Note that the radome isn't actually larger. As explained in this book (one of my favorites, for what it's worth), the Advanced Crusader design moved the radars electronics behind the cockpit from in front of the cockpit. This allowed sliding the radar back in the radome, allowing for a larger radome.
Do you have any idea if the F8U-3's support and spares requirements would also have precluded their use on Essex's?
Could you post the link to this thread ?
Yeah, IIRC, the Crusader III FCS was basically point and click. The pilot would select a target on his screen, and the computer would keep the radar locked on it as long as the pilot kept the targeted aircraft within 60° of the nose. I'm just not sure how well it would have functioned in practice given the reliability of the electronics of the day. Particularly when operating off of a carrier.
Still think the Navy would have been a LOT happier with a 2-seater, plus that fancy AWG-7 and autopilot.
F8U-1 Crusader 1
Sort of, if tied in the datalink, then GCI or CCI would direct the intercept automatically until the aircraft's radar could pick up the target.
Yeah, no argument. Odds are, if the plane had been ordered, it almost certainly would have been reordered with a RIO almost immediately (or at least within a year after entering service and the FCS started getting beat up with carrier launches and traps
That looks like the belly AIM-7 is not on the centerline, so there could be space for a fourth Sparrow. So now it's conceivable that the Crusader III could actually carry the same missile load as a Phantom with Y-racks on the cheeks.
Well that air enthusiasts article posted previously says Vought did do engineering work on the fourth sparrow but it apparently hampered the plane so badly that vought went back and completely re did the navys Interceptor study inorder to show (aka justify) that plane's would only be able to launch 3 sparrows in any fight do to its semi active radar mode of operations (fire, track,fire, track, fire, track, out of fule according to vought ignoring the sparrows issues). Consdering this is the same article that clames the cursader 3 could make it to mock 2.9 once the cockpit windows were reinforced needless to say I am dubious on this explanation.
While I don't know about the rest of it, I don't doubt the speed claim in the slightest. During flight testing, the Crusader III reached, I believe, Mach 2.25 and it was still accelerating fairly rapidly. AIUI, Vought extrapolated those numbers out and determined that the aircraft would be, in theory anyway, able to reach between Mach 2.7 and 2.9 once a windshield that could withstand the extreme heat at those speeds was installed.
If that's the case then I don't know how the hell adding one missile (In an area that has a buch of other missiles to boot) could degrade a planes proformance so much that a company is welling to break the compition rules (I'm pretty sure the requirement was for 4 sparrows) inorder to avoid it. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if the redoing the study cost more then adding the stupid missile to the plane would have.
I post here the original files I made for this article (3 view plan and profile).
In case anyone asks, the article "Vought Crusader III - La troisième croisade n’aura pas lieu" by Tommy Thomason and Alexis Rocher was published in the French aviation magazine Le Fana de L'Aviation, January 2011 (494), on pages 42-49.
Mach 2 supercruise? Even the F-104 with the -19 couldn't do that.
