#21
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F7U-3M Cutlass - putting into service -end
At the peak of the service no less than 13 squadrons flew
the Cutlass in 1956. There is a short movie in youtube showing the M version fire a sparrow and kill a radio controlled B-17. According to pilots who flew the type each pilot fired at least 2 times to gain confidence with the system. While in service. the front wheel strout was modified and the intakes lower part were enlarged to supply more air to the engines when approach was made at high angel of attack. The pilot was sitting 4 meter above the ground and had a very long lader. Toward the end of 1956 the cutlass was started to be phased out of service. VA -116 was the last to make a deploment to the far east. The F7U-3M had 350 takeoffs and landings without an an incident in this deployment ! Shortly after returning at October 1957 VA -116 traded the Cutlass for A-4 skyhawks. Many Cutlass squadrons were replaced by new F8U Crusaders. The last one served as mines dropper until 1959 . The photo version had Camera's in the elongated nose but the hight of the nose proved not comfortable for maintenance and was not put into service. To finish the saga of the cutlass I attach a picture of what might have been if there was a super cutlass. Yair |
#22
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NAVY FIGHTERS 1954 - facts
The new navy fighters that entered service created high hopes.
The mid fifties was a very busy period in aviation and in jet fighters in particular. The leading countries were US ,Russia, Britain and France. However the decade after the Korean war was silnet and no majur battle took place until late 1964 when the Vietnam war started. Therfore none of the 3 planes described here had fought in real combat or more important in a dogfight. The IAF is an exception here . In the fifties Israel recieved small number of French origin and all had battles or dogfights with the surrounding Arab countries that were in a war state. Only India who fought against Pakistan had two majur conflicts in 1965 and 1971 where air battles took place. Because of thd diversity of types used Pakistani airforce operated Chinese mig -19 against Inxian mig 21 and SU-7. Each side claimed to be victorious so it is hard to know the real dogfights results. Yair |
#23
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i like the mig 21, it is my favorit Russian bird.
YOAV |
#24
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I agree with you. The one I have is 8 years by now
and the lack sprayed by then make it yellowish by now. This is GPM 52 but Fly model 127 is better. Yair |
#25
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F7U-3M Cutlass - Hard development
The cutlass was about to enter service around mid 1954.
However some problems had to be ironed before service took place. The 4 20mm guns when fired toghter created a shockwave that shut down the J46 engines. The solution was to make them fire with delay circuits and thus minimize the effect of the shockwave. There was a belly rocket launcher that the rockets in the second row had a tendency to stock in -so carry it was not popular. in The plane had a tendency to vet into a post stall gyration that cause the pilot to eject in the event. Later it was found that the cutlass can correct itself if the pilot left the controls and there was enough altitude for recovery. During 3 years 75 cutlasses had fatal accidents - these is equal to quarter of the fleet . The cutlass is blame to cause the death of 4 test pilots and 21 navy pilots. By the time problems were ironed the cutlass started to be phased out from service. Yair |
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#26
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Cougar - first supersonic ejection
In 1954 the aerobatic team of the navy the
blue angels received the cougar as replacement for the panter. The dash 6 cougar was prepared at Grumman and the members of the team had to fly the new cpugars to corpus Christi. They took off and shortly after one of the cougar pilots observed that the nose of the cougar is pitching down al the time and the speed is raising all the time. All the attempts to correct ghe situation didn't succeed. The mach meter showed speed of mach 1.05 so the pilot ejected. This was the first time that some one ejected at supersonic speed. Later it was found that the problem was related to the All flying tail that was hydraulically powered. After a short while the pilot was recovered and took another Cougar in which the problem was repaired and flew aerobatics again with the blue angels team. Yair |
#27
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fj-2 Fury. and Bob Hoover
The Fj-2 fury and all the Fury series was produced in north American aviation
Like other companies NA aviation hired test pilots . Bob hoover was among the pilots who tested the fj-2 fury. In his book he describe the flynig checks he did with the type . Also he had to do some demonstrations before some spectators with fj-2. Despite the outstanding abilities of Hoover the NAVY didn"t accepted the type into use and the and handed it to the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps operated it between 1954-56 only on land bases and the Fj-2 was totally widrawn from service when the Fj-3 and Fj-4 entered service in 1955-56. Yair |
#28
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F7U-3M Cutlass - VX 4 evaluation squadron
VX -4 was a special squadron that was evaluating
new weapon systems on new fighters. In the case of the F7U-3 M the new system was the 4 sparrow missiles that were guided by the APQ 51 radar of the cutlass 3M. There is a movie in youtube that describe firing of a sparrow on a radio controlled B-17. The first generation of the beam riding missiles was able to shut down slow maneuvering targets but was not good against small nimble jets. Now VX 4 made a couple of deployments aboard carriers with the 3M version to evaluate this system with the navy. Among these deployments was one aboard the Shangri la carrier in early 1957. Few months later the cutlass was phased out from service. This is to say that many other naval planes had the same fate of serving short periods between 2 to 3 years. The cougar f9f , fury fj-2 and tiger f-11f were good examples of short service types. The Whilhelmshavener F7U-3M model presened here has the VX-4 color scheme. Yair |
#29
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Cutlass vs Cougar vs Fury - more photos
The above trio with more photos on the stands.
We can see the Fury strightforward design , the Cougar is somewhat different and the Cutlass is a total departure from the two in terms of aerodynamic design with it's tween tail and no horizontal control surfaces. Yair |
#30
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Cutlass vs Cougar vs Fury - more photos
Another set of photos of the trio.
All the 3 were fighters of the mid 50's which was the golden era of jet aviation. As I already menchnend before the jet fighter development was so rapid in these years that new types were coming into service very fast and replaced old designs. Toward the end of the 50's all the 3 were phased out from service by newer types as the A-4 Skyhawk , F-11F Tiger or Fj-4B Fury. Even these newer types didn't last long in service and were replaced by higher versions of the Skyhawks , Crusaders and Phantoms. So the glory was short lived in those days. Yair |
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