4 ms·
The early jet age was pretty nuts. Check the Wikipedia page for a random fighter from the era and you'll see figures like, 1,300 built, 50 lost in combat, 1,100
by wat10000 7mo ago
The early jet age was pretty nuts. Check the Wikipedia page for a random fighter from the era and you'll see figures like, 1,300 built, 50 lost in combat, 1,100 lost in accidents. And that's operational aircraft. Test pilots were in even more danger.
- Quinner 7mo agoSome were pretty bad, but none were nearly that bad. The B-58 Hustler lost 22% of its airframes, the F7U Cutlass 25%, the F-104 Starfighter in German service lost 33%. And those were outliers.
- wat10000 7mo agoYou're right, those numbers are from the F-8 but include non-total-loss accidents. I don't think the numbers you quoted are outliers, though. The F-100 lost ~900 out of 2,300. The F-106 lost ~120/342. That's a pretty big list of planes with a 1/5-1/3 loss rate.
- jaggederest 7mo agoYou should go back even a little further, the USPS air mail service lost 31 of the first 40 pilots.
- mrguyorama 7mo agoBack in the days where the plan was "So we've built literal signal fires and giant concrete arrows and well, good luck, it won't help"
- ErroneousBosh 7mo agoHave you ever listened to Robert Calvert's "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters"?