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McDonnell Aircraft was a company with a proud history, responsible for remarkable engineering, including the F-4 Phantom II and Gemini spacecraft. Douglas also
by nickff 6y ago
McDonnell Aircraft was a company with a proud history, responsible for remarkable engineering, including the F-4 Phantom II and Gemini spacecraft. Douglas also has a stellar history including the World Cruisers, DC-3, and A-4 Skyhawk. I see it as tragic that they merged and slowly failed.
- virtue3 6y agoI donno, you're leaving out the DC-10, which was a pretty n notoriously bad airplane.
- justin66 6y agoIf you're judging the quality of the companies and their iterations solely by the airplanes they produced for some reason, leaving out McDonnell Douglas's F-15 is a strange omission.
- nickff 6y agoI have mixed feelings on the F-15, and think it might have turned out better if it'd been a lighter fighter, as per Col. John Boyd's specification. I think the F-4 Phantom II was a more impressive engineering achievement.
- CapricornNoble 6y agoThe F-15 to this day has a nearly unrivaled kill-to-loss ratio (100+:0), and with the upcoming F-15EX variant will be a backbone of US air combat power for decades. I'd rate it as a superlative engineering program and aviation platform.
- nickff 6y agoNo F-15 has been lost in air-to-air combat, but there have been losses. I am not denying that the F-15 is a successful weapons platform, but it didn't fulfill Boyd's outline, and the A through C models were produced in relatively small numbers due to their high cost. The small fleet of F-15A-C also necessitated the lightweight fighter competition, which didn't produce an all-out dogfighter either. I see the F-4 Phantom II as much more impressive for a number of reasons, including the facts that it was the first airplane with the capability to perform a self-directed intercept, as well as being extremely versatile (serving with the Navy, Air Force, and Marines), and served much longer than most of its contemporaries.
- scottlocklin 6y ago> I am not denying that the F-15 is a successful weapons platform, but it didn't fulfill Boyd's outline, and the A through C models were produced in relatively small numbers due to their high cost. I'm a big fan of Boyd, but ... the fact that it's a successful weapons platform -maybe the most successful US fighter of all time, seems good enough for me. Sure the Eagle cost a lot; many successful US aircraft were gold plated -the P-38 Lightning, the SR-71, the F-14. The F-15 is not beloved of Boyd acolytes for its gold plated nature, but it certainly fulfilled the energy and maneuverability criteria. The F-4 was a successful plane in terms of M-D sales, but I'm not sure it was a good plane. It appeared to be, "hook a bunch of decent turbojets up to a shitty 50s airframe (aka the F3H) and stick a big radar in the nose and a guy in the back seat to guide missiles with the radar." Its success seemed due to lack of better US made alternatives more than anything else; though both Vaught and North American had offerings which could have beat it had they been funded (who knows what skulduggery was involved in killing off those programs). American 2nd and 3rd gen fighters were mostly shit, and F-4's were routinely shot down by 1st gen jet fighters and primitive SAMs in Vietnam. Seemed like the Saab and Dassault 3rd gen offerings were nicer in most ways, and IMO the XF-108 or even a souped up F-106 would have beat the pants off it.