F - 101 Voodoo

McDonnell F-101 Voodoo

McDonnell F-101 Voodoo

First Flight:                          1954, September 29

Type:                                    

                                             F-101A:  single-seat tactical fighter-bomber

                                             F-101B:  two-seat interceptor

Power:

                                             Pratt & Whitney J57-P-55 turbojet engines

                                             6749kg / 14,880lb afterburning thrust

Armament:

                F-101A                M39 20mm / 0.79 cannon (3)

                                                             Port side of fuselage (2)

                                                             Starboard side of fuselage (1)

                                              3050kg / 6724lb bombs, including tactical nuclear

                F-101B                 MB-1 Genie nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile (2)

                                              Falcon air-to-air missiles (4)

                                                Or

                                              Falcon air-to-air missiles (6)

Size:

                Length:                 20.54m / 67ft 4.75in

                Height:                 5.49m / 18ft

                Wingspan:           12.09m / 39ft 8in

                Wing Area:          34.19m² / 368ft²

Weights:

                Empty:                  13,141kg / 28,970lb

                Loaded:                19,300kg / 42,550lb

                Max Take-off:       23,768kg / 52,400lb

Performance:

                Max Speed:     1965kph / 1221mph

                Ceiling:             16,705m / 54,800ft

                Range:              2494km / 1550 miles

                       Fuel:          8123 liters / 2,146 US gallons – mostly internal

                Climb:               11,133m / 36,500ft per minute

Production:

                                           805 – most were F-101B two-seat interceptors

Fuel cells above engines along fuselage spine

Flying a dogfighter isn’t like flying a troop transport – it isn’t “steady as she goes”.  You want high-performance maneuverability so you can expect instability inherent to the design.  That may be OK if you’re flying a World War I vintage biplane like the Spad – you’ve got time to react doing a hundred miles an hour at several thousand feet.  If you’re flying a crazy rocket sled at tree-top level at eight hundred miles an hour you have to really know what it is you’re doing at all times or they’re pealing up your goo from all over the landscape.   Even good fighter pilots might take a pass on flying McDonnell’s F-101 Voodoo, especially if you have a wife and kids to come home to.

Two-seat F-101B was interceptor

Now that I’ve implied its virtual suicide to climb into a Voodoo’s cockpit let me pass along a bit of reassuring information.  The F-101 had an outstanding safety record with the lowest-accidents-per-hours-flown ratio of any combat aircraft of its time.  How does an unforgiving combat jet with quirky flight characteristics have anything to do with safety?  The Voodoo killed a number of test pilots because it was their job to discover the nature of the aircraft.  In the 1950s the Air Forces of both super powers were aggressive in pushing the jet performance envelope.  Design engineers were rushed into unknown territory.  Pilot safety was not first and foremost in this equation.  For instance, the high tailplane of the Voodoo gave it some extravagant performance characteristics but it was also the reason for a number of unpleasant surprises.  Pilots learned from the unfortunate early errors of others and, for the most part, stayed focused to avoid becoming a statistic draped in black.

F-101 had impressive range even without drop tanks

The entire saga begins with the XF-88 being flown in 1948 as a prototype interceptor.  Given the nature of jets during this period it should come as no surprise that its speed was disappointing.  The project looks to be scrapped and engineers are updating their resumes.  Along comes the Korean War in 1950.  The B-29 Superfortress is satisfactorily terrorizing the populace of North Korea with its bombing missions when, all of a sudden from out of the blue, in roars a jet named the MiG 15.  Our bombers begin to drop like smoked sausages.  The US Air Force’s Strategic Air Command starts to believe they need an escort fighter to protect its huge B-36 Peacemaker in a possible bombing run on the Soviet Union or China.  Looking around they recognize the long range potential of the XF-88 and, from this need, the F-101 Voodoo is born.  Sometime during 1954 SAC changes its mind about the Voodoo.  Maybe the new jet B-47s and B-52s are fast enough to take care of themselves.  Maybe the F-101 doesn’t have what it takes to protect these bombers all the way to their target, anyway.

F-101B capable of firing nuclear-tipped Genie missile

The F-101 is not dead.  The Air Force’s Tactical Air Command thinks this aircraft is just what they need in Europe to deliver tactical nuclear bombs on targets behind the Iron Curtain.  The F-101 meets its criteria.  It’s got the speed needed for survivability and it can come in low to the ground.  It’s got the payload ability to handle with ease iron bombs or tactical free-falling nukes.  It’s big enough to hold two thousand US gallons of fuel internally – making it perfect as a long range fighter-bomber.  Here’s the way it works:  the Voodoo begins its bombing run low, then the pilot initiates a loop, releasing the nuke about half way through so that it’s lobed at about a 45^o angle.  The jet finishes its loop, rolls and drops, racing off at full speed so as not to be enveloped in the detonation.  It’s not a piece of cake.

RF-101A used in reconnaissance role over Vietnam

There was still another scenario for the versatile F-101 Voodoo.  NORAD, or more specifically the Air Force’s Air Defense Command needed an interceptor to meet the threat of Soviet bombers approaching American cities from over the Polar icecap.  Both the proposed F-102 and F-106 were behind in meeting this need because of a series of frustrating delays in their development.  The Air Force needed an insurance policy and the F-101B was chosen to be it.  This two-seater, missile-bearing interceptor was very effective but also extremely complicated to maintain – a real nightmare for mechanics.  Once the delta jets, the F-102 and F-106, came online these aircraft were handed to the Canadians to use, where they did their job despite being stationed in the adverse weather of the Arctic Circle.

Air-brakes deployed above engines on this CF-101B

The Voodoo isn’t remembered for its combat performance but it did play a key role as America’s first supersonic reconnaissance aircraft.  It was critical in providing the White House information on the nature of missile installation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Its greatest role, though, was the contribution it made during the Vietnam War.  Voodoos routinely flew hazardous daylight reconnaissance missions over Hanoi at speeds of Mach 1.8.  Anything slower and you’re likely to be the victim of a Vietnamese MiG 21 – whose own afterburners could light up to attain speeds of over 1,300 miles per hour; and you've only got a camera to defend yourself.  The Voodoos speed saved a lot of pilots but you’re not exactly the Road Runner dodging Wiley Coyote.  There were 40 Voodoos shot down over the North, mainly because of SAM strikes and anti-aircraft fire.

F101:  extraordinary performance but also tricky

The Voodoo served the Air Force for thirty years in one of any number of capacities.  Its startling performance was at a cost of tricky handling.  You have to be among the best to fly the F-101 and you are always diligent about monitoring your jet’s behavior because it never flies itself and it doesn’t forgive a moment’s inattention… kind of like Valentine’s with your girlfriend.

F-101Bs intercept B-52G

Related Topics:

F-94 Starfire

F-100 Super Sabre

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F - 100

North American F-100 Super Sabre

North American F-100 Super Sabre

First Flight:                       1953, May 25 (prototype)

Type:                                 single-seat fighter-bomber

Power:

                                          Pratt & Whitney J57-P21 turbojet

                                          7718kg / 17,000lb afterburning thrust

Armament:

                                          20mm Pontiac M39E cannon (4)

                                                          200 rounds per gun

                                          3402kg / 7,500lb external armaments:

                                                          Bombs – Mk80 series, M117 bombs

                                                          Rocket pods and various missiles

                                                          AIM-9 Sidewinder AAM (2)

                                                          AGM-12C Bullpup B tactical air-to-surface missile

Size:

                Length:                 15.09m / 49ft 6in

                Height:                  4.95m / 16ft 3in

                Wing:

                                Wingspan:          11.81m / 38ft 9in

                                Wing Sweep:     45^o

                                Wing Area:          35.77m² / 385ft²

Weights:

                Empty:                  9534kg / 21,000lb

                Combat:               13,633kg / 30,061lb

                Max Take-off:      15,813kg / 34,832lb

Fuel:

                Internal:                4500kg / 9512lb

                External:              4050kg / 8560lb – 2 drop tanks of various sizes

Performance:

                Max Speed:        1390kph / 864mph

                Ceiling:              13,725m / 45,000ft

                Range:                3210km / 1995 miles with external drop tanks

                                            2415km / 1,500 combat range

                Climb:                4877m / 16,000ft per minute

                                          10,670m / 35,000ft @ combat weight = 3 min 30 sec

Larger fin on left added needed stability

How convenient it would have been for everyone if engineers could move a few things around on the proven F-86 Sabre and come up with the Air Force’s first truly supersonic fighter.  They certainly tried.  The problem was they could never overcome the liability of the Sabre’s 30^o swept wing.  The F-86 just wasn’t going to make the grade so North American, makers of the F-86 and the legendary P-51 Mustang, was just going to have to clear off its drawing boards and start over from scratch.  They came up with a jet that was all new.  For starts, it had a 45^o sweep to its wing.  The pilot who first took the plane out bet someone two beers that it would break the sound barrier on its initial flight.  He won his bet. 

CH-53, like one here, retrieved down jets in Vietnam

The F-100 was fast – certainly meeting the Air Force’s requirements of a fighter that would go supersonic while sustaining level flight.  The Soviet counterpart to this new Super Sabre would actually go faster but it had a different design philosophy.  Russian engineers were willing to sacrifice range for speed and maneuverability and they got what they wanted in this third generation, light-weight MiG jet.  The F-100 earned its respect, as it turns out, as a rugged ground attack aircraft.  It literally did some serious heavy lifting with more than a couple tons of ordinance hanging from its wings. 

F-100D in ground attack mission over Vietnam

The ultimate expression of this fighter-bomber was the F-100D and it slung a lot of mud striking targets in the jungles of Vietnam.  People will always talk about the treacherous missions that Phantom and Thud pilots took in Operation Rolling Thunder north of the DMZ.  Rightly so – these pilots took great risks and a lot of these guys didn’t return home, not for quite a while… some never.  Yet, what do we know of the F-100’s role in that war?  Fact is the F-100 flew more combat missions in Vietnam than any other aircraft.  In the space of five years – 1964 to 1969 – the four wings of Super Sabres stationed in Vietnam flew more sorties that 50,000 P-51 Mustangs did in all of World War II.  That’s 360,000 sorties if you’re keeping count.  It cost the Air Force 186 planes, mostly due to ground fire south of the DMZ.  The Super Sabre just didn’t have the needed range like the newer F-4s and F-105s.

Super Sabre drops Snake-eye Retarded Bomb

Most pilots liked flying the F-100.  It was robust, handling was decent and its systems were generally reliable.  It did have its faults, as you would expect.  The first generation of these aircraft, the F-100A, had a nasty tendency to break up in mid-air.  The aircraft was grounded in 1954.  It turns out that pulling out of a hard dive created stability problems that wrenched apart the airframe.  The problem was solved by giving the jet a larger fin and longer wings.  One problem that was never adequately addressed was the tricky nature of landing the plane.  The pilot had to keep his focus or risk stalling his jet or have it roll at a very inopportune time.  You had to come in fast and rely on your drag chute to keep from running off the runway.  It’s been described as a controlled crash.  Sounds like a carrier landing, doesn’t it.  Think about this: there were 1274 F-100Ds produced and over 500 of them were lost to accidents.  You just can’t sugarcoat a fact such as this.  No one tries to – they just don’t talk about it.  Maybe a lot has to do with the difficulty in keeping them maintained.  It’s the Cold War.  Everyone takes risks.  Stuff happens.

Jet tankers soon replaced slow props show here

These F-100s have their dive brakes deployed

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MiG 19

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MiG 19

MiG 19 - NATO code name:  Farmer

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG – 19

First flight:                   1953, September 18

Type:                           single-seat day twin-engine fighter-bomber

Power:                        

                                    Tumansky RD-9B turbojets (2)

                                    2549kg / 5730lb thrust

                                    3300kg / 7275lb afterburning

Armament:

                                    30mm / 1.18in cannon NR-30 (3)

                                                Wing root – 2

                                                Nose - 1

                                    500kg / 1102lb weapons under the wings

Size:

            Length:            12.6m / 41ft 4in

            Height:              3.88m / 12ft 8.75in

Wing:

Wingspan:       9.2m / 30ft 2.25in

Wing Area:      25m² / 269.11ft²

Aspect Ratio:   3.24

Wing Sweep:   55^o

Tailplane:         5m / 16ft 4.75in

Weights:

            Empty:             5760kg / 12,699lb

            Normal:            7545kg / 16,634lb

            Max take-off:   9100kg / 20,062lb

Fuel:

            Internal:            1687kg / 3719lb

            External:          1140kg / 1608lb with 2 drop tanks

Performance:

            Max speed:     1450kph / 901mph

            Cruise speed:  950kph / 590mph

            Ceiling:            17,900m / 58,725ft

            Range:             2200km / 1367 miles with drop tanks

            Climb:              6900m / 22,640ft per minute

MiG 19: split air intake; wing fence for streamlining

When you have several powerful nations crunched up in the small space that is Europe bad things are bound to happen.  It’s been that way for hundreds of years.  Joe Stalin knew something about the dynamics of power between nations.  Stalin was a realist.  There are no friendships among the community of nations.  There are only shared interests and conflicts of interests.  Diplomacy is the preferred means of settling issues of dispute but history has proved the value of a powerful military no matter the approach leaders choose to make.  When another nation wants something you consider to be yours appeals to morality are a poor second to the threat of a strong military presence and the will to use devastating force. 

Armed with 3 30mm cannon; armament on wings

The United States and the Soviet Union had a brief alliance because they shared the need to destroy Nazi Germany.  Once that issue was settled the suppressed conflicts of interest between the two nations quickly re-emerged and the gloves came off.  Both nations soon found themselves in a race to develop weapons of technical superiority over the other.  At the very least neither nation wanted to concede a military advantage to the other, if at all possible.  This was dramatically demonstrated in the rapid deployment new combat aircraft during the early years of the Cold War.

Air-to-Air missiles mounted under wings

Development of the Soviet MiG-19 reflected the urgency that also motivated America’s bringing to operational status jets such as the F-80 Shooting Star and the F7U Cutlass.  Early models were prone to accident because the engineering had not been thoroughly worked out.  You took a big risk piloting a jet on the bleeding edge of technology.  It’s a good reason why patriots of both countries honored these anonymous men in uniform.

F-6 with brakechute:  Chinese version of MiG 19

The first MiG-19s put into service had to be withdrawn because of a series of crashes due to stability problems.  The MiG-19 may have taken on the role of a fighter-bomber but it was clearly meant to be an interceptor.  It was a screaming dart of a jet with two engines equipped with afterburners, an astounding swept-wing of 55 degrees and performance that could best most any contemporary jet in a dogfight.  Is it any wonder this aircraft would quickly dive itself into the ground on the slimmest pretext of pilot error?  It’s clear the tailplane absolutely had to become a single movable piece but other adjustments probably had to do with allowing mere mortals to fly the aircraft without killing themselves.  They could have benefited from the kind of on-board computers we have today that keep inherently unstable jets, like the B-2 bomber, airborne.  

Arab nations among foreign buyers of MiG 19, F-6

The MiG-19 was a killing beast.  Imagine what three 30mm cannon would do to your airframe if you got lit up in the MiG’s crosshairs?  Sure, the cannon range might have been longer and their rate of fire wasn’t blistering but how many rounds this size does it take to shred your means of staying airborne?  May, 1972 over North Vietnam:  7 American F-4 Phantoms are shot down by the Chinese version of the MiG-19.  Of course the American Phantoms knocked 10 of these MiGs out of the sky but the MiG-19 was designed in the 1950s.  It’s obsolete.  What gives?  Here’s something to think about.  The Israeli’s claimed to have shot down several MiG-19s without a single loss of their own during the Six Day War in 1967.  Here’s the difference in results between 1967 and five years later over Vietnam.  Israeli pilots were trained to dogfight.  American pilots were taught to fly jets.  The Phantoms that first appeared over the skies of Hanoi had no guns.  It was all about the technology.  Simply lock your radar on an enemy bogie and fire your missile.  Wrong – we weren't quite in the push-button age of The Jetsons, yet.  Guns still mattered and so did the skill of the pilot in the cockpit.  That was just one of the many painful lessons leaders in the U.S. hopefully learned from their experience in Vietnam.

A-10 exhibits ground support design unlike MiG 19

Let’s sum it up.  The engineers at Mikoyan-Gurevich came up with a damn good fighter – fast, reliable and effective.  It out-performed the F-100 Super Sabre, its American equivalent.  It lacked combat radius so let’s not think of it as a true fighter-bomber.  You need to get somewhere and you also need fuel enough to have time over the target if you’re serious about a ground support mission.  Supersonic speed is of no use if all you want to do is land a bomb accurately on someone’s head.  You want ground-support?  Is there any plane better at what it does than the American A-10 Warthog?  The problem is the Air Force is always looking for reasons to ground this plane forever.  Backing up grunts on the ground isn't sexy enough for the strategically minded big brass.  If you’re serious about wowing the ladies don’t drop a turd in the punchbowl and don’t tell them you fly a Warthog.

F-100 was no match for MiG 19 in dogfight performance

MiG 19 reveals twin-engine configuration

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F-89 Scorpion

F-89 Scorpion

F-89 Scorpion

First Flight:                 1948, August 16

Type:                           Two-seat all-weather interceptor fighter

Crew:                                   

Pilot

                                    Radar Operator

Power:                                                

Allison J-35-A-35 turbojet engines (2)

3266kg / 7200lb afterburning thrust

Armament:

                                    Mighty Mouse 70mm / 2.75in unguided rockets (104) in wingtip pods

                                    Falcon missiles (3) and rockets (27) – alternative

Size:

                Wingspan:           18.18m / 59ft 8in

                Wing area:          52.21m² / 562ft²

                Length:                 16.41m / 53ft 10in

                Height:                 5.36m / 17ft 7in

Weight:

                Empty:                  11,428kg / 25,194lb

                Max take-off:        19,160kg / 42,241lb

Performance:

                Max Speed:        1024kph / 636mph

                Ceiling:                 14,995m / 49,200ft

                Range:                  4184km / 2600 miles

                Climb:                   1600m / 5250ft per minute

Two Man Crew

During the Cold War of the early 1950s the United States developed jet interceptors designed to counter a perceived bomber threat from the Soviet Union.  Possibly the best of these fighters was the F-89 Scorpion because of its rugged performance and its sophisticated weapons control system that utilized one of the best airborne radar systems of its time in conjunction with a computerized fire-control system that could launch its rocket payload automatically once the target was within range. 

Snowy Flight Line

The Scorpion was designed to replace the P-61 Black Widow, a World War II propeller-driven night fighter.  The mission-goal of these Cold War fighters was to intercept nuclear-armed Soviet bombers as far from American cities as possible.  This required exceptional speed and the thrust of the Scorpion’s two Allison turbojet engines gave it nearly twice the speed of the vintage Black Widow.  Propeller planes just don’t make it in the nuclear age of jets.  The P-61 would have been no match for the jet-powered Soviet M-4 Bison or the Tupolev Tu-16 Badger.  Two other American jets of the time, the F-86 Sabre and the F-94 Starfire, were also employed as interceptors but they lacked the range of the Scorpion and the F-89 exceeded their abilities as a weapons platform.

Early version armed with machine guns

Source:     Jet Pilot Overseas

Nearly 700 F-89D’s were built and most of them served with Air Force squadrons stationed near the Arctic Circle in an arc stretching from Iceland to Alaska.  The harsh polar weather challenged both the planes and the men that flew them.  Although these jets were called all-weather interceptors the fact was they were often grounded by the most severe weather conditions.  After all, we’re talking about an aircraft being developed shortly after World War II and the avionics for blind flying wasn’t all that sophisticated.  It’s remarkable enough that the Scorpion had a computerized fire-control system, rudimentary as it was by today’s standards. 

Nuclear-tipped Genie missiles

Source:     319th

Armament on the F-89 began with six .50 caliber machine guns mounted in the nose.  This approach was quickly recognized as inadequate for the mission and the guns were soon replaced by radar in the nose and a flurry of 104 70-mm rockets that would be launched from very large pods mounted on the plane’s wingtips.  This resulted in an aircraft heavily weighted down by weapons and the fuel needed for it to range almost 1,400 miles from its base.  Performance was sluggish.  Its rate of climb was agonizingly slow and, were it to fall behind its intended target, it would take too long to close the distance needed to come within firing range.  The aircraft’s weight problem was evidenced by its overly-large main wheels of its landing gear.  In fact, the plane was sometimes referred to as the Stanley Steamer because the monster wheels seemed so unlikely for a jet.

70 mm rockets in wing pods

Later versions of the F-89 attempted to solve its performance problems by substituting fuel for rockets in its wing pods and relying on a single nuclear-tipped missile, call the Genie, to knock a formation of enemy bombers from the sky.  The resulting 1.5 kiloton blast would not only immediately destroy or disable most of the bombers but it was problematic for the survival of the Scorpion and its crew, as well. 

Falcon missiles attached to outer pods

By 1959 the supersonic F-102 Delta Dagger was replacing the aging F-89 Scorpion as America’s frontline interceptor.  The F-102 would, in turn, be replaced with the F-106 Delta Dart.  By now, though, the primary strategic threat to North America was the rapid deployment of nuclear-tipped ICBMs – the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile – for which there was no defense.  War between the globe’s two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, was averted by the concept of MAD – Mass Assured Destruction; the annihilation of one nation would result in the complete destruction of the other.  So was the governing logic that prevented the Cold War from becoming unacceptably hot.

Crew of F-89H

Source:     Jet Pilot Overseas

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