What was the best Teen series fighter?

[FiLtH]

Stay gold!

[nirvana]

The F-15 of course, what kind of question was that.

[Halo]

They're all great, but the F-15 probably can do more better.  

The F-14 was basically carrier defense with long-range missiles, the F-16 is a lower cost more agile supplement to the F-15, and the F-18 is the Navy adaptation of the YF-17 that lost the competition with the YF-16.  

Although the F-15 never had the Phoenix missiles of the F-14, it comes about as close as any plane ever has to being the fighter that can do everything, including bombing.  

In historic perspective, the F-15 is like a combination F-4/F-105 with better agility and a combination P-51/P-47/P-38/P-61.

[Stoney74]

F-16 has the highest mishap rate of the 4--only one engine.  And, its not that cheap--not the ones the U.S. has.  It was intended that way, to export to countries without any fancy gizmos, but alas, they cost.

The F-15 may be better in a dogfight (although I'm not sure that matters any more), but the F-14 could slap 'em down at 100 miles X 6.  Once they started dropping bombs, they showed they could haul a lot of ordnance and had plenty of legs to get it there.  So, I'll say F-14, mostly because of the Phoenix.

[Warspawn]

Yeah, the Phoenix would make short work of an F-15.  Designed to intercept super-sonic AS missles, it would dominate any 1 - on - 1 fight vs. non-stealth aircraft.

Pretty neat the way they launch, then CRACK up they go to about 100k altitude, then invert and dive on their target and set off the prox fuse.  Range, 300km or so if I remember correctly.  5000 km/hr max speed?  Something like that; the warhead itself is well over 100 lbs of high explosive.

[1K3]

I say the F-18 and F-14 were the best (yep im biased to Navy planes:p )

[Stoney74]

Yeah, and the Phoenix is a kill-shot with that warhead, not a "ding" maker.  Mach 4+ I believe in the terminal phase...

[AquaShrimp]

Phoenix, hmmm, I think the missle is overrated.  Remember, it couldn't even down all of the drones in its famous test.

An F-14 fired six Phoenix missles at once against 6 non-maneuvering, subsonic drones.  Only 5 missles hit.

[nirvana]

5/6 isn't bad

[Stoney74]

Originally posted by AquaShrimp
non-maneuvering, subsonic drones..

Kind of like, anti-ship cruise missiles or the bombers carrying them?  So, if 8 F-14's all fired 6 Phoenix, then they could expect to get hits with 40 out of 48 missiles.  I wish I could get those kind of odds at the blackjack table...

[AquaShrimp]

Countermeasures, maneuvering, and running the missle out of energy.

If a Phoenix is launched at 100 miles, avoiding it could be as simple as doing a 180 degree turn and increasing speed.  This would be an example of running the missle out of energy.

Out maneuvering the missle involves flying towards it, and at a close distance, maneuvering away from it very quickly.  I dont think a Phoenix in its final, unpowered 'death dive' can turn very well.

Countermeasures- Chaff, electronic jamming equipment.

The non-maneuvering test drones employed none of these features.

[storch]

I think the phoenix missle was primarily designed as a bomber interceptor.  also remember that the russian aircraft of the time period were using tin cans and a lot of string to communicate with their ground controllers.  I hear that now they've upgraded to monofilament so their com capabilities are somewhat improved.

[Heater]

Hummm,

The Phoenix would have a hard time hitting a Fighter at long range as is was never intended too, it was designed to take out high sub sonic bombers not fighters.  Even thought the F-14 could track multiple fighters it would have a hard time hitting them at long range.

[Dago]

It would depend on whether Voss was flying it, that of course would make any fighter superior.

[Shifty]

Originally posted by Warspawn
Yeah, the Phoenix would make short work of an F-15.  Designed to intercept super-sonic AS missles, it would dominate any 1 - on - 1 fight vs. non-stealth aircraft.


If the F-15 was a drone maybe.  The F-15 pilot would have little problem defeating a Phoenix attack. Once past the Phoenix threat the F-15 pwns the F-14.