Maximilian_Jenius
Super User
Did they suffer the same number of loses that the Thunderchief did? Gonna say no. Because I've never heard anything like that before.
Thud Pilots
- Thread starter MikeD
- Start date
Did they suffer the same number of loses that the Thunderchief did? Gonna say no. Because I've never heard anything like that before.
A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
US Navy F-4s downed 40 enemy aircraft to a loss of 5 of their own. An additional 66 were lost to missiles and ground fire. USMC F-4s claimed 3 kills while losing 75 aircraft, mostly to ground fire. The USAF lost a total of 528 F-4s (of all types) to enemy action with the majority being down by anti-aircraft fire or surface-to-air missiles. In exchange, USAF F-4s downed 108 enemy aircraft. The five aviators (2 US Navy, 3 USAF) credited with Ace status during the Vietnam War, all flew the F-4.
We lost a staggering amount of planes and choppers in Vietnam.
Interestingly enough, Brigadier General Robin Olds who was already a Triple Ace from WWII, shot down 4 MiGs in Nam and was told that if he downed a fifth MiG, and become an Ace over Vietnam, he would be relieved of command and brought home to conduct publicity events for the Air Force. He chose to stay with his command/men and fight. He eventually earned the Air Force Cross for his efforts in Nam.
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Lawman
Well-Known Member
No, but different kinds of mission sets. They aren’t really comparable in a loss for loss kind of comparison.
Phantoms dropping bombs wasn’t a new idea as far as taking fighters and using them as opportunity tails for the attack mission with the addition of some air to ground weapons. We’d been doing that since WWII. Most of those missions were things like Close Air Support or tactical interdiction missions largely against undefended targets in the field.
The problem was the 105 was being assigned to attack targets because they were the best for the job with what we had. Some of those targets were some of the most heavily defended and the 105s due to technology of the time were going into the teeth of it like Thanh Hóa Bridge.
Ironically... Thanh Hóa Bridge was taken out after a series of losses by a flight of F-4s dropping revolutionary laser guided bombs from altitudes that made them immune to the AAA that had stacked up so many losses of 105 and other types before hand. Later A-7s would perform a follow up strike using the same weapons and tactics.
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chrisreedrules
Master Blaster
“Thud Ridge” by Jack Braughton is an excellent memoir about the F-105D pilots and their missions over the North. Up there with Robin Olds’ personal memoir in my opinion.
chrisreedrules
Master Blaster
Just a point of contention... The USMC can only lay claim to a single aerial victory of the Vietnam War.
September 11th, 1972 an F-4J from VMFA-333 “Fighting Shamrocks” shot down a MiG-21 over Hanoi and was itself subsequently shot down by a SAM. Great account of that action from the RIO of one of the F-4s in the flight that day:
F-4 Mission Over Hanoi [Archive] - Marine Corps - USMC Community
2 other USMC pilots can indeed lay claim to MiG kills over Vietnam but they were on exchange with the USAF at the time.
chrisreedrules
Master Blaster
They did not suffer the same losses as the Thuds. But there are a lot of variables to consider. Namely the nature of the mission that each aircraft participated in. The 105s would penetrate the heavily-defended air defenses around Hanoi and drop their payload on strategic targets. Other the “wild weasel” mission the 105Gs this is primarily what the 105 did. The F-4 performed this mission as well, but it was not it’s primary mission.
Found some pictures on these Lackland birds fate. Intact jet photo credits go to RHaskin. Disassembled photo credits go to RickH.
In these pics taken of the 10 AFRES F-105Ds from Hill that went to Lackland, the first two show how remarkably preserved these birds were as flightline security training aircraft. Once they were pulled from Lackland, you can see how orange spikes were driven through the hot sections, rendering the engines useles, as well as the afterburner nozzle petals being cut off, and cuts made near the wing spar inside the main landing gear wells; all to make these jets permanently unflyable, per the USAF Museum directive. These were the best preserved, most complete F-105s around, and its sad what happened to them after both Vietnam combat service, stateside AF Reserve service, and nearly 30 years as static ground trainers at Lackland.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
Didn't they also repossess the "twin mustang" after the CAF had spent a small fortune restoring it to flying condition?
trafficinsight
Well-Known Member
The abridged version if I remember right...
They had originally restored it and then had spent some money restoring it again after it was damaged in a landing accident but some parts were, at the time, impossible to find, they decided they didn't want it and wanted to spend the resources elsewhere so they offered it for sale/trade and a deal was made to trade it and another wrecked airplane for a flyable P-38.
The AFM stepped in and said no you can't do that it was given to you and you only so since you don't want it we're repossessing it.
The CAF claimed that it owned the airplane outright and the AFM couldn't do that.
The AFM was quoting the original agreement while the CAF had a later letter granting them full ownership.
The AFM said that the person who wrote that letter didn't have authorization to do so.
The CAF lost in court but said fine if we can't trade it then we want to keep it for display.
The AFM said nope, too late, we're taking it back anyway, and oh by the way a congressman is going to propose a law that says you can't fly your B-29 anymore either.
Another court battle ensued which the CAF eventually lost. Thankfully the proposed law didn't happen.
So the AFM ended up with it and the worst part about all of this is that it's a relatively rare F-82B and they modified it and are displaying it as an F-82G because they already had an early F-82 on display.
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My thud has been shot down a few times too
How's that thing fly? I've been toying with the idea of either that or an F86
learhawkerbe400
Well-Known Member
It flies ok. The 105 and their f-8 have a weird 2 servo only setup where one servo controls its respective sides aileron and elevator for an elevon setup.
It was way lacking in pitch authority that way and had way too much roll so i pinned the ailerons now I’m flying it as tailerons only. Pitch control is better but now the roll rate is lacking.
If you’re looking for a 64mm hand tosser i much prefer the 64mm f-18. It flies really nice.
Is there room to add some servos?
It'll be something I do after I'm done building a Sign 1/5 scale Cub I'm converting to electric. I still enjoy gluing a bunch of sticks together, but kits are getting hard to find.
learhawkerbe400
Well-Known Member
Not in the wings. I doubt the fuselage would fit any either. Plus i wouldn’t want to add too much weight to it bc it already is notorious for failed hand launches.
It’s not a bad flier as is. It just needs special attention.
Dang that’s a big cub. I wish i had the patience to build something like that.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
Sad pictures/fate. What was the reasoning for this? Treaty verification or something? I assume they retained a nuclear capability until relieved by a more capable TAC platform
The START stuff applied only to bomber aircraft, not to fighters. This was purely the USAF museum not wanting these aircraft to ever potentially be flight capable.
Those planes were in almost ready to go condition. After that last retirement flyby at Hill AFB in 1984, these jets broke off from that and landed at Kelly AFB, where they were basically just defueled, had their seats dearmed, and then towed across to Lackland to be setup on the fake security flightline. Apart from that, they were fully complete and with nothing removed.
This is a good history of the ANG units and AFRES units that operated the F-105. You can click at the end of each unit description to see an extensive history of their use of the F-105. The last one, the 466 TFS at Hill AFB, was the last unit, and their description includes the last flights of the F-105 and the retirement of it, including a mention of the 10 that didn't land at Hill AFB after that and proceeded instead to Lackland AFB, becoming these 10 jets highlighted in this thread.
F-105 Thunderchief in Air National Guard (ANG) and Air Force Reserve (AFRES) Service
F-105 Thunderchief in Air National Guard (ANG) and Air Force Reserve (AFRES) Service