They’re still beautiful aircraft. I’m considered a millennial (barely) but they are still my favorite. I can’t get enough of these videos

Cringe

NAS Kef, 64-65. I refueled all the 57th planes dozens of times:)

@@billsmith63 I believe it was the 68th FIS on the alert pad 60-62 Itazuke (radio repair)

Hal, were they solid state by then? Wish I had the contract for Cannon plugs for the USAF in those days!

James Anderton Yes I recall mostly all solid state electronics. Cannon Plugs😩 still have hand scares from some of them😂. 102 wheel wheel cannon plugs got wet due to most days with wet runways, spent many hours drying them out with heaters and troubleshooting them, glad I was 19 years old😉🗽🇺🇸

www.verslo.is/baldur/57th_fis/57th.htm FYI - History of 57th Fighter Interceptor in Iceland.

Thanks, I almost missed this one. Such an unappreciated bomber.

You did NOT have a 'KNACK" for those planes; I think you wanted to say "liking".

You are wrong, this is a normal F-102A, or YF-102A. The quickest giveaway is the carrot fairings on either side of the tailpipe, but the canopy framing is another, and the intake lips. And the fact it doesn't say 'Convair' on the nose. They only built two YF-102 prototypes, the first one crashed on its 9th flight. The YF-102A was quckly built after this.

8:47 those are the area rule fairings on the tailpipe. The short YF-102 didnt have those.

@@justforever96 If you look really, really carefully, you'll notice that I said, "appears", I wasn't absolutely sure so. Also, you're a real joy to talk to...

WTF are you talking about? The F-102A has no reputation as a dangerous airplane. You are thinking of the F-104. The 102 and 106 are easy, sweet flyers, like most deltas. 'Combat pilot' my ass! War Thunder doesn't count, bucko.

Yes sir

Indeed they are

Have a high alpha approach though and relatively restricted forward visibility. But man was it a hot bird and well suited for its job as an interceptor. And yes, deltas are very sexy. I love looking at examples of the B-58.

its gloss paint dude.

Three-striper was an Airman First Class back then...Maintenance troops still get in the cockpit frequently to check out "whatever", and items on their preflight checklist. This preflight was only a few minutes...on the old B-52D model bombers, it was an 8-hour ordeal.

Of course they do. How the hell do they maintain and make sure things are working if they aren't allowed to sit in the cockpit? Are pilots some magical breed that knows things that no other mortal can learn, masters in the arcane art of communicating with airplanes? Its not hard to train a man how to preflight check a cockpit. He doesn't need to know about stalls, spins, air combat tactics, navigation, icing, weather, bombing, just how to make sure the switches are in the right place before takeoff. The pilot needs to know ALL that stuff. These are interceptors, designed to be scrambled on a five minute warning. Do you think the pilot has ten or twenty minutes to spend doing a careful check, setting all his switches and preparing for takeoff? Not when a ground crew can be trained to do it just as easily. The crews prepare the plane beforehand and make sure it is perfect and ready to go. The pilot does a quick check before takeoff, but only to verify for himself that the ground crews set everything correctly, since its _his_ ass is someone missed a step. There is no rule against non-pilots sitting in the cockpit. Although I doubt any old schmuck is allowed in.

It's a training film, for demonstration. It's not meant to be strictly accurate and factual. Its to show the ground crews exactly what they are supposed to be checking. You aren't _actually_ required to touch each hydraulic fluid reservoir sight glass with your index finger to check it, and I doubt most crewmen really run their hands along the bay doors. Video is a visual medium.

1955-1957

Well its not. An F-104 has thin wings, and sharp leading edges. These are cumbersome in comparison.

You're correct, it was.

It was the mid-late 50s, of course it was an interceptor. Didnt you see the radar screen? They didnt give radar to air superiority fighters at the time, only ranging radar.

Have a look for : "The Spirit of Attack"

Its crap. This plane was a sweetheart to fly. That is a myth left over from the 1950s started by pilots who had never flown a tailless delta. They were sure it must be dangerous and hard to fly, even though they never tried it themselves. The myth lasted for years (helped by people mixing up the 102 and the 104).

@@justforever96 One pilot’s sweetheart is another pilot’s death trap. I think a lot of an airplane’s reputation has to do with how well the pilots were trained to fly it. The F-104, from what I have been able to gather, was an airplane that had to be flown by the book; hence the high accident rate especially in Germany. Also, the Air Force was guilty of not giving the pilots enough flight time in these two aircraft to keep sufficient proficiency in skills.

Yup....cant be that much an ignoramus to pilot a Mach fighter jet!? Although, admittedly.....not as cool as inventing the Internet.

amy ervin If he did become president then he wouldn’t have made hundreds of millions off global warming.

I like how people pretend that is somehow 'draft dodging', as if staffing our national defense units with pilots wasn't an een more critical job than sending pilots to Vietnam to fight Communism. At any given time the majority of US armed forces were NOT in Vietnam, they were posted in Europe, protecting it from a Soviet armored offensive, or in the US, defending our own borders, or in dozens of other places around the globe. We had huge commitments everywhere, which is one reason we couldnt go in and crush the enemy in Vietnam. So they are basically calling 3/4 of US veterans from that era cowards for the fact that their duty happened to be in one of these other important posts, instead of fighting in Vietnam. But i dont expect much honesty from leftists. or any politicans, for that matter.