My favorite Century Series is the F106. It looked great (especially in test range orange) flew great and was operational until displaced by the F15 in the 1980s! Only the F104 stayed in service longer and F106 didn't have the nasty characteristics that killed so many German F104 pilots. Of course it only helped that my dad knew most of the engineers who designed the F104. Another reason it is seared into my brain is getting bused by one flying 9 foot above the road we were driving on. Dad told me it was an F106 that was testing ground hugging radar out of China Lake NAS. Instead of flying over us (that would probably blown us off the road) the F106 banked left then right. When he passed us his wing was 3 feet above the ground in a 90 degree bank and I could see the top of the pilots helmet. The F106 then pulled in front of us and disappeared disappeared after flew over an approximately 10 foot tall hill on the road. It was a thrill of my life and I latter found that most jets of the era would probably have fallen appart trying that maneuver. Yes give me an F106 With no gun just rockets It flies real fast Destroys enemies with an expensive missile, can dog fight but doesn't, Just comes home with no rockets and bingo fuel, and a happy pilot who sees love after every mission. The F106 was retained in the USA as an interceptor. It's missile system was the 1st of its kind and designed to shoot down Soviet bombers without getting lose enough to the bomber to be at risk. It was only exceeded by the YF12A which didn't go into serial production production. It's missile was the basis for that used on F14. While the F4 was superior in almost every way, there were never enough F4s to replace the F106 in homeland interceptor role. The F106 was too expensive to build, but those that were built kept on flying .

The F-106 was in service until 1988 with the ANG.

This man knows his aerodynamics. Not many people do. Very cool! Thanks!

I loved having Joe on here and how he can explain aerodynamics in laymen’s terms while showing innovations on existing century fighters. I do wish he would have spent more time on The Six. Still the fastest single engine jet ever and had about 30 years of frontline service with the U.S. Air Force. It truly was something special

That was great. Please bring Joe and the airplanes in the museum for more videos.

What an utterly fabulous museum. Also, the knowledge of the presenter is equally amazing, excellent post, and now I'm hooked.

The F-106 was in service for over 20 years Pretty stark omission.

Joe did an excellent articulation of the design principles and philosophies. That is the truly interesting subject Which doesn't often get discussed.

I toured Pima two years ago on a brutally hot day. The heat dictated a trolly tour, so I didn't get to see many of the aircraft as I would have liked; still, it was quite interesting.

Those bumps on the rear fuselage of the F102 are called Whitcombe bodies I believe, linked to the area rule and named after the NACA engineer who developed them. The Handley Page Victor bomber in the UK also had these on the trailing edge of the swept wings.

Outstanding!!! Audio levels are perfect now, I might add!

Great explanations - perfect video !

Excellent video, so interesting! I’ve never been that interested in the older generations of jet aircraft, but this was fantastically informative. A really great exploration into an era that was filled with such ground breaking concepts and research. I’ll definitely be looking further into your channel. 👍

Gents, I have to say that was a supremely interesting presentation. I was like a kid rapt with interest listening to the pair of you. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

the F 106 is the most beautiful Plane ever made in my opinion

Century series fighters were always my favorite period of aircraft, especially the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. But I always favor anything designed by Kelly Johnson. If memory serves, I believe crews working on the F-104 had to put wing edge gaurds on the front and trailing parts of the wings to minimize injuries, those things were so sharp. a shame the F-108 Rapier was never produced. I think it would have been an interesting addition to the Century series. I look forward to you guy's next video.

Back in the 70's I would watch that particular F-104 when I was a child growing up in San Juan when it was part of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard. One of the things that kindled my thirst for flying and my 40-yr career as a military and airline pilot.

I've been in and around military aircraft for 50+ years. Still, I learned something here. Great video.

Gladly shared. Intake and wing shape and how they relate to flight regime are covered very well here. Excellent coverage.

Hi Guys! Great episode. When I was a young man, I built lots of models of the Century Series aircraft. They were all in use at the time. Good info here. Thanks for making this.

I had models of all of them when I was a kid. Got to see some of them in the flesh when I was in the military.

Great explanations in super sonic air flow my dad worked for Kelly Johnson and I worked for Ben Rich we were a Lockheed Family but didn't talk about work mutch for obvious reasons thanks

They were NOT un-successful. All groundbreaking in their own right. some served with honor in 'Nam. Led the way to better planes.

Worth viewing.

That dude is fantastic and really knows his shit

Back in the day, when the rocket sled research was being conducted at Edwards AFB, the F 107 ejection system was tested and found to have some contact with the inlet above certain speeds. The seat would be sent into a back flip spin and that was problematic. I learned this from one of the engineers who worked at the sled track facility. He was father to a classmate in my high school. He took me along with his son to the facility on a weekend to get something caught up work wise. Later on, the track at Edwards was shut down and the track sections were shipped to New Mexico to add to the track at Holloman AFB. Pima is a fantastic collection of all kinds of aircraft. Schedule about 3 days to see it all.

Excellent tour. I have a nodding acquaintance with some of these ideas but. . .learn something new every day.

I live in Tucson, the F-100 in the Pima museum, came from our unit the 162nd. ANG. I flew in the "F' models several times.

I never noticed it before. Take the F-102's intake and turn it 90 degrees, and voila! you have the F-16's undernose intake/inlet.

Fantastic video, and I am sad the Voodoo got passed over, although i understand for the wings, and it's nice seeing 3 of my favorite jets, the 104, 106, and 101

This one really saved me for enduring the day`s hardship in terms of what happening in the world now

The missing ones were the F-103, which he mentioned, the F-109, which was the proposed designation for what became the F-101B, the F-108 Rapier (I wish that one had flown!), and the F-110 Specter, which was the Air Force's original designation for the Navy's F4H-1 Phantom II.

Fantastic groundbreaking planes. Some of my favourites.

Awesome, and thank you!

The F110 actually did happen, at least on paper anyway. The USAF tried to call it the F110 and then decided to just go ahead and call their F110 the F4 Phantom like the USN did.

The ones that lasted were F-100 and F-106. F-104G/S stayed in service outside the USA.

F-105 and F-106 being the best at what they were designed to do: low level tactical nuclear delivery and strategic interception respectively.

The F-106's variable intake ramp is called a vari-ramp, by the way. It's variable in movement via the air data computer in the nose wheel well, which gets its data from the pitot tube(s).

Been to Pima twice. Bucket list checked off for sure! One of the best aviation vids on KZfaq so far! Wish you went more over the F-101, but hey...

Missing 3, the F-110, F-111, and F-117. Technically speaking, they were not part of it, the F-110 was the AF model of the Navy F-4 but was later renamed back to standardize the numbering system, F-111 was never used as a fighter but as a bomber with the FB-111 having a heavier load capacity, and the F-117 designed years later, also as a fighter/bomber. But they could explain all that at the museum. Airplane nuts (like me) love the background details.

Love to hear your comments on the avroe arrow

THAT was a great summary guys , cheers to Joe !!!

I understand that the F4 Phantom was originally called the F-110. I early films I've seen it actually called it the F-110.

Very interesting and I want to go there! 👍

When speaking of the 60s the F4 phantom can’t be forgotten

Really well done and interesting video. Small point on Area rule was discovered by the Germans and used on their first jet fighters like the ME262. An interesting point on the 104 is that the faster you went the faster it accelerated. It would slow a bit through transonic regime. After about 1.2 Mach the drag curve reduced and the ram effect increased engine thrust. Temperature was the limiting factor not thrust or aerodynamics. If memory services max temperature was 121 degrees C. The big red slow light would come on.

This was pretty good, thanks for posting, although I hope there is more on the 101 later, saw them many times in late 60's when we lived in KC.

Fantastic video.

Fascinating stuff! Off to avoid some lateral flow

Just to add, the 104 had the leading edge droop for landing as well. That coupled with the boundary layer control on the flaps lowered the approach speed to 180 or so knots, iirc, but the engine needed to be above 80% for the BLC to work. Otherwise the approach speed increased to over 200knots

Very interesting program. Thanks.

All works of art in their own way. The f105 is ptobably my favorite but they are all deaf sexy

The F-107 is tail #55118. You can see several pictures of it from 1956-7 on Wikipedia.

Knew a ww2 Ace,, P51 Mustang pilot,, He became a shooting star fighter test pilot.After ww2,, Silky Morris was his name...

Nice info, I love the info on intake development. Got to say the F105 was way underrated. It was a bomber that could be a fighter. It’s gum kills say something about its actual capabilities as a fighter

Pima has a B-58. Nothing faster when it was operational.

Enjoyed the video...seem to have neglected the F-101 Voodoo, and one was visible behind you Dane

My cousin was a test pilot who almost lost his life doing aileron flutter test on the later extended fuselage F104.

Good video. I was a little disappointed that he never mentioned any advanced features of the electronics through the years. The F-86 gunsight. The 105's terrain following computer. The 106's ability to relay information to other planes and the ground to coordinate attacks. And that the 104 had none of that since it was designed from the start to be an absolute hot rod. And it was the longest flying of the series being retired by the Italians in 2004.

The D21 did work, the USAF didn't want to pay for another mother ship after it lost one. The problems could have been worked out but the cost wasn't worth what advantage of having it. Some people claim that there were successful D21 flights and the D21 was successfully recovered by a C130 towing a hook on cable like some of the early Mercury capsule recoveries. There are even stories of successful operational missions of D21. The real killer of the D21 was the development of satellite reconnaissance and the fact the SR71 never got shot down. The most amazing thing about the YF12A is that design work was started during the end of the blank check period before McNamara ended that too expensive era. It did take a long time to get to 1st prototype because Lockheed had to develop so much new technology. Unlike the U2, the YF12A was a giant leap forward.

The F104s blown flap was also problematic when only 1 of the valves opened (there was one for each side). That had a tendency to flip the plane over and dive it into the ground.

I love the podcast but this is my first time seeing Matt Bone- I'd no idea he was so young! Matt, you sound a lot older- or perhaps (more charitably) you look a lot younger! Great podcast, I'm loving it, thank you!

Less we forget the F-100 Super "Sabre Dance" were Charles Bronson met his end in the 1961 movie X-15.

I don’t know it’s the origin, but Monogram models in the 60s heavily advertised their 100s model kits as “the century series” encouraging people to build them all.

1:16 I'll take one of those, 2 of those, 1 of that one......

The F-111 is much loved in Australia as a low level long range bomber. Since it's retirement Australia was left with no long range strike capability.

How were the SR- 71's Drones recovered? Great history here- Thanks Matt!

F101 was in movie the Russians are Coming. Great aircraft with Canadians.

That's the oldest SR-71 that still exists

Century Series was a term in use in the late 1950s, while many were still in operation.

Video should be titled "All about Wings" as that is what the presenter spends the most time talking about. There was a small Air Force base where I live while I was growing up (was put in place during the Cuban missile crisis of the early 1960's.) It was originally equipped with F-101's so I was rather disappointed it was skipped over in this video, especially since it set several records when it went into service. The One-O-Wonder and it's Witch Doctors will always have a soft spot in my heart.

IIRC the inlet had to be on top because otherwise it would interfere with launching the Genie air-to-air nuclear missile.

As you guys forgot the F-110, the ( Original Design Number for what would become the Phantastic F-4 Phantom ) from your "Century Series," How about it's OWN video with all the good , bad and Double Ugly, what some would call a real turkey, but most recognize as the Worlds best Jet fighter for more then 50 years, America at it's finest, when you say Jet Fighter, the F-4 is what comes to mind! And if we were to REALLY split hairs here, you should really do a video on the often forgotten F8U Crusader, the Last Gun Fighter, also a part of the Century series, but it's own special blend of Navy Cool!

It was the F-4 Phantom II that was the joint service fighter mandated by McNamara. He also ordered the destruction of all of the tooling for the SR-71, the A-12 and related. Finance guy, no practical real world experience except in appliances.

Fascinating walk around video and great commentary. Love the century series. Wish you'd spent a bit more time on the superb Voodoo, but first rate all the same! Thanks!

Nice channel.

Glad I found this, good work, very interesting, I grew up making models of the century series, the first model I ever completed was the 105 Thunderchief. They were still hot when I was a kid, but as the 4th gen moved towards the 5th gen fighters, folks stopped talking about them. Always thought the Super Saber was sexy.

How about the F111 it was also a century series fighter bomber jet and the F-4 Phantom for the airforce which started out as the F110 but thanks to the defence secretary MacNamarra he changed the aircraft designations before the first delivery of the F-110A

Phantom is part of this here series too!🤔 Jman

You missed out F110 (there was one in the background disguised as an F4) & F111, both of which are century series.

The F-106 tail number 90003 was stationed with me at Minot before it was retired the last one left Mar-April 1984 it was a cold and rainy day like Minot was crying for loosing her the F-15 was a pig to compared her

The F-106 was a good dog fighter. Also, the first with super cruise.

And Minot was the last active duty unit to fly her not a guard unit that unit was in Fargo flying F-4s

We were holding short of the runway at Edwards waiting for takeoff and F-104's were doing touch and go landings. They would extend the gear on short final which I though was interesting not exactly sure why they were doing this? This was in 1966

Convair was way ahead of the competition.

I’m pretty sure the F-110/F-4 Phantom II was turned into McNamara’s one fighter fits all, minus a gun. The F-111 was too heavy to land on an aircraft carrier which caused Grumman to create the F-14 Tomcat for fleet air superiority. This in turn leads to the Air Forces fighter mafia craving what became the F-15 and F-16…

Why so dismissive of the Voodoo? It was just as innovative than the others, was honest on it's top speed (way faster than the Hun or the 102) and it's planform evolved into the F4 - so pretty important right there. Plus the recon bird did solid service in Nam.

Where is the F-101?

How do you ignore the F4 Phantom, a multiservice fighter bomber that served for decades?

Rather disappointed in the curt dismissal of the F-111. It was still in the older design philosophy of the 60's; purpose-built for one job. It was when it was shoehorned into other roles that it fell on its' face. When you left it to do its intended job, it performed admirably. Just ask the Iraqi tankers about it on "The Road of Death". The only comparable aircraft in mission type was the "Iron Tadpole" aka the Grumman A-6 Intruder. Both aircraft were all-weather day or night bombers, but the F-111 had almost double the weapons capacity, terrain following radar, much better bomb-nav suite, and almost 300 mph faster at sea level. No one complains about the A-6. I am slightly biased since I was a crew chief on F-111A's in the 80's. My bird, SN 67-0100 is a gate guard at Nellis.

That was execellent!

F107 doesn't have intakes on sides because the intakes would interfere with the wing structure. A top intake doesn't cause these problems and doesn't vacuum objects off the runway. The scarry part for the pilot is ejection and being sucked in.

It is really interesting that you presented the 101 as lest important. Taking into account your government manage to convince my government (Canada) to cancel in 1958 our jet development program (CF-105). that would had a longer range to go up north of the 101 and be able to meet the bear, would had been able to fly Mac 2.5, equip with fly by wire control and inclose armement. I understand you country manage to provide some of those requirement on the F-22 and 35.

Davis-Monthan AFB nearby flying A-10

Each focused on 1 or 2 issues at a time

One more thing about the F-107 inlet location: abominable pilot visibility.

Again do your research the D-21was later released from B-52s it didn't need to be supersonic to be launched

First swept wing fighter? Me262 & Me163 would like a word......

What I find amazing was that there there wasn't any electronic calculators. All math was preformed by human brains using slide rules.

F106 lasted into the 80s, as did the F105, F104 lasted into the 2000s, F101 lasted until 1984, I'm not sure what you mean with short service lives? 🤷‍♂️