Grumman XF11F-2 Super Tiger

We know that in 1959, three years after the Sparrow II was canned, the single-seat Crusader III lost to the Phantom because (among other reasons) its lone pilot would have been overwhelmed with a) piloting the aircraft and b) handling SARH Sparrow III without a RIO in the back.
Not necessarily. The Crusader III was equipped with a very sophisticated autopilot and avionics suite for the era. In its intended mission as a fleet defense interceptor, pilot workload would have been relatively low. Once airborne, the autopilot could maintain heading and altitude, and could even be adjusted without having to disengage it. The way it was envisioned to work was, once airborne and under the direction of the E-1 or E-2, the pilot would engage the autopilot and devote himself to operating the radar and weapons systems.

For the avionics, once a target was selected on the radar, the computer would slave the radar to that target and keep it locked as long as it was within 60 degrees of the aircraft centerline. Now, this was the procedure that was to be used for defending against Soviet bombers, and in that scenario, pilot workload is manageable. The workload problem won't rear its ugly head until you're trying to use a Sparrow in a dogfight. At that point, yeah, the RIO becomes invaluable.
 
According to George Spangenberg there was a conference on all-weather fighters at Patuxent where a group of Navy pilots came down firmly in favour of two seats which helped feed a general conviction two seats were needed. With the avionics available and mission requirements, two radar sweeps could be the difference between success and failure so it made sense to have someone with eyes glued to the screen.

The F8U-3 test pilots might have had other opinions.
Based on my reading of contemporaneous documents, Paul has it right. With respect to “avionics available”, the radar of the time required a lot of adjusting for maximum performance (or even an adequate one), like a black and white TV with a rabbit-ear antenna receiving a weak broadcast signal. And that was without active jamming by the incoming bomber, which increased the degree of difficulty. Since the Fleet Air Defense mission that the F4H/F8U-3 were competing for was to keep the carrier from being sunk by cruise missiles, the imperative was to shoot down the bomber carrying them, not engage in manly air-to-air combat with another fighter pilot.
 
Also note that Vought went to great lengths to demonstrate that the combination of a single pilot and autopilot was adequate to the task. They even created and took to Washington a fixed-base simulator that provided a hands-on demonstration of it, not to mention timeline analyses that proved the guy-in-back was dead weight for 95% (or something like that) of the mission and putting him in the airplane (and two engines) increased its procurement and operational cost. Nevertheless, reducing the risk of losing a carrier was decisive.
 
This picture is from #33 by fightingirish-san.
Unbelievable ventral fin design.
Something will happen when ventral fin rotation.
 

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If you look at the contemporary documents, they emphasize the fuel problem. Grumman kept looking for places to cram in more fuel. I remember that some of it ended up in the cheeks of the air intakes. I suspect that it is not only fuel fraction that counts. Remember that the F/A-18 was derided as the 'lawn dart' with grossly inadequate range, but the F-4 was considered good enough; that has to be more than just fuel fraction (and yes, I know that Phantoms generally needed drop tanks).

On the earlier comments about rear-seaters, Sparrow III is automatic: you lock on the radar and it tracks the target. You may have to monitor the lock-on, but that is not why they wanted a RIO. The RIO had to figure out what was happening based on the radar in search mode. It was believed that he woudl pick up a target much more quickly than a pilot with other things to do.

Sparrow II and III were parallel programs. There was also a proposal, early on, for an IR-guided Sparrow, but it never got far enough to be designated (say) Sparrow IV. The important difference between II and III, tactically, was that II would have been a fire-and-forget weapon. In theory an airplane using it could engage more targets. That might be important in a strategic interceptor like the Arrow. It should also have mattered in fleet air defense, but apparently the expectation was that the Sparrow would get to the target quickly enough to allow the fighter to engage another target right afterwards. It may be that a carrier could concentrate multiple fighters against incomers, but strategic interceptors like the Arrow tended to operate more singly. A lot would also depend on how many bombers were expected, as per whatever initial program documents (which I haven't seen, for the Arrow) would say.
 
No an ARH AAM with lock-on being at best 5-10nm is a close range weapon.
And 5-10nm is what was just possible with a 8" diameter seeker in X-band at the time using a small battery powered transmitter.
What is in it's favour is it's 'all aspect capability. At any angle.
Where this counts is head on, the easiest engagement to 'calculate' by fighter control, but the hardest to actually pull off due to the rapid closing rate.
However the potentially fully automatic capability has merit and could overcome that problem.
 
If you look at the contemporary documents, they emphasize the fuel problem. Grumman kept looking for places to cram in more fuel. I remember that some of it ended up in the cheeks of the air intakes. I suspect that it is not only fuel fraction that counts. Remember that the F/A-18 was derided as the 'lawn dart' with grossly inadequate range, but the F-4 was considered good enough; that has to be more than just fuel fraction (and yes, I know that Phantoms generally needed drop tanks).
A peculiar example is Dassault faced with providing a decent range to a Mirage IVA powered by quite voracious Atar 9s.
He ended cramming 500 L of kerosene... inside the vertical tail ! I think the 4000 brought back the idea later.
 
We know that in 1959, three years after the Sparrow II was canned, the single-seat Crusader III lost to the Phantom because (among other reasons) its lone pilot would have been overwhelmed with a) piloting the aircraft and b) handling SARH Sparrow III without a RIO in the back.
Not necessarily. The Crusader III was equipped with a very sophisticated autopilot and avionics suite for the era. In its intended mission as a fleet defense interceptor, pilot workload would have been relatively low. Once airborne, the autopilot could maintain heading and altitude, and could even be adjusted without having to disengage it. The way it was envisioned to work was, once airborne and under the direction of the E-1 or E-2, the pilot would engage the autopilot and devote himself to operating the radar and weapons systems.

For the avionics, once a target was selected on the radar, the computer would slave the radar to that target and keep it locked as long as it was within 60 degrees of the aircraft centerline. Now, this was the procedure that was to be used for defending against Soviet bombers, and in that scenario, pilot workload is manageable. The workload problem won't rear its ugly head until you're trying to use a Sparrow in a dogfight. At that point, yeah, the RIO becomes invaluable.

This is basically how the Foxbat worked, among others in the Soviet doctrine
 
I think reports above of “low workload” are perhaps over optimistic in this context and are likely to be reliant on scenarios of unrealistically co-operative targets.
I.e. a “dogfight” could easy end up being most scenarios where the opponent isn’t large, completely unaware and flying nice straight and level.

It should also be noted that Soviet doctrine in this area similarly didn’t age well and has (perhaps somewhat unfairly) become seen as rather backward and discredited.
As in all things context and nuance are important.
 
Hey fellas,

Could someone tell me if my generalisation of the Super Tigers is correct and perhaps help me get at some apparent discrepancies?

F11F-1F is just a re-engined F11F-1 with the J79 from what I can interpret, of which two were actually made.

G98J is the general baseline Super Tiger with the J79 engine, cannon armament, the 250sqft wing and 6650lb (~990 gallons) internal fuel. Was this just the internal Grumman designation for the F11F-1F?

G98J-2 looks to be the all-weather interceptor with Sparrows and AN/APQ-50 but sans-RIO.

G98J-5 seems like the above but gives two fuel values for with and without cannon armament; 6648lb (~990gal) and 7836lb (1170gal) respectively. I'm not actually sure how this differs from the J-2.

G98J-7 is a two-seater all-weather version which is a bit longer with 7310lb (1090 gallons) internal fuel (and no cannons) I assume the second seat eats into the fuel compared to the J-5

G98L is a single seat fighter with the larger 350sqft wing, I don't know much else about it

XF12F seems to be the G98L (it has the larger wing) but the characteristics sheet lists no cannon armament and 6391 (954 gallons) of internal fuel.

What I'm confused about (which could just be because I'm not that knowledgeable about planes) is that the given takeoff weights and ranges seem to be wildly different for what are ostensibly similar aircraft.

J-5 is given a takeoff weight of 23.245lb (similar to the gross weight of the J-7) and a ferry range of 1100nm on internal fuel (1170gal) but the XF12F is given a takeoff weight of 20,672lb and a combat (I assume it means ferry) range of 1,470nm on internal fuel. (954gal) Why is there such a weight difference? Is the radar set that much heavier? Also is the XF12F supposed to have cannons? The fuel load puts it in line with the cannon-armed proposals but the sheet does not list it in armament.

Sorry if it's a lot of questions I'm just left very confused trying to make sense of this. Perhaps when the books arrive it will all be made clear.
 
Hey fellas,

Could someone tell me if my generalisation of the Super Tigers is correct and perhaps help me get at some apparent discrepancies?

F11F-1F is just a re-engined F11F-1 with the J79 from what I can interpret, of which two were actually made.

G98J is the general baseline Super Tiger with the J79 engine, cannon armament, the 250sqft wing and 6650lb (~990 gallons) internal fuel. Was this just the internal Grumman designation for the F11F-1F?

G98J-2 looks to be the all-weather interceptor with Sparrows and AN/APQ-50 but sans-RIO.

G98J-5 seems like the above but gives two fuel values for with and without cannon armament; 6648lb (~990gal) and 7836lb (1170gal) respectively. I'm not actually sure how this differs from the J-2.

G98J-7 is a two-seater all-weather version which is a bit longer with 7310lb (1090 gallons) internal fuel (and no cannons) I assume the second seat eats into the fuel compared to the J-5

G98L is a single seat fighter with the larger 350sqft wing, I don't know much else about it

XF12F seems to be the G98L (it has the larger wing) but the characteristics sheet lists no cannon armament and 6391 (954 gallons) of internal fuel.

What I'm confused about (which could just be because I'm not that knowledgeable about planes) is that the given takeoff weights and ranges seem to be wildly different for what are ostensibly similar aircraft.

J-5 is given a takeoff weight of 23.245lb (similar to the gross weight of the J-7) and a ferry range of 1100nm on internal fuel (1170gal) but the XF12F is given a takeoff weight of 20,672lb and a combat (I assume it means ferry) range of 1,470nm on internal fuel. (954gal) Why is there such a weight difference? Is the radar set that much heavier? Also is the XF12F supposed to have cannons? The fuel load puts it in line with the cannon-armed proposals but the sheet does not list it in armament.

Sorry if it's a lot of questions I'm just left very confused trying to make sense of this. Perhaps when the books arrive it will all be made clear.
You are not the only one confused.. we all are to varying degrees. Nearest I can figure and from things I have picked up over the years (which may or may not be factual), some of the weight differences is because some of them had reinforced airframes to increase the G load limit from 6.5 to 7.5. Yeah the G-98J is the internal company designation, and the 98-L is supposed to have a pair of 30mm cannon as do some others.
 

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Also worth noting is the implied difference in wing shape and sizes in the above figures. Sure some of it could be an engineer or draftsman rounding figures but if you divide the wing area by the wing span to get the average "width" of the wing they aren't the same number. If you multiply the number derived from the F-11 listing at 300 sq.ft. by the wingspan of the F-12 you get about bang on 350 and probably dead bang on if you convert to inches... which I was to lazy to do after getting 348 being a slacker. Doing the same with the 98-L gets you IIRC 322 or so.

IF, and it is an IF.. the wings are slightly different sized and shaped some of the weight difference will be in metal.
 
Also worth noting is the implied difference in wing shape and sizes in the above figures. Sure some of it could be an engineer or draftsman rounding figures but if you divide the wing area by the wing span to get the average "width" of the wing they aren't the same number. If you multiply the number derived from the F-11 listing at 300 sq.ft. by the wingspan of the F-12 you get about bang on 350 and probably dead bang on if you convert to inches... which I was to lazy to do after getting 348 being a slacker. Doing the same with the 98-L gets you IIRC 322 or so.

IF, and it is an IF.. the wings are slightly different sized and shaped some of the weight difference will be in metal.

It's intuitive that the weight difference would be in metal yeah though I find it curious that the larger winged craft wind up being the lighter of the ones with weights given. XF12F is for example listed as lighter than the F11F-1F while carrying like 3 sidewinders (though they're closer to each other than either is to the 98L's given numbers) Part of this is invariably going to be a result of just how weights are calculated or some other such bureaucratic tomfoolery, though a rogue 2500lb between the lightest (XF12F) and heaviest (G98J-5) is still worrying.

I suspect the J-5 numbers are without the guns and with the larger fuel number, which is at least 500lb of weight (1000lb fuel -500lb guns+ammo) plus the ~600lb radar set (estimate taken from another thread) gives about 1100lb, which subtracted from the 23,245lb given weight for the J-5 gives 22,100, which is like within a stone's throw of the 98L (21,829) at the very least. Though the 98L has its two sidewinders and the takeoff weight for the J-5 doesn't actually specify its load.

This is mostly just conjecture though as I'm making fairly large assumptions.
 
It seems this book has a pretty detailed section on the G.98J-11, but the sample scans are in poor resolution, so I was thinking about just buying the book unless someone has a better scan of this page.
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It seems this book has a pretty detailed section on the G.98J-11, but the sample scans are in poor resolution, so I was thinking about just buying the book unless someone has a better scan of this page.
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Those are probably shots of the prototype and not specifically the J-11 variant.. Corky's book doesn't have an illustration, nor any meaningful details on the J-11 so it would be great if you could translate what this says about it.
 
From the Alt-F-11 thread.. two videos.
View: https://youtu.be/bwQldakCLM8?t=348
. This one claims that Grumman was dancing on the edge of anti trust problems. Source is Gaijan but there are things said in Corky's book that would lend credence to it. He never says the words "anti-trust" but does refer to things like "getting too big", "cutting you back" and some talk about specific programs that might need to be cut or contracts cancelled. Now I have been as guilty as others about interpreting that through a conspiratorial lens and I am not entirely certain if Gaijan has a source stating it or if they have extrapolated from those bits from Corky's book to reach this conclusion but they do make a LOT more sense than the conspiracy angle: It is very easy to forget that the US government used to be a LOT better about enforcing trust law and Grumman really had a huge hunk of the naval aircraft market particularly after they get the A-6 development they would be able to provide all the aircraft but the helicopter for an air wing.

The other video?
View: https://youtu.be/GOuQFpUhgKk?t=601
I was unaware that the congress limited the navy to a single type of high end fighter...but apparently they did.
The combo of these two is really what kills the supertiger
 
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When did the F-11 get its LERX? I assumed it was added on the Super Tiger, but some photos show the normal F-11A with LERX too. Yet others don't have the LERX and instead show it with a "straight" wing root. What is going on here?
 
This one claims that Grumman was dancing on the edge of anti trust problems. Source is Gaijan but there are things said in Corky's book that would lend credence to it. He never says the words "anti-trust" but does refer to things like "getting too big", "cutting you back" and some talk about specific programs that might need to be cut or contracts cancelled. Now I have been as guilty as others about interpreting that through a conspiratorial lens and I am not entirely certain if Gaijan has a source stating it or if they have extrapolated from those bits from Corky's book to reach this conclusion but they do make a LOT more sense than the conspiracy angle: It is very easy to forget that the US government used to be a LOT better about enforcing trust law and Grumman really had a huge hunk of the naval aircraft market particularly after they get the A-6 development they would be able to provide all the aircraft but the helicopter for an air wing.
It was nothing to do with "anti-trust" laws, but rather something called "maintaining a sufficiently-broad industrial base".

Simply put, the US DOD was deliberately following a policy of making sure that several manufacturers of a particular type of military hardware all had enough work to keep them busy, financially solvent, and capable of taking on more work in an emergency. This went for shipyards, aircraft manufacturers, and so on (including subcontractors/parts manufacturers).

It is believed that Ling-Temco-Vought got the A-7 contract over the Douglas "enlarged A-4" to keep them working and showing a profit.

There are many who state that this is why General Dynamics' F-111 design was chosen over the Boeing TFX design that was the preferred option by the USAF - Boeing was sitting "fat" with all of its airliner/transport and aerial refueling aircraft contracts, while G-D was seriously in need of a good contract to keep from going bankrupt (since the F-106 and B-58 were no longer in production - Convair having been bought by G-D in 1953).
 
It was nothing to do with "anti-trust" laws, but rather something called "maintaining a sufficiently-broad industrial base".

Simply put, the US DOD was deliberately following a policy of making sure that several manufacturers of a particular type of military hardware all had enough work to keep them busy, financially solvent, and capable of taking on more work in an emergency. This went for shipyards, aircraft manufacturers, and so on (including subcontractors/parts manufacturers).

It is believed that Ling-Temco-Vought got the A-7 contract over the Douglas "enlarged A-4" to keep them working and showing a profit.

There are many who state that this is why General Dynamics' F-111 design was chosen over the Boeing TFX design that was the preferred option by the USAF - Boeing was sitting "fat" with all of its airliner/transport and aerial refueling aircraft contracts, while G-D was seriously in need of a good contract to keep from going bankrupt (since the F-106 and B-58 were no longer in production - Convair having been bought by G-D in 1953).
It could be argued that is the point of anti trust laws: Keeping a broad pool of competent competitors
 
When did the F-11 get its LERX? I assumed it was added on the Super Tiger, but some photos show the normal F-11A with LERX too. Yet others don't have the LERX and instead show it with a "straight" wing root. What is going on here?
I believe those were added in the early super tiger development and retro-fitted to existing airframes to some degree after that
 
The leading edge extensions were part of the Super Tiger development and added to the second lot of F11F-1s (long nose for a visual-assist radar that was never installed) in the Grumman belief that they were much more worth than the added weight from a performance standpoint. There were no retro-fits.
 
Order placed, expected mid-late March.
I completely forgot about it, but I will just summarize on what was written.
  • Initially the F-104A, F-102A, F-100J, and N-156F were the fighters in the running and the F-11F-1F was a late show to the competition. The F-11F and F-104 were made the 2 final candidates in 1958.
  • The F-11F was the favored candidate in performance over almost all metrics and was seen as being able to conduct the same interceptions as the F-104 while having versatility in air to ground combat and reconnaissance.
  • The F-104 was favored in logistics as it was seen as easier to domestically produce and the F-11F wouldn't be adopted by the US, so all upgrades and support would need to be done by Japan (important)
  • A number of accidents with the F-104A after just being introduced to the USAF and the need for a 3000m runway scared the Japanese away from adopting it and pushed them more towards the F-11F
  • On April 5th of 1958 design started on the G-98J-11 which was an improved F-11F with the J79-GE-7
  • On April 12th the design was informally approved for adoption and the JMOD was just waiting on details of cost sharing and local production
  • Despite being an informal decision, on the same day defense and finance ministers were appointed to the program and (at the time) Shin-Mitsubishi and Kawasaki were already in discussion with the Defense Agency to become the primary and secondary contractors respectively for local production
  • Shin-Mitsubishi immediately sent a team to the US to get design and production documents from Grumman
  • Suddenly the Grumman offer was accused of corruption (LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL) for how quickly things progressed
  • Literally nothing came out from the corruption investigation and it was decided that they were unsubstantiated rumors however this still successfully delayed the selection process until the next year (1959).
  • In June of 1959 they decided to just restart the selection process and send another group of teams to the US to revaluate the fighter selections.
  • A bunch of people also resigned during this time to "take responsibility" for the delays and the Chief of Staff of the JASDF was replaced with Genda Minoru (Here he is in an N-156F aka F-5A)
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  • The team sent to reevaluate the options headed by one of the primary guys caught in the Lockheed bribery scandal come back and say they pick the F-104
The end
 
’Grumman F11F—1F Super Tiger will be manufactured in Japan under license by the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries combine and the Kawasaki Aircraft Manufacturing Co. General Electric’s J79-7 turbojet with afterbumer to power the Japanese—built Super-Tigers will be manufactured under license by the Ishikawajima Heavy Industries aircraft division in Tokyo. Japanese mission will visit the U. S. this summer to reach detailed agreements on licensing, Japanese production schedules and amount of U.S. government financing that will support the Japanese purchase of 300 Super-Tigers. Japan hopes the U. S. will pay about 45% of the total Super—Tiger program cost.
AWST 28 April 1958
Japanese Air Force is evaluating fire control system proposals in connection with the Grumman F11F—IF. U. S. manufacturers who are vying for a contract to supply the installation include Hughes Aircraft, Westinghouse, Packard-Bell, Radio Corp. of America and North American’s Autonetics Division.
AWST 21 July 1958
 
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The Japan Air Self-Defense Force's research team has released the following data as a performance guideline for the next fighter. It climbs to an altitude of about 16,000 m in about 8 minutes. The maximum climb limit is about 18,000 m. The maximum speed is Mach 2 or higher. The combat radius of action is about 350 km or more.

There were four candidates for the next generation of fighter that met this performance guideline: the F-104 "Starfighter", the North American F-100 "Super Saber", the Northrop N-156F (later the F-5), and the Convair F-102 "Delta Dagger".

In addition, due to the introduction from the U.S. Department of Defense, the Grumman G-98J-11, which is an improved and developed version of the F11F, which was not subject to review, was hastily included in the review.

As a result of the examination, the Grumman G-98J-11 recommended by the U.S. Department of Defense was selected in April 1958. The reason was that the US Air Force's F-104, which had just been deployed, had frequent accidents and small troubles, and the aircraft had a long runway and required a runway of 3000 m.

In this way, the Grumman G-98J-11 was once decided, but in August of the same year, the House of Representatives Accounts Committee raised the issue of whether there was fraud in the adoption, and it was decided to reinvestigate in 1959, and the selection was postponed.

In the end, the fraud was never clarified, but in response to this, an investigation team headed by the then Chief of Air Staff Minoru Genda, who was the head of the Air Self-Defense Force and was known as the "Genda Circus" before the Pacific War because of his aerobatic skills, went to the United States again to investigate. At that time, he uttered the phrase "I don't know which fighter is best for Japan unless I actually fly it myself," which is a profound phrase that can only be said by a veteran who has a long career as a pilot and a proven track record.

As a result of this reinvestigation, the G-98J-11, which Grumman said "could incorporate Japan's request," was rejected, and the F-104 "Starfighter" was decided to be adopted.

So what was the reason for this great comeback?

The first is that the actual G-98J-11 did not exist. We cannot afford to decide to purchase an aircraft, which can be said to be the most important for a country's national defense, as a main fighter aircraft, in a state of "picture-perfect rice cakes" due to sales pitches.

The second reason is that the Lockheed F-104 was an aircraft that exceeded Mach 2 from the beginning, while the Grumman G-98J-11 managed to "bulk" the F11F, which was barely Mach 1, and aimed for Mach 2.

Thirdly, due to the nature of the main mission of the Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets to defend their airspace, they were required to have the ability to climb as quickly as possible after a scramble and the acceleration to reach the airspace as quickly as possible. In this respect, it can be said that the F-104 was overwhelmingly superior.Thus, the F-104 "Starfighter" was given the nickname "Eiko" after the F-86F "kyokou" and the F-86D "Gekko". However, in Japan, knockdown production and license production were carried out by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, so it was hooked on the elongated shadow of this machine and was nicknamed "Mitsubishi Pencil" at the site. By the way, Mitsubishi Pencil and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are completely unrelated companies.

After that, when the Air Self-Defense Force began to operate the F-104 in anti-territorial airspace violation measures, so-called scramble (emergency launch), history proves that the aircraft was the most suitable aircraft. In other words, the result of the "Great Reversal of the Blue Sky" was a great answer.
 
Of course the real reason was that bribery won the day.
Allied to some perfectly reasonable shortcomings of the F11F-2 noted in the article:
  1. Not actually existing, so Japan would be the only operator
  2. Not having a demonstrated Mach 2 capability
  3. Lower climb speed and acceleration
Which, to be fair, are offset by the shortcomings of the F-104, also noted:
  1. Long runway requirement
  2. Low reliability
  3. High accident rate
The latter two points likely had a lot to do with the F-104 being newly introduced to service, when any aircraft would be more likely to have issues on that front. Including the F11F-2, if Japan was the initial operator of the type.

No amount of bribery could have made an unsuitable aircraft win. But the right amount could make those running the competition shift the weighting of different factors to favour the F-104.

That, incidentally, is why modern procurement practice requires that the assessment methodology is published first, so the goalposts can't be changed once the bids (and associated wads of cash) are submitted.
 
Allied to some perfectly reasonable shortcomings of the F11F-2 noted in the article:
  1. Not having a demonstrated Mach 2 capability
The F11F-1F (G98J) 2nd airframe, No. 138647, achieved Mach 2 the year before, in May 1957. It did that on a derated YJ-79 GE-3 test engine.
This was the basis of the version Japan was interested in, with the Japanese version having the higher rated J79-GE-7 engine.
 
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No amount of bribery could have made an unsuitable aircraft win.
A realized G-98J-11 would have been the better pick for Japan and wasn't that outlandish as Kaiser stated. Also important to note is that if the briberies didn't happen that Japan almost certainly wouldn't have been the sole operator as Canada and Germany were close to buying it too.

Remember that the F-104 was meant to replace the entirety of Japan's F-86D and F-86F fleet which includes their RF-86Fs. Those had to stay in service well after Japan started getting RF-4E/EJs because there was no suitable replacement while a photo recon variant of the G-98 was planned to be bought too. The G-98J-11 would probably see a slightly worse top speed characteristic in exchange for better flight performance in almost every other aspect while also having a much larger missile load that included SARH missiles.

Japan replaced their fighter/interceptor/recon/CAS airframe with a pure interceptor. While Japan needed an interceptor it left some major gaps elsewhere. The G-98 was much better suited as a multirole for slightly worse interception performance.
 
I believe that no doubt F-104J/DJ satisfied JASDF very much.
 
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There are some differences between these pictures.
For example, dorsal fin, wind shield, vertical tail stabilizer root shape, wing fence, color.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=fVOqgU7Ex10

F11F-1F
Super Tiger(G-98J) Two Grumman F11F-1 aircraft fitted with J79-GE-3A engines, (BuNos 138646 and 138647).
F11F-2
Intended pre-1962 designation of production Super Tigers.
F-11B
The post-1962 designation reserved for production Super Tigers.
XF12F
Semi-official designation for a developed version of the F11F-1F/-2.
 

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On that note, it would be interesting to see what differences there were, if any, between the two F11-F1 Super Tiger prototype airframes 138646 and 138647.
 
On that note, it would be interesting to see what differences there were, if any, between the two F11-F1 Super Tiger prototype airframes 138646 and 138647.
IIRC, one was a stock F11F airframe with the J65 swapped out for the J79 with no other changes. While the other had a few aerodynamic improvements made to the wing
 
Hi! Dorsal launcher.
Also you can see folded ventral vertical tail fin.

The F11F was developed to be the U.S. Navy's first supersonic carrier-based fighter, but its service period was shortened due to the inadequacy of the engine.
In 1955, Grumman developed the F11F-1F Super Tiger, an improved version of the F11F-1F that replaced the engine with the powerful GE J-79, but the Navy was not interested.
The F11F-1F sought overseas sales channels, and at one point almost became the winner of the Air Self-Defense Force's FX selection, but was ultimately defeated by the Lockheed F-104.

Since it was originally a small aircraft, even if the engine was strengthened, not only did the cruising range decrease, but the lack of versatility was not solved.

Perhaps that's why the development plan for the F11F-1F attempted to add more hardpoints.

But the place is a little too whimsical.
The plan was to mount the AIM-9 in tandem on the Dorsal spine/launcher, and the first unit (Bu No. 138646) was actually equipped with it.
In addition, two parallel shots on the underside of the fuselage and two shots on the outboard pylons of the main wing (AIM-7) for a total of 6 shots! Boom!

However, there is no denying the feeling of suffering. (In addition, the folded bentralphin can be confirmed)
This is because the AIM-9 (dummy) in front interferes with the sliding windshield.

By the way, this design was "98J-5" and the aircraft for Japan was "98J-11", so if you are lucky (of course, you can also see "if you are unlucky"), it is possible that the Super Tiger with this armament configuration would have flown in the skies of Japan.

Two prototypes of the F11F-1F were built, and the project was closed.
The first unit in question, Bu No. 138646, was used for fire training and was scrapped at some point in the 1980s.
 

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Hi!
In August 1957, a research team headed by Air Force Lieutenant General Mizumori of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force was dispatched to the United States to investigate candidate models for the next generation of fighter aircraft. The team examined the F-104, F-100, N-156F, and F-102A, but received an introduction from the U.S. Department of Defense to the F11F-1F, which was not scheduled to be investigated. As a result, the team also investigated the F11F-1F.
The conclusion of the mission report was understood to be that the final candidates were the F-104 and F11F-1F.

From January to February 1958, Chief of the Air Staff Sato went to the United States to discuss the strategic structure of the Far East with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Department of Defense. At that time, he conducted additional research on each of Japan's next fighter candidates, and learned that the F-104A had a series of crashes due to engine failure shortly after it was deployed to the U.S. Air Defense Air Force, and that the F-104A required a runway length of about 10,000 feet (3,000 m).

Based on this information, the Defense Agency decided at a meeting of the Agency on April 5 to adopt the G-98J-11 Super Tiger, which is an improved version of the F11F-1F, as the next fighter of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.

The reason for this decision was that it could be used for a long time, it was safe, the length of the runway required was short, and it could be used for interception, ground combat cooperation, reconnaissance, and other multi-purpose use.

On April 12, 1958, at a meeting of the members of the National Defense Council, it was decided that the G-98J-11 would be adopted, and after waiting for an investigation into the cost-sharing and production plans between Japan and the United States, it was decided to conspire with the National Defense Council to make a formal decision.

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) has established a domestic production preparatory committee headed by Chief of Staff Akiyama within the Air Staff. As a result of consultations, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the Defense Agency selected New Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (now Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) as the main production company and Kawasaki Aircraft (now Kawasaki Heavy Industries) as a partner company.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) dispatched a survey team to Grumman to collect technical data, and made steady progress in preparations such as production plans and financial plans.

However, the battle for the selection of the next fighter did not end there, but rather intensified.

To be continued.........
 

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