Your ultimate "What-if"

[thefrecklepuny]

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After its first flight in 1967, in 1968 Spain decided to join in the development of Mirage G8

With a total production of 450 aircraft, France took 150, Spain 120, several export orders followed.

Irak bought 145 aircraft and Turkey 45.

During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s it served well, downing 17 Iranian F-14s

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Tomcatty style landing gear with Mirage-like intakes combined with a Phantomy canopy.

 

[apparition13]

Tomcatty style landing gear with Mirage-like intakes combined with a Phantomy canopy.

I really like that design, especially the landing gear tucking up into the wing root. It leaves the entire fuselage clear for conformal carry, and since it could have carried six Phoenix under the fuselage it could have carried six Harpoon as well, possibly even eight given the size of the V-507's lower fuselage, which means it could have been a superior strike fighter. It wasn't as good a dogfighter as the Tomcat, but I can see an 80s air wing of just F-14Bs and this replacing the 1970 F-4/A-6/A-7 wing. It's too big for the French carriers though, which is unfortunate.

I like the idea of a smaller single engine V-507 along the lines of a Mirage G (kind of like a MiG-23 with Su-24 wings in shape) as well. A "Mirage V (for Vought)" if you will. There's your replace everything 70s Rafale analogue. And if it came in about the size of a MiG-23 that would make it roughly F-18 sized, so it should work on Foch and Clemanceau.

 

[Deleted member 2278]

Payen RP/Pa.... something, with counter-rotating propellers. Maybe, for example, the Payen RP.420 :

Hi from a new member!(and delta lover). I think the biggest problem with these layouts is the abysmal view from the cockpit when landing,except in the case of a nosewheel landing gear.I think you should try and cram a nosewheel bay behind the engine. Nevertheless,let's remember that canards were not successful during WW2-eg the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender.

Hi! Hmmm.... Payen layout with mid-engine & cockpit position similar to a TP-39?

 

[Deltafan]

Payen RP/Pa.... something, with counter-rotating propellers. Maybe, for example, the Payen RP.420 :

Hi from a new member!(and delta lover). I think the biggest problem with these layouts is the abysmal view from the cockpit when landing,except in the case of a nosewheel landing gear.I think you should try and cram a nosewheel bay behind the engine. Nevertheless,let's remember that canards were not successfull during WW2-eg the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender.

It's sure. This is the cause of the Payen Pa.101 crash.

But we can also imagine a more advanced cockpit (closer to duck plans) or what was done on the only Dyke Delta (double delta) built in France (by the French manufacturer Pierre Robin), with the installation of a transparent plexiglass plate on the floor.

 

[Deltafan]

Payen RP/Pa.... something, with counter-rotating propellers. Maybe, for example, the Payen RP.420 :

Hi from a new member!(and delta lover). I think the biggest problem with these layouts is the abysmal view from the cockpit when landing,except in the case of a nosewheel landing gear.I think you should try and cram a nosewheel bay behind the engine. Nevertheless,let's remember that canards were not successful during WW2-eg the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender.

Hi! Hmmm.... Payen layout with mid-engine & cockpit position similar to a TP-39?

For example, yes.

I don't remember a central engine solution for a Payen project. But I think the configuration of the P-39 must already have been a problem for engine maintenance. And I believe the problem would have been even greater for an airplane with a delta wing.

 

[Deleted member 2278]

The Payen configuration is already.....erm.... let's go with compromised, so you may as well have fun with it.

 

[Deltafan]

The Payen configuration is already.....erm.... let's go with compromised, so you may as well have fun with it.

Unfortunately, the canceled tests of Pa.101 and Pa.22 /2 - Pa.22 / 5, which only made straight lines above the runway (the first for a too "hard" landing, the second on German decision after several escapes from France of other planes) will never provide the answer.

We can only see that the reduced models produced later (Pa.100 or 22 with "in line" engines, never the 101, modified 100 with an oversized radial engine) had good behavior in flight, but had very big difficulties staying in a straight line during the take-off phase (I never saw one of them able to take off from a runway).
In this sense, we can also notice that the Pa.22 / 2 had two extensions / modifications of the fin (to finish in version 22/5). But, on the other hand, the pilot of the Pa.101 had declared that he was staying in a straight line. As this is only a statement and there is no film of the aircraft in flight (only one slow show on the grass, which disappeared of the free web some years ago), it is difficult to judge.

The only possible comparison of the time, even if far, seems to me to be the Russian Moskalyev SAM 9 Strela, ogival delta with in line engine and without canards but with a cockpit placed more forward, which flew correctly, at least officially.


Otherwise, for the fun with it, I have. And, thanks to, for example, SPF forumers like Citrus90, leaded50 and others, including on other forums, like Slava Trudu, It's not about to end

 

[F.L.]

A different and more successful career for the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

The Luftwaffe, on the advice of Erich Hartmann, purchased improved F-100J Super Sabres (renamed F-100G) adapted to their ground attack task.
The Bundesmarine bought Buccaneers & F-8G Crusader for interception.. The term "Widow maker" does not exist. The Luftwaffe staff realized that it was important to have aircrafts that were easy to handle and safe for their pilots. A very small number a F-104A was used by Luftwaffe for high altitude interception with an elite unit from 1960 to 1976.

In 1967, during Operation Bolo, a few MiG-21s escaped the F-4 Phantoms and tried to intercept the EC-121, but fell to the F-104Cs. Five MiG-21s were shot down by the Zippers, for the loss of one of them.

The F-104G/H/S was widely exported to South America where it competed with the Mirage III/5, notably in Argentina where it was used in conjunction with the French "Deltas". Brazil bought F-104E who were served alongside F-103E (Mirage). Chilean air force used 24 F-104 from 1969 to 2004.
In Latin America the 104s underwent numerous upgrades, including the addition of in-flight refuelling probes which enabled the Argentine "Zipper" to be very effective in the Falklands and a serious opponent of the Harrier thanks to "hit'n run" tactics.

Bolivia bought one part of the retired Belgian 104s and the other was sold to Iran in the mid 1980s, which used them extensively during the second part of the conflict with Iraq, and put 12 of them back into service in 2012, after a complete overhaul and modernisation, for maritime attack missions armed with Nasr anti-ship missiles. The 'new' F-104s receive avionics inspired from the Mirage F1 and Super 530 copies.

Tunisia and Morocco receive a small number of 104Cs & used them until 1980s.

South Africa purchased on smuggler's terms 12 F-104s, which it later modernised under the name F-104GZ with medium range radar guided missiles. They were in service until 1989.


Some European countries buy F-104 for pure interception task, called F-104E for "Europe", some of them producted by Fiat.