unmodified even in Korea; even had limited use in early years in Vietnam...a design that kept on going long after most initial contemporaries were in the scrap heap).
3. F-15 (unequaled combat record among supersonic jets in air-to-air combat, developed into superb multi-role fighter, but high cost to produce/operate and resulting limited number of users keep this from a higher ranking in my book).
2. F-4 (longest run as title holder for most capable all-around fighter aircraft, incredible firepower and versatility, plus large production run, wide use, and long front-line service history all add up to a well-deserved high ranking).
1. F-16 (most widely-used 4th gen fighter jet, a world-beater when it came out and in latest incarnations 30 years later, still competitive today...a modern classic that all others are measured against).
Sorry I didn't include the F-105, Ed.
Comments?
@Robman
I think one glaring omission would be the ME-109. It was the first modern, high performance, all metal monoplane fighter with retractable gear. It was produced in large numbers over a 10 or more year span and was used almost exclusively by the the highest scoring aces of all time.
Hitman,
Interesting point you bring up, but not entirely accurate.
The first all-metal, enclosed cockpit, retractable landing gear fighter was the American P-36 Hawk,which beat the Me-109 into the air by a few months (May versus September 1935 for first flight).
The Hawk wasn't as good as the Me-109, that is true. But it was the first of it's kind.
I developed a five-point matrix for choosing the aircraft on my list. These were:
- Degree of use (numbers built, length of production run, number of export customers, length of time in service).
- Innovativeness. Here I am not only looking at new technology introduced, but also new combinations of existing technology to expand the envelope of what a fighter can do (e.g., my choice of the IL-2), and the degree to which innovation was emulated in later designs (this is why I did not include the Harrier, for instance; it did not catch on).
- Flight performance in relation to contemporaries (contemporaries defined as aircraft that became operational during the same war, or if in peacetime, became operational within five years either side of the aircraft in question). Simply, this is the degree to which in terms of speed, acceleration, turn rate, etc., the plane in question can "outfly" other aircraft.
- Firepower in relation to contemporaries. Here I am looking at obvious things like payload/armament, but also not as obvious things like avionics, fire control, range (fuel is a weapon), survivability, and so on. These are the factors that, taken together, outside of how it "flies" (i.e., behaves as an airplane), add up to the "punch" of the platform as a weapon.
- Combat record. Did the airplane in question play a key role in the favorable outcome of a decisive battle or war by the side that used it? What did the people who flew it have to say about it in that regard? Who flew against it?
Now, the Me-109 scores well on degree of use up to a point - a lot of them were produced. But I don't know that it was very widely used outside of Germany or WW2-era German satellites (I know Spain had them after the war, as did, ironically, Israel). I don't believe that for a WW2-era fighter, it can top either the Il-2(in terms of production) or the P-51 (in terms of number of users, length of time in service) in this regard.
The Me-109 was also innovative, as you point out. Not to the degree you assert, but it was, no doubt.
The flight performance was good but many other aircraft were better. Mediocre on that score.
Firepower was OK - good cannons - but it was not as versatile as many contemporaries (e.g., P-47).
Combat record: It was on the losing side. It lost the Battle of Britain, and it lost everywhere else, except for perhaps the Spanish Civil War.
Certainly, the Me-109 was a very significant aircraft, but I could not justify putting it on my list.
@Robman, Hartmanns' 352 Russian victims might not agree with you on the losing everywhere, lol
Questions for Robman:
1. Can you define 'fourth generation fighter' for me? Despite years of trying to find a logical, sensible differentiator, (and ignoring manufacturer's PR), all I'm able to come up with is a fighter containing a fully-functional weapons control system (including BVR missiles) that is operable by the pilot alone, rather than requiring a second crewman.
Both the F-15 and the F/A-18 fit that criteria well; the F-22 exceeds these demands - but the PR usually calls it the first operational 'fifth generation' fighter.
(While my personal bias demands that a fighter isn't really a fighter until it also has a highly-accurate, fully-functional bombing system built-in. I'm ignoring that, for the purposes of this discussion.)
2. You're kidding by placing the POS F-16 anywhere on your list, right? While it certainly compares favorably with the F-5 - and perhaps the Mig-21 (when the communist block aircraft's radar was down), the only useful thing that the F-16 was ever capable of on its own, was giving the stick-actuators a stiffy.
It took external pods, autonomous BVR missiles, (and LGBs or GPS for BOTH bombs) before the F-16 really became capable of reliably doing anything useful against an enemy; it had been in service almost twenty years by then.
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