the Century Fighters. the legendary 100 series of US fighter aircraft
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- The Century Series is a popular name for a group of US fighter aircraft representing models designated between F-100 and F-106 which went into full production. They included the first successful supersonic aircraft designs in the United States Air Force's service, which remained in active service well into the 1970s and 1980s with the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard. Three later variants, the QF-100, QF-102 and QF-106, also continued in service, primarily as aerial target drones, until the late 1990s. The F-104G stayed in service with the Italian military until 2004.The NASA airborne science program maintains a group of F-104G in airworthy condition for use as test platforms and chase aircraft.
The name "Century Series" stems from the fighter (F-) designation number being in the 100-109 range. The term became popular to refer to a group of generally similar designs of the 1950s and early 1960s.
As it evolved, the attribution of the Century Series moniker reflects models designated between F-100 and F-106 which went into full production:
North American F-100 Super Sabre
McDonnell F-101 Voodoo
Convair F-102 Delta Dagger
Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Republic F-105 Thunderchief
Convair F-106 Delta Dart
The term "Century Series" does not include less successful models between the F-100 and F-109 that did not go past design or prototype stage: the Republic XF-103 and North American XF-108 Rapier interceptor concepts, the North American F-107 tactical fighter prototype (cancelled in favor of the F-105), and designation "F-109" which was originally assigned to the F-101B Voodoo and later requested but not granted for the Bell XF-109 VTOL concept.
The F- series number sequence used in USAF was a continuation of the pre-USAF pursuit aircraft (P- series) numbering, stretching back as far as to the 1920s. The numbering would continue sequentially up to the General Dynamics F-111, and after this number the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system restarted the numbering back from 1. The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter-bomber was briefly known as the F-110 Spectre. The USAF continued the naming convention with the Constant Peg program as an operations security measure. The last known aircraft with a F-1xx designation is the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft, which is unrelated to other F-1xx aircraft but received the designation as an additional layer of obscuration for this highly secretive program.
The Century Series aircraft represented a mix of fighter-bombers (F-100, F-101A, F-105) and pure interceptors (F-101B, F-102, F-104, F-106).
The unifying characteristic of the Century Series aircraft was advanced performance and avionics when they were introduced. The F-100 was the first aircraft in the USAF capable of exceeding the speed of sound in level flight. The F-101 was the first aircraft in the USAF capable of exceeding 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h). The F-102 was the first aircraft in the world to utilize area rule in its design. The F-104 was the first combat aircraft capable of Mach 2 flight, and the only aircraft in history to simultaneously hold the world speed and altitude records. Three of the Century Series aircraft-F-101, F-102, and F-106-were armed with nuclear air-to-air missiles. These weapons, designed to destroy incoming nuclear-armed Soviet bombers even when not scoring a clear hit (due to the nuclear explosion radius, shock wave and radiation burst), were the only nuclear weapons in USAF arsenal at the time to be under sole control of their pilots (during a mission).
Similar advancements were made in this period by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps with the Douglas F4D Skyray (later F-6), Vought F8U Crusader and F4H Phantom II carrier-based aircraft, but US Naval Aviation lacked a similar naming group.
#centuryfighters #fighteraircraft #centuryseries
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LOVE the Century series. I built everyone (model) as a kid in the 60's. Thank you for this!
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These test flights over the desert really gives the impression that we are looking at science fiction movies. There is a timelessness to these test videos that perfectly illustrate how aviation of that era made people think that the future held no limits.
Starfighter..impossibly beautiful
My two favorite fighter designs … the F-104 and the F-5
@@PauloPereira-jj4jv nothing wrong with the plane.
If you try to use an interceptor as a bomber that isn't the planes fault.
One of the best looking aircraft ever produced
Has some odd aesthetics though. Looks like a banana from some angles. Rear lines don't balance with the front.
I think the 105 has the best lines in the century series. If it had been a light fighter, with a bit less bulk and less stores clutter it would have been the best looking cold war jet of all.
The F-100 is my favorite. I did avionics maintenance on F-100's during the 1970's and I got to ride in two of them.
While living a few miles from Eglin AFB (Niceville, FL) in the mid to late 1960's, I had the chance to see MANY of these century fighters fly low over our neighborhood as they prepared to land at Eglin. Saw the F-100's, F-101's, F-104's, F-105's, (strangely, never did see any F-102's or F-106's in all the years my dad was in the USAF) and although not listed in this video, saw the F-111's quite a few times too. Was probably the best place we'd ever lived that was a paradise for airplane watching.
Of all the Century Series fighters, the F-106 is the most beautiful for me.
On the technical side, it has an INTERNAL weapons bay. Who's not gonna love that feature?
It was the fastest single engine aircraft ever in production, and it did it while carrying a heavy load of weapons and electronic equipment necessary for its role. The cooling requirements for all the black boxes was also remarkable.
It was an engine with just enough wing to fly as as dangerous as it sounds like it would be but the 104 is still one of my favorite aircraft of all time
Century series were simply gorgeous. Hard to choose, but 104, 105 two of my personal favorites. Love your channel, great content, high quality production and presentation. Wishing you the best and my sincerest thanks. Cheers.
Interesting stats on the Genie. Range 8 miles and flight time 12 seconds. So, launch it, give at least 2 seconds to see it go out ahead of you so you know launch was successful, then you have 10 seconds left to react and turn around. At high subsonic speed, you will need most of that 10 seconds to do a 180° turn. So you'll still be at about 8 miles when it goes kaboomy. 1.5 kilotons would not be a blast hazard at 8 miles, but with minimal, if any, EMP shielding back at that time, I wonder if there was any realistic expectation of the interceptor surviving the interception in a flyable condition. Or maybe the plane and pilot were considered expendable to protect the homeland.
The F-86 was not designed as a bomber interceptor. It was a fighter and fighter bomber. The later Dog Sabre version did add a radar and unguided rockets for bomber interception.
But thank you very much for getting the F-104 correct, and saying it was a day fighter rather than an interceptor.
You are quite correct. The 1/2 dozen .50 cals were on the early fighters, and the F-86D, "Dog Sabre", had rockets only and no guns. The later F-86K used by European nations had the nose radar of the "D" and four 20mm guns but no rockets.
Edit: The early 86s did have a gun ranging radar in the small lip over the inlet. The D and K were the big nose models with a larger radar and collision-course calculation fire control for using the unguided rockets. You sound like you already know that, but I'm putting it out there for those who don't.
I'm glad you put company's names in the description because I didn't hear much mention of those in the video. I absolutely love looking at the different companies with their successful models, and then see what they did later on or who they may have merged with.
I noticed that Convair was the only one with two century series models. I also noticed something funny how a Lockheed was the only one to create the "Suicide Dart" out of the bunch haha
That was superb documentary
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Love it, love it, love it! This channel is like an anti-depressant and uploads come as welcome relief. Awesome visuals, great soundtrack, fantastic commentary! On the Century series, I never cared for any of them, except for perhaps the One-Oh-Six.
That is before I started flying them online and as I came to appreciate their strengths and weaknesses, they've become endeared to me. I thought the Super Sabre was ugly, now I love her curves and angles and feel uplifted simply seeing footage of her. I thought the Thunderchief was a dog, not seeing her for the honest fighter that she was.
Fun fact: though the B52 Stratofortess, F4 Phantom and the F105 Thunderchief are the most well-known combat aircraft of the Vietnam War, the F100 Super Saber flew, by far, the most combat sorties of that war
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Love this more then life itself.
The star fighter fuselage forms the basis of the body of the U2 spy plane
They are awesome jet fighters, you see them on movies
Makes sense since they were designed by the same person
Love the 104
From a practical view, modern paints are great, but those silver planes just looked so nice!
Yes indeed!
With the photo reel at the beginning my brother, who is a huge plane history buff, was saluting the photos.
Excelente video saludos desde Argentina
Greetings: U 4got a few still a good presentation. Thx 4 the share.
Finally, black bars on the side instead of the enlarged/blurry background of the main picture (does that make sense?)!
My Grand Daddy was born in 1899. He was my Hero. RIP 1997 March. He saw a lot of neat shit growing up. I put the fire wall to an F-15-E. A few classified. I am a person that hits the button every time. When they see me waving? Payload is already dropped. And then Boom! I like my Job! Keeps you All Safe.
Could have mentioned 101B - the most produced 101 version.
how did you sneak the dronescapes logo on the red 999 f104...way cool!
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The HUN I know like the back of my hand. The Voodoo I trained on after we transitioned out of the HUN. The Hun was a beautiful airplane second to the F-86, not the D model.
All these planes are really cool( some of my favorites )its just a little confusing on how the Air force and Government built all these planes and then barely used them.
Why wasn’t the F111 considered a century fighter it was faster than all of them and could carry more weapons than any of them
I guess f111 was more of a strike fighter, while century fighters were interceptors. Although there's f105, which was a strike aircraft as well, so I'm not quite sure how that works.
The series was a name for a group of designs of a particular era. The F-111 was of a later era and a much more complex design.
@@A.i.r_K The F-102 and 106 were bomber interceptors. The F-100, f-101, and 104 were originally designed to shoot down other fighters.
As someone in another comment pointed out, they also left out the F-110, which was the name of the F-4 Phantom before the name change. It also was from that same “lineage” of fighter aircraft of that era, in fact you can easily see a “family resemblance” in the aircraft designs. Just take a look at the F-101 and you can def see what I mean.
It kinda sucks historically that the F-4,Phantom is the Red-headed stepchild of the USAF.
Didn't you forget the F-110, F-111, and F-117?
Once I saw the video title I was was curious if they were gonna have the F-110 in there. 🥴
That was the designation of the F-4 Phantom before the US military streamlined their naming system for those not in the know.
lets call the f105 what its nickname got in nam the thud the noise it made when it hit the ground after it got shot down
Great topic. Can't deal with the music. C u
Didn't even notice it. I gotta get my ears checked. That's for the heads-up.
12:53, "the tiny wings were bolted onto the aircraft's skin"??? Come on now. Let's not get crazy.
The term "Century Series" does not include Republic XF-103, North American XF-108 Rapier interceptor concepts and the North American F-107. The McDonnel XF-88 (predecesor to F-101) Republic XF-91, (predecesor to F-105) also not included. The Convair XF-92 also not included (delta wing experimental aircraft)
My flight buddy, 17yrs at Oshkosh in his homebuilt, was recalled from Korea in the P-51, to design the Century Series.
@ 14:06 aw that was kinda cheap! They played footage in reverse of the Jet disconnecting from the drogue _after_ it had already refuelled to make it _look_ like a good coupling. If you look at in slow motion though you can clearly see its the Jet disconnecting played backwards, instead of a good hookup >.< wonder why they chose that when there's probably footage of couplings too?
22:43? What is that man doing???
Great footage but the voiceover is full of inaccuracies and obvious mistakes
Some pricless images.
Always too much misinformation/personal bias with these century series aircraft videos and especially in the comments. All us baby boomers seemingly have a favorite aircraft and the truth about them gets lost, at least to a degree in our favorite. ALL of them suffered from a "dead mans zone" where the power curve was below the drag produced by angle of attack at slow speed. The F-100 wallowing along in AB in this video is an example of this...NOT compressor stall. AB does not funtion w/out air through the engine. NEVER get too slow on landing, and blast through this "dead mans zone" as fast as possible on take off. The ultimate sidways crash was another weak point in all F-100's. Even w/inlarged rudder, the directional stability was an issue. Not a bad plane, but.....they all had issues. F-101 A+B had pitch up problems and with a wingloading of 144lbs a square foot, really high landing speeds and thus tire/wheel problems were constant issues. With 2 J57's at least it had the power to blast through the dead man zone quickly on take off. F-102 had huge power curve slow speed issues. Cudos to all you out there who flew them. To me, this was the most tricky one of all to fly. The favorite of many of you seems to be the F-104. Yes it looks cool but could only go fast in a strait line. A gatling gun and 2 sidewinders is not much to fight with one you make the intercept. Yes, all Europe used progressively improved versions due to a Lockheed sales blitz but in USA other aircraft did more things better and it was replaced very quickly. With the brute force of a J75 behind them the 105, 106 and 107 were massive VERY capable aircraft even by today's standards. I'm so tired of the armchair experts use of the term thud, used in a derogatory sense, for the F-105. Pilots loved the plane and after all the cutting edge bugs worked out, they maintained an over 70% readiness level in Vietnam. This despite being shot to he11 and doing a job it was not intended to do. (intended use was going 1.2 mach 200ft above ground w/ internal nuke and 2 drop tanks. A feat it could easily do). No thud pilot I've ever talked to had anything bad to say about that big fast beast. Even "Lead sled" should be applied to the 104 as NASA used them for full flap/power off lift/drag experiments to train shuttle pilots in landing their "flying brick". Any armchair experts ever flown any military jet w/power off? They all go thud.... As for the F106, it still holds the single engine speed record of 1,525, was a good dog fighter, and had more range than the Phantom. The higher your thrust to weight watio, the smaller your "dead man zone" is. With this same engine, up-rated to 29,500 lbs thrust, it could have pushed the F-107 to mach 2.9 if it had ben built. The F-110 could be considered a century series as it still used the pure turbojet J79's but nomenclature change led to F-4. F-111 was all new technology with solid state electronics and AB FAN engines. Not a century series for me. Everyone can have a favorite, but as a pilot, all the quirks of your aircraft must be delt with to be flown safely. They were inherent by engineering comprimizes to reach the design goals of that time. This group of aircraft was pushing all of them. A truly exciting time for military aviation!!!!
My mistake....over 90% misson ready rate for 105 in Vietnam.
"Legendary"....LOL. They were called "flying coffins" or "pilots' coffins", that's what was legendary about them...
As usual the F-111 was left off of the list.
Would that have been a 110 series, say like the F-17? lol It was hardly a fighter or interceptor like the 100s mostly were. Maybe compare it to the Navy's F-14, also swing-wing and with a a two man crew. Good call though. Cheers.
😂widow maker