The AP-100 puts me in mind of the legendary "perfect battleship" that could outgun, outrun, and outlast any other ship at sea ... and sank the moment it was launched because it carried too much damn stuff to actually float.
A note on the F-105. The nickname "Thud" had its fair share of fans among the F-105's pilots and ground crew. At the end of the day, the F-105 was just the wrong type of aircraft for the air war in Vietnam.
The "Thud" was a good plane for it's time and purpose, it was NOT an F4 which "supposedly" replaced the F105 (but didn't, and was never (originally) intended to)... All the the F105 needed was air support and guidance, which sadly for many came too late... Note: The F105 dropped more bombs on target in the Vietnam war than any other plane, clearly not a failure, it also had the highest "availability time" of any US plane during that conflict. "Availability time" is literally the time in a 24h period in which a plane is "available" to fly, the F105 topped the charts during the Vietnam war, i.e. they had high reliability, and low maintenance.!!! the F105 is an excellent, and IMHO highly underrated plane.
@@ADB-zf5zr I dont thinkg it was reliable, didnt the F-105 als had a pretty bad accident rate, IIRC it was one of the least reliable american jets? Thats part of why its got cancelled early. The F-4 Phantom was a US Navy program, it just turned to be way better than anything the USAF could put up. Ironically enough including its weapons (Sidewinders+Sparrows).
Kinda harsh calling the F 105 ill-fated. It was an excellent aircraft, just used in ways its designers, or the Air Force never intended. It was supposed to be a fast nuclear bomb truck, not a ground pounding tactical bomber. For all that, it did amazingly well. It showed almost unbeatable speed at low altitudes, due to its engine and excellent aerodynamics amd that saved alot of Thud driver lives.
In all fairness to the F-105, it wasn’t designed to be used as it was in Vietnam. “…aircraft was intended primarily for supersonic, low altitude penetration to deliver a single, internally carried nuclear bomb. The emphasis was placed on low-altitude speed and flight characteristics, range, and payload. The aircraft would be fitted with a large engine, and a relatively small wing with a high wing loading for a stable ride at low altitudes, and less drag at supersonic speeds. Traditional fighter attributes such as maneuverability were a secondary consideration.” It was designed to fight Cold War opponents, primarily the USSR, in a nuclear exchange, not subsonic carpet bombing a jungle or dog fight Migs.
Further possible problems: - Heavy landing gear needed considering the weight and landing impact, if landing is a bit harder - stability during landing with 3 landing fans in one line. In one line? This can roll or not ? - Payload is just one bomb. Are there successful planes with such a low payload? F117 with two conventional bombs is the only one I can think of. - Expensive! Since engines are expensive and this plane has 6. And the the linkage to the fans was probably uncharted teritory too. So lots of development cost.
Tbf these kind of bombers with single bomb loadouts were usually made to carry nukes at supersonic speeds. Same as an F-105 for example, it had an internal bay for a single nuclear bomb. IIRC in Vietnam they just put a fuel tank into the internal bay and carried a ton of bombs on pylons instead.
6x the maintenance costs of an F16 or F35 because it has 6x the engines. And you can only fly it around when all six engines are working at the same time. So assume about 6x as much time in "mission unavailable" state in the maintenance queue. What good is a super fighter if it won't be ready to fly until the day after the war?
@@guaposneeze Those engines are really small- they’re actually the same as the original Learjet engines (J85 military/CJ-610 civilian). In general, Jet engines are actually fairly low maintenance items- it’s the rest of the airframe that keeps you busy. Here’s the real problem- The weight of this aircraft would have been about 38,000 lb (17,237 kg) with its engines generating 14,400 lb (6,532 kg) of thrust. For a VTOL aircraft, that’s not good numbers. Harrier’s and F-35B’s (STOVL) use single engines. Even back then, there were already engines in use that were more powerful than all 6 of these J85’s combined but their approach was to use many smaller engines instead of one big engine. The Bell D-188 would have used EIGHT of these J85 engines. You can look it up- that thing had engines all over the place… Early Harriers had A LOT of mishaps- it has taken a long while and many $ and £ to make this concept usable for combat aircraft. The Harrier jet is one of the most accident-prone aircraft in aviation history. By 2002, the Marine Corps lost more than one-third of its Harriers (and 45 pilots) to accidents… earning it the nickname “The Widow-Maker.” The LA Times called it the most dangerous aircraft to operate in the US military. The French had a design (the Dassault Balzac V) that killed 2 test pilots in a row… they gave up on it. It had NINE engines… Most people have no idea how dangerous and expensive VTOL flight has been for fighter jets. They make helicopters look really,really safe.
For roll control in the hover it would likely have used bleed air jets on the wingtips a la the Harrier, which has proven to work well. I assume the lift fans are driven by bleed air from the engine compressors as well? Or my mechanical linkage like the F-35B? Either way that would be a huge engineering challenge. One thing we've learned from decades of Harrier experience is that when things fail in a hover you have no time to decide what to do: you eject immediately and write off a very expensive aircraft, possibly loaded with a nuke. And with 6 early 60s technology jet engines, you're going to experience a lot of flameouts in day to day ops.
Yet another weird aircraft to add my list, which I plan to compile every one of these things for some future project. Looks like something I'd make in KSP.
McNamara = "Mac Na MARA" not "Mac-Na-Ma-Ra"....... but Yes, he did a LOT of military budget cuts!!! Overall, an interesting video, Never seen this type of a-c before.
His CG ability is far greater than his command of the English language; he has weird pronounce in every video. I suppose we can't have everything, can we?
I love profiles on plane concepts I've never heard of. Especially early VTOL adaptations. Really interesting they tried to equip a fighter with nuclear capabilities.
Fantastic video. Never knew about this jet. Right away, I saw a flaw; the pilot needs to monitor not one, not two but 10 engines. There is not enough room for 10 analog engine gauges. Think B-52 cockpit and flight engineer station. Secondly, with 10 engines a fuel capacity of 30,000 lbs is needed... no room for this much gas. Thank you for video!
This is the best video you've ever made. I feel this really lives up to your potential. This has the best script, the best animation and it acknowledges failures. Great job!
The F-105 was a great airplane for what it was designed for and pilots loved it. The "thud" nickname is simply a shortened version of its official name "thunderchief", not meant in any derogatory manor but you'd know that with a simple google search.... Also, mc-nam-ra? Its obvious you aren't researching pronunciation but thats apparent in EVERY video.
I believe name "Thud" came from the first time the aircraft tested its' gun in flight. A spent 20mm case got caught in the nose landing wheel bay jamming the mechanism and forcing the plane to do a belly landing on a dry lakebed very early in testing. So the F-105 was the "Thud" even in testing.
Requesting videos on the following: -switchblade aircraft designs such as the FA-37 Talon from the ‘05 movie “Stealth” or the X-02 Wyvern from the Ace Combat franchise (the concept, not the actual fighters I mentioned) -Super Tomcat-21 and ASF-14 -the NATF program as a whole -early ATF proposals -Sea Apache -F-20 Tigershark -Bae SABA -Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Bomber proposal -Northrop’s proposal for what would become the F-117 Nighthawk -Interstate TDR -JSF proposals OTHER THAN the X-32 and X-35 -XFV-12 -Gloster Meteor -the proposals that didn’t win the F-X program that spawned the F-15 Eagle -Erado E.555
Good vid. However the main purpose of the swept wings on the F-111 was not to aid in fitting on an aircraft carrier, that if anything was a side benefit. There was a lot of interest in sweat wings at the time. They promised a great blend of efficient high speed operation, and great slower speed operation. Hence, we saw swept wings on things that were never intended for naval operations, such as the British Tornado, and the Boeing, SST.
Wild machine! can't figure out how the lift fan would have worked, was it similar to the F-35? The Rockwell XFV-12 was a VTOL aricraft with a similar aim, but never worked properly. Might be worth a video.
From the size, it's more likely it's like a large electric fan, doesn't even look like they considered driving these fans though a shaft like the F-35 did. Soviets stick small jet engines for Yak-38 and Yak-141 instead
Tbf the F-35 isnt a VTOL aircraft, not even the B-version. STOVL, so needs to take off with short runway, and can only land when fuel is near zero and no payload. I dont think there was ever a viable "VTOL" jet driven aircraft. A harrier can technically VTOL, but also only with very light load, so vertical takeoff is useless in combat. Tilt-rotors/helicopters are the only things who ever could lift off verticaly with combat loads.
Robert Mac-nuh-mar-ah I think it would have been a perfect fit alongside the B-70 Valkyrie and F-108 Rapier... warriors from a timeline that never quite happened.
The little J-85 engine had the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any afterburning jet engine of its era, which contributed to the success of the Nothrop F-5 series. My guess is that its high thrust-to-weight ratio had something to do with its selection for the Republic AP-100 project.
Very cool history! I really appreciate the note at the end regarding the A-10. I really enjoy the 3D modeling and animations! It is cool to see these concepts in 3D space! Please reduce the amount of screen shake/head bob effect, it is about 50% too much and can be disorienting/distracting. Please keep up the awesome videos!!!!
Even with six engines from an F-5, I don't think it would have enough thrust. Those are rated around 4650 lbs (installed) with afterburner. An F-35's engine puts out 43,000 lbs of thrust, or 9.24 F-5 engines. They didn't exist at the time of course, but it would be interesting to use two 43K lbs engines instead. It would haul much ass.
Lack of thrust becomes a problem only due to aircraft weight, with 26k lbs assuming a Turbojet engine configuration and very light aircraft it's possible to reach mach 2, the F-5e did it with only two The 35 won't reach mach 2 not cause of lack of thrust, but cause it uses a Turbofan which has very bad efficiency and incures in huge power losses when approaching speeds higher that those it was designed for
@@hideakibanno7540 that is not really true. The weight of a aircraft matters mostly at relativly low speed, when speed increase parasitic drag become more of a problem than induced drag. There is also a scale effect. A larger aircraft with everything the else the same will have longer range. That is why concorde is pretty much the only aircraft that can cross the Atlantic supersonic. The top speed is not directly effected by the bypass ratio. For example J37 viggen have a bypass ratio of almost 1:1, still the top speed is over mach 2. The reason F35 have a lower top speed is due to much higher compression pressure. This increases fuel efficency but make to top speed lower. But that is also what allows F35 to super cruise and have a fairly long supersonic range
As far as I know, The high attriition rate of the F-105 Thunderchief was more related to the high risk level of their combat missions type than due to specific design flaws or quality faults! Maybe I'm wrong, but this would be the first time I hear the opposite, In fact, I've heard from pilots they loved its capacity of acceleration once its load had been released, its range and endurance and even though not being a dogfighter, its ability to struggle and win in air-to-air combart.
F-105, despite the F, was in fact a bomber. It's bomb load was greater than a fully loaded B-17, including the latter's crew. Thud was short for Thunderchief. Also, being a bomber, it wasn't as nimble as the MiG-17 and 21. I think it was intended as a tactical nuclear bomber.
It worth saying that the engines was tiny. To get into perspective. Ita the same engine used on saab 105, a smal relativly low speed jet trainer that was really light. And it had two of them.
The bomb in the tail wasn't as big an issue when you consider the entire mission. Fuel in the forward fuselage tank would have been burned down to at least partially offset the dropped bomb load. So in theory, it's possible the balance at takeoff would have been similar to the balance at landing. Center of lift tends to shift back on many aircraft as they go supersonic, so it's not unusual to see jets that pump fuel around to assist with "trim" issues. Bottom line, this seems to be an aircraft with a very narrow and expensive mission profile. But in its defense, the concept of a tactical nuke fighter-bomber was common in the 50s and 60s, due to how funding was allocated to the military. Many aircraft of the era (including the F105) were hobbled by the need for an internal bomb bay to carry a small nuke. Thanks for once again for sharing an aircraft concept I never heard of before!
I would take all the good elements from this craft and progress it . The delta wing design is phenomenal , at a quick glance on the red mockup, it reminds me of the Drakken, one of the most famous planes of that era . I see where the 6 comes in but each has a different purpose. Again it's just for me and I would ditch the Vertical liftoff system for more space . As in cargo
I'm not too certain on the effectiveness of nuclear weapons on fleets. Op Crossroads seems to indicate that unless you either hit really darn close or underneath a ship it would probably be somewhat alright.
00:41 The "air flowing through lift fans" effect looks like it's opening a wormhole ! LoL Australia got the F1/11 out of this project, so we were really happy 👍😆
I see the engine layout being much simplified, just two engines today and still keep the VTOL capability. Today it would be made a stealth fighter, but if you wanted to keep costs down to 4Th gen levels, New 4th fighters would be massively more affordable, and you would be much freer to make it FAST. So as a replacement for the F-15 as a flying gun truck able to deliver specialty ordinance very quickly on a Stealth fighter's cue.Likely on the simplified engines setup, you could have foldable wings if not variable wing geometry without impacting fuel loads. Also no Nukes. You do not need for a specialized design for a fighter to carry nukes just strap on a nuclear tipped cruise missile.
The assesment of the F-105 is way off. It did what it was designed to do but was very poorly used by the American 'leadership'. In some cases criminally badly used.
The AP100 looks awesome, like a mini XB-70 with VTOL. Crazy thinking though since Vertical take-off would completely screw the range due to the huge amount of fuel required just to get into the air. It’s a pity they didn’t realize STOL is a much better compromise.
This is like some plane you'd see at the end of an Ace Combat game being flown by a legendary war hero who's been missing for over twenty years in order to save the world.
This plane seems remarkably similar to the later Fairchild-Republic AFTI, with very little in the way of wings, instead relying on a lifting body, which appears to also be the case in the AP100, but wasn't mentioned.
The nose looks just like a B-1 bomber. Nice. Maybe some family problems at home explains the rest of the fuselage. Glad they stayed in the field to succeed with the A-10.
This plane looks incredible. Sort of like the lovechild of an A-5 Vigilante and an XB-70 Valkyrie. Unfortunate that once again, coolness gets kicked in the balls by practicality and the laws of physics.
The F-111 is my favourite aircraft and the D-24 one of my favourite concept aircraft so it's pretty interesting to see a design so intertwined with the 2 programs. Also would love to see a video about the Republic-Fokker D-24 Alliance sometime. VTOL, variable geometry delta wings; that thing is complete insanity.
US Navy aircraft regularly and often operated with nuclear weapons from carrier decks from at least the early 1960s. That included takeoff and landings and in rough weather.
Take out the VTOL and fill the space with fuel, sensors, and weapons storage and that thing would have been a monster. Imagine having 6 in afterburner at treetop level packing 500 pounders and rockeye's or ARMS and rockeye's
I wonder, did this design have a kitchen sink too? The design looks like it was drawn by a 9 year old who was a fan of the kids show ‘Super car’ But it was Robert McNamara brilliant idea to make a plane that would be used by both the USAF and the Navy…. Only that didn’t quite work out, but it did end up with 2 great planes, the F111 for the USAF and for those who had a need for speed the F14 Tomcat for the US Navy… And the rest was aviation history!
I think the biggest ''weakness''( if one can call it as such) of the F-105 was that it was a plane thrown into a conflict it was not designed for. Not so much a flaw of the plane per se.
The DoD made all the defense contractors fight it out in a sort of dog-eat-dog kind of environment. Each competition was high-stakes and required enormous amounts of capital to compete. It didn't help that some competitions had contradictory requirements and breathtaking stretch goals. The DoD tried to manage the mess by forcing weakened companies to merge. What it ended up doing was making a few companies big and killing off smaller and perhaps more innovative firms. Regarding this plane, it was the product of conflicting requirements and Republic bled itself trying to make it work.
Obviously this wouldn't solve its other problems, but a few years later when more powerful jet engines would have allowed a reduction from 6x to 2x without sacrificing total thrust, it would have at least made additional room internally for fuel *or* alternatively allowed for the aircraft to be narrowed.
The AP-100 puts me in mind of the legendary "perfect battleship" that could outgun, outrun, and outlast any other ship at sea ... and sank the moment it was launched because it carried too much damn stuff to actually float.
what is the name of this ship you have in mind
@@RedComet777-sl8psi think hes talking about the KMS Bismarck?
@@Pgb622 im not so sure, the Bismarck actually performed pretty well
@@RedComet777-sl8ps She's never given a name.
@@maxmachac9756 cough cough getting torpedoes easily cough cough (lol what am i doing)
A note on the F-105. The nickname "Thud" had its fair share of fans among the F-105's pilots and ground crew. At the end of the day, the F-105 was just the wrong type of aircraft for the air war in Vietnam.
When the people in charge won't let pilots actually use their war aircraft, it doesn't matter what aircraft you have, results will be the same.
The "Thud" was a good plane for it's time and purpose, it was NOT an F4 which "supposedly" replaced the F105 (but didn't, and was never (originally) intended to)... All the the F105 needed was air support and guidance, which sadly for many came too late... Note: The F105 dropped more bombs on target in the Vietnam war than any other plane, clearly not a failure, it also had the highest "availability time" of any US plane during that conflict. "Availability time" is literally the time in a 24h period in which a plane is "available" to fly, the F105 topped the charts during the Vietnam war, i.e. they had high reliability, and low maintenance.!!! the F105 is an excellent, and IMHO highly underrated plane.
Yeah they needed the a10 not an unarmored paper airplane.
@@ADB-zf5zr I dont thinkg it was reliable, didnt the F-105 als had a pretty bad accident rate, IIRC it was one of the least reliable american jets? Thats part of why its got cancelled early.
The F-4 Phantom was a US Navy program, it just turned to be way better than anything the USAF could put up. Ironically enough including its weapons (Sidewinders+Sparrows).
@@scottmoore6131 the A-10 didn't have the range or speed for that. What was needed was the F-111.
Kinda harsh calling the F 105 ill-fated. It was an excellent aircraft, just used in ways its designers, or the Air Force never intended. It was supposed to be a fast nuclear bomb truck, not a ground pounding tactical bomber. For all that, it did amazingly well. It showed almost unbeatable speed at low altitudes, due to its engine and excellent aerodynamics amd that saved alot of Thud driver lives.
In all fairness to the F-105, it wasn’t designed to be used as it was in Vietnam. “…aircraft was intended primarily for supersonic, low altitude penetration to deliver a single, internally carried nuclear bomb. The emphasis was placed on low-altitude speed and flight characteristics, range, and payload. The aircraft would be fitted with a large engine, and a relatively small wing with a high wing loading for a stable ride at low altitudes, and less drag at supersonic speeds. Traditional fighter attributes such as maneuverability were a secondary consideration.” It was designed to fight Cold War opponents, primarily the USSR, in a nuclear exchange, not subsonic carpet bombing a jungle or dog fight Migs.
Further possible problems:
- Heavy landing gear needed considering the weight and landing impact, if landing is a bit harder
- stability during landing with 3 landing fans in one line. In one line? This can roll or not ?
- Payload is just one bomb. Are there successful planes with such a low payload? F117 with two conventional bombs is the only one I can think of.
- Expensive! Since engines are expensive and this plane has 6. And the the linkage to the fans was probably uncharted teritory too. So lots of development cost.
Tbf these kind of bombers with single bomb loadouts were usually made to carry nukes at supersonic speeds.
Same as an F-105 for example, it had an internal bay for a single nuclear bomb. IIRC in Vietnam they just put a fuel tank into the internal bay and carried a ton of bombs on pylons instead.
6x the maintenance costs of an F16 or F35 because it has 6x the engines.
And you can only fly it around when all six engines are working at the same time. So assume about 6x as much time in "mission unavailable" state in the maintenance queue. What good is a super fighter if it won't be ready to fly until the day after the war?
@@guaposneeze
Those engines are really small-
they’re actually the same as the original Learjet engines
(J85 military/CJ-610 civilian).
In general,
Jet engines are actually fairly low maintenance items-
it’s the rest of the airframe that keeps you busy.
Here’s the real problem-
The weight of this aircraft would have been about 38,000 lb (17,237 kg) with its engines generating 14,400 lb (6,532 kg) of thrust.
For a VTOL aircraft,
that’s not good numbers.
Harrier’s and F-35B’s (STOVL) use single engines.
Even back then,
there were already engines in use that were more powerful than
all 6 of these J85’s combined but their approach was to use many smaller engines instead of one big engine.
The Bell D-188 would have used EIGHT of these J85 engines.
You can look it up-
that thing had engines all over the place…
Early Harriers had A LOT
of mishaps-
it has taken a long while and many $ and £ to make this concept usable for combat aircraft.
The Harrier jet is one of the most accident-prone aircraft in aviation history.
By 2002,
the Marine Corps lost more than one-third of its Harriers (and 45 pilots)
to accidents…
earning it the nickname “The Widow-Maker.”
The LA Times called it the most dangerous aircraft to operate in the US military.
The French had a design
(the Dassault Balzac V)
that killed 2 test pilots in a row…
they gave up on it.
It had NINE engines…
Most people have no idea how dangerous and expensive VTOL flight has been for fighter jets.
They make helicopters look really,really safe.
For roll control in the hover it would likely have used bleed air jets on the wingtips a la the Harrier, which has proven to work well. I assume the lift fans are driven by bleed air from the engine compressors as well? Or my mechanical linkage like the F-35B? Either way that would be a huge engineering challenge. One thing we've learned from decades of Harrier experience is that when things fail in a hover you have no time to decide what to do: you eject immediately and write off a very expensive aircraft, possibly loaded with a nuke. And with 6 early 60s technology jet engines, you're going to experience a lot of flameouts in day to day ops.
@@termitreter6545well, in that case it would've been dead in the water anyways as the preferred mode of nuclear delivery switched to icbms.
Yet another weird aircraft to add my list, which I plan to compile every one of these things for some future project. Looks like something I'd make in KSP.
And to make in trailmakers.
Make it in the game called “flyout” it’s a very good aviation game
What's KSP?
@@qsfrankfurt9513Kerbal Space Program, look it up :)
@@gonuhi if we could even play lol
McNamara = "Mac Na MARA" not "Mac-Na-Ma-Ra"....... but Yes, he did a LOT of military budget cuts!!!
Overall, an interesting video, Never seen this type of a-c before.
fun fact, he worked at Ford
Yeah it's only because he spelled it with two M's: "McNammara" so I understand the mistake.
The thing is, he really struggled to mispronounce his name.
His CG ability is far greater than his command of the English language; he has weird pronounce in every video.
I suppose we can't have everything, can we?
I see enough mispronunciation I think maybe it’s just a cheap trick to get comments and engagement numbers up.
I love profiles on plane concepts I've never heard of. Especially early VTOL adaptations. Really interesting they tried to equip a fighter with nuclear capabilities.
Fantastic video. Never knew about this jet. Right away, I saw a flaw; the pilot needs to monitor not one, not two but 10 engines. There is not enough room for 10 analog engine gauges. Think B-52 cockpit and flight engineer station. Secondly, with 10 engines a fuel capacity of 30,000 lbs is needed... no room for this much gas. Thank you for video!
That's a plane you'd typically see in an Ace Combat Game... Absolutely fantastic!
"Ex-Russian Aircraft designers"
Honestly, unless your name is Igor Sikorsky, I'd rather live than die in one of your contraptions.
Would make for a great cold war super plane.
@@mill2712 Would have been perfect for the C&C Red Alert series
Mobius one just crashed!
Freaking ThunderBird design
This guy’s team is on a grind. I’ve never seen this many videos so frequently before.
The artwork of ground crew and such was very well done!
Would love to see a video on the f-105. Underrated and often misunderstood aircraft.
This is the best video you've ever made. I feel this really lives up to your potential. This has the best script, the best animation and it acknowledges failures. Great job!
The F-105 was a great airplane for what it was designed for and pilots loved it. The "thud" nickname is simply a shortened version of its official name "thunderchief", not meant in any derogatory manor but you'd know that with a simple google search.... Also, mc-nam-ra? Its obvious you aren't researching pronunciation but thats apparent in EVERY video.
Great comments. Too bad you support that nation you have in your profile picture. You have been lied to by our media.
I believe name "Thud" came from the first time the aircraft tested its' gun in flight. A spent 20mm case got caught in the nose landing wheel bay jamming the mechanism and forcing the plane to do a belly landing on a dry lakebed very early in testing. So the F-105 was the "Thud" even in testing.
According to F-105 pilots and crews, the "Thud" nickname was inspired by the character "Chief Thunderthud" from the Howdy Doody television series.
Requesting videos on the following:
-switchblade aircraft designs such as the FA-37 Talon from the ‘05 movie “Stealth” or the X-02 Wyvern from the Ace Combat franchise (the concept, not the actual fighters I mentioned)
-Super Tomcat-21 and ASF-14
-the NATF program as a whole
-early ATF proposals
-Sea Apache
-F-20 Tigershark
-Bae SABA
-Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Bomber proposal
-Northrop’s proposal for what would become the F-117 Nighthawk
-Interstate TDR
-JSF proposals OTHER THAN the X-32 and X-35
-XFV-12
-Gloster Meteor
-the proposals that didn’t win the F-X program that spawned the F-15 Eagle
-Erado E.555
Love the art work in these latest videos. ❤
Glad you like them!
Good vid. However the main purpose of the swept wings on the F-111 was not to aid in fitting on an aircraft carrier, that if anything was a side benefit. There was a lot of interest in sweat wings at the time. They promised a great blend of efficient high speed operation, and great slower speed operation. Hence, we saw swept wings on things that were never intended for naval operations, such as the British Tornado, and the Boeing, SST.
naval operations is not even the real reason, it’s due to the supersonic flight stability: swept wings fly faster and more stable than straight wing
Mac-NA-MAR-UH 😂
I love foreign pronunciations, they always put a smile on my face 😜
Wild machine! can't figure out how the lift fan would have worked, was it similar to the F-35?
The Rockwell XFV-12 was a VTOL aricraft with a similar aim, but never worked properly. Might be worth a video.
From the size, it's more likely it's like a large electric fan, doesn't even look like they considered driving these fans though a shaft like the F-35 did.
Soviets stick small jet engines for Yak-38 and Yak-141 instead
Tbf the F-35 isnt a VTOL aircraft, not even the B-version. STOVL, so needs to take off with short runway, and can only land when fuel is near zero and no payload.
I dont think there was ever a viable "VTOL" jet driven aircraft. A harrier can technically VTOL, but also only with very light load, so vertical takeoff is useless in combat. Tilt-rotors/helicopters are the only things who ever could lift off verticaly with combat loads.
Robert Mac-nuh-mar-ah
I think it would have been a perfect fit alongside the B-70 Valkyrie and F-108 Rapier... warriors from a timeline that never quite happened.
The little J-85 engine had the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any afterburning jet engine of its era, which contributed to the success of the Nothrop F-5 series. My guess is that its high thrust-to-weight ratio had something to do with its selection for the Republic AP-100 project.
Very cool history! I really appreciate the note at the end regarding the A-10. I really enjoy the 3D modeling and animations! It is cool to see these concepts in 3D space! Please reduce the amount of screen shake/head bob effect, it is about 50% too much and can be disorienting/distracting. Please keep up the awesome videos!!!!
Gotta love how many cold war scenarios were, "What the heck, we'll just drop some nukes on 'em."
Even with six engines from an F-5, I don't think it would have enough thrust. Those are rated around 4650 lbs (installed) with afterburner. An F-35's engine puts out 43,000 lbs of thrust, or 9.24 F-5 engines. They didn't exist at the time of course, but it would be interesting to use two 43K lbs engines instead. It would haul much ass.
I think at that point we would see diminishing returns. The speed would be more limited by the wing and lifting body geometry regardless of thrust.
Yea, it makes no sense having that tiny engine. Why not have 2 normal size engines in steed.
Lack of thrust becomes a problem only due to aircraft weight, with 26k lbs assuming a Turbojet engine configuration and very light aircraft it's possible to reach mach 2, the F-5e did it with only two
The 35 won't reach mach 2 not cause of lack of thrust, but cause it uses a Turbofan which has very bad efficiency and incures in huge power losses when approaching speeds higher that those it was designed for
@@hideakibanno7540 that is not really true. The weight of a aircraft matters mostly at relativly low speed, when speed increase parasitic drag become more of a problem than induced drag.
There is also a scale effect. A larger aircraft with everything the else the same will have longer range. That is why concorde is pretty much the only aircraft that can cross the Atlantic supersonic.
The top speed is not directly effected by the bypass ratio. For example J37 viggen have a bypass ratio of almost 1:1, still the top speed is over mach 2.
The reason F35 have a lower top speed is due to much higher compression pressure. This increases fuel efficency but make to top speed lower. But that is also what allows F35 to super cruise and have a fairly long supersonic range
@@matsv201 You literally agreed with me with all of what i said though?
I like the new logo on the thumbnail, the yellow is more subtle but still has good powerful impact. Good work!
This for sure had the vicious cycle of:
Too heavy!! -> add more engines -> needs more fuel tanks -> makes it heavier -> add MORE ENGINES.
I love these! What a great 2am gift!
The moment I saw six engines I thought, "That's a fighter version of the XB-70 Valkyrie."
This would make a neat RC model subject.
It's such a cool looking plane. It looks like it's been pulled out of an episode of Gerry Andersons Thunderbirds. 👍
As far as I know, The high attriition rate of the F-105 Thunderchief was more related to the high risk level of their combat missions type than due to specific design flaws or quality faults! Maybe I'm wrong, but this would be the first time I hear the opposite, In fact, I've heard from pilots they loved its capacity of acceleration once its load had been released, its range and endurance and even though not being a dogfighter, its ability to struggle and win in air-to-air combart.
F-105, despite the F, was in fact a bomber. It's bomb load was greater than a fully loaded B-17, including the latter's crew. Thud was short for Thunderchief. Also, being a bomber, it wasn't as nimble as the MiG-17 and 21. I think it was intended as a tactical nuclear bomber.
It worth saying that the engines was tiny. To get into perspective. Ita the same engine used on saab 105, a smal relativly low speed jet trainer that was really light.
And it had two of them.
7:09 what program do you use? Does it not have sidewinders?
The bomb in the tail wasn't as big an issue when you consider the entire mission. Fuel in the forward fuselage tank would have been burned down to at least partially offset the dropped bomb load. So in theory, it's possible the balance at takeoff would have been similar to the balance at landing. Center of lift tends to shift back on many aircraft as they go supersonic, so it's not unusual to see jets that pump fuel around to assist with "trim" issues. Bottom line, this seems to be an aircraft with a very narrow and expensive mission profile. But in its defense, the concept of a tactical nuke fighter-bomber was common in the 50s and 60s, due to how funding was allocated to the military. Many aircraft of the era (including the F105) were hobbled by the need for an internal bomb bay to carry a small nuke.
Thanks for once again for sharing an aircraft concept I never heard of before!
Well, with six engines and a weapons bay large enough to hold a Nuke, It probably ran out of fuel at the end of the runway.
I cant get over how it looked like a flying rectangle with stubs for wings
I would take all the good elements from this craft and progress it . The delta wing design is phenomenal , at a quick glance on the red mockup, it reminds me of the Drakken, one of the most famous planes of that era . I see where the 6 comes in but each has a different purpose. Again it's just for me and I would ditch the Vertical liftoff system for more space . As in cargo
Capt. Rick Rolland would never give us up.
He would never let us down
@@5RoastedPotatoes He would never run around and desert you
capt. Rick rolland would never let you down
He would never blow us up or explode us
Based, the kinda aircraft we would also like to design
I'm not too certain on the effectiveness of nuclear weapons on fleets. Op Crossroads seems to indicate that unless you either hit really darn close or underneath a ship it would probably be somewhat alright.
I suppose a directed energy weapon would be good. (X-ray) for example. A bomb pumped laser for example.
Yeah, but crews would be "toast" - literally!
The North American A-5 Vigilante has a lot of similarities. I wonder if there's any connection?
Neat video, I'd never heard of this plane before
Thank you for pronouncing the accountant's name as you do. Never stop.😊
Your graphics are stunning and I think should be award winning.
The F105 was like sending a surgeon to do a job as a janitor.
Is there a model of this thing around somewhere? Looks amazing!
I like the look of it. Your rendering is amazing!
00:41 The "air flowing through lift fans" effect looks like it's opening a wormhole ! LoL
Australia got the F1/11 out of this project, so we were really happy 👍😆
Awesome story telling i know alot about military equipment but i didn't know Republics historical contributions.
Since you touched on the F-111 briefly, maybe a video could be made about the failed attempt to get the F-111B in service by the US Navy.
If I recall correctly, Thud did pretty well in terms of low-level recon. Damaged more from "bird strikes" than from fire.
I see the engine layout being much simplified, just two engines today and still keep the VTOL capability. Today it would be made a stealth fighter, but if you wanted to keep costs down to 4Th gen levels, New 4th fighters would be massively more affordable, and you would be much freer to make it FAST. So as a replacement for the F-15 as a flying gun truck able to deliver specialty ordinance very quickly on a Stealth fighter's cue.Likely on the simplified engines setup, you could have foldable wings if not variable wing geometry without impacting fuel loads.
Also no Nukes. You do not need for a specialized design for a fighter to carry nukes just strap on a nuclear tipped cruise missile.
The assesment of the F-105 is way off. It did what it was designed to do but was very poorly used by the American 'leadership'. In some cases criminally badly used.
what a beauty, reminds me of something from the classic Wing Commander games
Wow what an amazing jet😮
Id love to see one first hand, had it ever materialized. Great presentation!
Weird, that aircraft doesnt look like the YF-23 black widow
I feel like this plane was the inspiration of the Morningstar fighter from those old Wing Commander games
The AP100 looks awesome, like a mini XB-70 with VTOL. Crazy thinking though since Vertical take-off would completely screw the range due to the huge amount of fuel required just to get into the air. It’s a pity they didn’t realize STOL is a much better compromise.
It couldn't matter less, but for future reference: Robert McNamara's surname is pronounced "Mac-NAH-mare-uh"
they went full Kerbal build mode with this one.
It looks like the aircraft version of the DeLorean time machine.
This plane looks like something a teenager would drawn on his copybook while not paying attention to the class, Republic was goofing around.
This is like some plane you'd see at the end of an Ace Combat game being flown by a legendary war hero who's been missing for over twenty years in order to save the world.
This plane seems remarkably similar to the later Fairchild-Republic AFTI, with very little in the way of wings, instead relying on a lifting body, which appears to also be the case in the AP100, but wasn't mentioned.
Man I love this content keep it up
I work for Alexander’s nephew in Central Florida. They still have a lot of family by the home in NY.
I have to admit that my secret kink is to hear Sukhoi said the right way
The nose looks just like a B-1 bomber. Nice. Maybe some family problems at home explains the rest of the fuselage. Glad they stayed in the field to succeed with the A-10.
So the Cosmo Tiger 2 from Space Battleship Yamato.
Imagine kids in the 2080's watching a documentary on today's hypersonic competition between the different countries, makes you feel old 😨
6:58 I would like to meet the pilot.
Love that Republic A-10 Warthog
"When the air force has unlimited budget they made this"
It's getting... *tense* in here
This plane looks incredible. Sort of like the lovechild of an A-5 Vigilante and an XB-70 Valkyrie. Unfortunate that once again, coolness gets kicked in the balls by practicality and the laws of physics.
The F-111 is my favourite aircraft and the D-24 one of my favourite concept aircraft so it's pretty interesting to see a design so intertwined with the 2 programs. Also would love to see a video about the Republic-Fokker D-24 Alliance sometime. VTOL, variable geometry delta wings; that thing is complete insanity.
US Navy aircraft regularly and often operated with nuclear weapons from carrier decks from at least the early 1960s. That included takeoff and landings and in rough weather.
Take out the VTOL and fill the space with fuel, sensors, and weapons storage and that thing would have been a monster. Imagine having 6 in afterburner at treetop level packing 500 pounders and rockeye's or ARMS and rockeye's
6 engines and 3 Vtol compartments... maintenance would've been hell.
I wonder, did this design have a kitchen sink too?
The design looks like it was drawn by a 9 year old who was a fan of the kids show ‘Super car’
But it was Robert McNamara brilliant idea to make a plane that would be used by both the USAF and the Navy….
Only that didn’t quite work out, but it did end up with 2 great planes, the F111 for the USAF and for those who had a need for speed the F14 Tomcat for the US Navy…
And the rest was aviation history!
Oh man this guy has turned mispronunciation into an art
I think the biggest ''weakness''( if one can call it as such) of the F-105 was that it was a plane thrown into a conflict it was not designed for. Not so much a flaw of the plane per se.
The DoD made all the defense contractors fight it out in a sort of dog-eat-dog kind of environment. Each competition was high-stakes and required enormous amounts of capital to compete. It didn't help that some competitions had contradictory requirements and breathtaking stretch goals. The DoD tried to manage the mess by forcing weakened companies to merge. What it ended up doing was making a few companies big and killing off smaller and perhaps more innovative firms. Regarding this plane, it was the product of conflicting requirements and Republic bled itself trying to make it work.
What we really need is a full accounting and explanation of Bob McNamara’s super-greased hairdo.
As a Georgian I'm really proud of Alexander Kartveli (His last name also means "Georgian"), . Little known fact, he was a big proponent of Scramjets.
What's with the crank on the 105 tail?
The f 105 was a great jet
Love the videos, keep it up! Robert McNamara's name is pronounced MACK-neh-MARE-ah
This is the core block fighter from Gundam. You can't convince me otherwise.
Albert Weinberg's graphic novel --> Dan Cooper: Les hommes aux ailes d'or ?
It’s basically a Fighter version of the XB-70
Great work sir respect 🙏 I love your content 😊the animation was amazing 👏
The F105 was excellent at it's designed mission. It never flew it's designed mission.
You monster how dare you Rickroll us like that!
Obviously this wouldn't solve its other problems, but a few years later when more powerful jet engines would have allowed a reduction from 6x to 2x without sacrificing total thrust, it would have at least made additional room internally for fuel *or* alternatively allowed for the aircraft to be narrowed.
Ryan XV-5 vertifan, I think that would be a nice plane to look at
Mate, can you make a video about the Saab Gripen? It is such an under-appreciated fighter that needs some love
7:04 “captain Rick Rolland” hahahahah got Rick Rolled !!!!