1
- 9 months ago
For educational purposes
In its early years, the thunderchief was plagued with all manner of design, technical, political and industrial problems.
With the USAF involvement in Vietnam, the thunderchief flew an amazing 75% of all attack missions and earned status and respect as a great plane the hard way - in deadly action.
In its early years, the thunderchief was plagued with all manner of design, technical, political and industrial problems.
With the USAF involvement in Vietnam, the thunderchief flew an amazing 75% of all attack missions and earned status and respect as a great plane the hard way - in deadly action.
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LearningTranscript
00:05:20The next plane was the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo, designed as a penetration fighter and escort fighter.
00:05:31The rapidity of development in aviation can be judged by the fact that, though ordered only 12 months later than the F-100, the 101 had a top speed of 1,100 miles per hour.
00:05:42Again, the plane developed tactical capability in its latter models, and it was used extensively in Vietnam, most notably in photo reconnaissance.
00:05:57Third of the century fighters was the F-102 Delta Dagger from General Dynamics, an all-weather interceptor commenced in 1950.
00:06:05Capable of 820 miles per hour, it proved only a moderate success, but was naturally to develop to become the F-106, which had a top speed of 1,500 miles per hour.
00:06:16The Lockheed Starfighter, the F-104, ordered in March 1953, sought flight performance at all costs as an air superiority fighter.
00:06:25Basically a manned missile, the 1,400-mile-per-hour 104 had a chequered career, but has demonstrated amazing longevity as a tactical strike and reconnaissance aircraft.
00:06:36At Republic, Cartvelli's team, working on Advanced Project 63, after a program that ran to 108 configurations, had emerged with a design for a single-engine, single-seat tactical fighter bomber,
00:06:53with the capacity to carry nuclear weapons in an internal bomb bay.
00:06:56This plane, the 105A, was given Air Force approval in September 1952, originally with the intention of mass production, but in the end, only two were built.
00:07:07The 105A, rounding out the Century Fighters, was the first purpose-designed tactical strike aircraft ordered for the United States Air Force.
00:07:25The perception of need for such a plane derived from a combination of Korean battlefield experience, geopolitics, and intra-service competition between the strategic and tactical air commands of the USAF.
00:07:36For TAC, the 105A, in addition to opening out the parameters of their conventional role, bought with it the capability to carry nuclear weapons over a long range,
00:07:46with a corresponding rise in their prestige to rival that of the strategic command.
00:07:57The tactical air command's support of the 105 was to prove vital to the project, as the plane went through its difficult early years.
00:08:04Virtually all the technology and engineering of aircraft were being revolutionised at once,
00:08:09in response to the myriad physical challenges inherent in the transition to the age of supersonic flight.
00:08:15And the F-105 was to have plenty of developmental problems in the years ahead.
00:08:21But what made the huge fighter so special was its large internal capacity.
00:08:25The atom bombs, more reminiscent of drums than weapons, gave it a potency far beyond any competitor.
00:08:31For the F-105A, significant breakthroughs in understanding the effects of transonic drag, together with some inherent deficiencies, had already seen the design superseded.
00:08:47It first flew over three years after the USAF go-ahead, and by then, its internal systems had changed beyond recognition.
00:08:54Also by then, manufacture of its replacement was underway.
00:09:00The third F-105 was the first of the B model.
00:09:04We see it here on the 26th of May 1956, as it taxis to its take-off point for its first flight.
00:09:11This was the first 105 to have a power plant big enough to match its size,
00:09:15and major external changes had also been incorporated,
00:09:18chief among which was the area ruling, which had rescued the F-102 from its drag and turbulence problems.
00:09:25This had replaced the straight lines of the A model with a slim hip over the wing.
00:09:30A massive, four-petalled airbrake now dominated the previously clean lines of the engine exhaust,
00:09:35and there had also been changes made to the air intakes,
00:09:38giving the Thunder Chief its characteristic nostrils.
00:09:40A larger tail area had increased stability.
00:09:45These and other changes had resulted in a plane with the capacity to double the speed of sound.
00:09:56Perhaps symbolically, this first flight was to be beset by almost fatal problems.
00:10:01It was intended that the flight be short, little more than a quick circuit.
00:10:05But when it came time to lower the wheels, there was no response from the nose wheel.
00:10:09Raising and lowering the wheels had no effect.
00:10:13The nose wheel would not budge.
00:10:25Rather than abandon the plane, it was decided to attempt a wheels-up landing,
00:10:30and so the test pilot set the machine down on a long, dangerous slide across the salt.
00:10:39Eventually, the plane came to a halt,
00:11:08and emergency crews converged on the site in the slowly clearing dust.
00:11:13The crash was more than an intense embarrassment for a project that was already being scrutinised
00:11:18as excessively expensive and troubled by technical problems.
00:11:22However, it was still possible to argue that the problems were being solved
00:11:26in ways that consistently improved the overall capability of the plane,
00:11:31and that even as simply a test program, the 105 was revolutionising the understanding,
00:11:37not only of the science of aviation, but the potentiality of tactical aircraft.
00:11:41The cause of the crash was soon identified in the new air intake controls,
00:11:52which at high-thrust settings were jamming the wheel in position,
00:11:55a fairly simple thing to correct.
00:11:57One other thing that the crash demonstrated was something that those who flew the Thunder Chief in action
00:12:01came to know and approve of, its toughness.
00:12:04The plane was lifted, the undercarriage was lowered, and the prototype was towed away to be mended.
00:12:14Rebuilt, the plane rejoined the test program
00:12:16as work progressed on tying together all the systems
00:12:19and ironing out the bugs in the components.
00:12:21The engineers were dealing with concepts and forces they could only barely control,
00:12:27and overcoming the snags as they appeared.
00:12:29It's difficult to think of any other way that these problems,
00:12:32theoretical and practical, could have been kept up with
00:12:35in the intense scramble of technical development.
00:12:38In being the first plane capable of both air-to-air fighting
00:12:41and air-to-ground semi-automatic weapons delivery,
00:12:44the plane relied on avionics packages far in advance of anything previously attempted.
00:12:49Among these advanced facilities were radar models for air search,
00:12:55contour mapping, terrain following,
00:12:57and automatic tracking of air and ground targets, even in blind conditions.
00:13:02Throughout its life, the 105 was to almost constantly receive new and updated facilities,
00:13:07but even from the first, this was a plane that was far ahead of its time.
00:13:12The rebuilt plane was allocated to conduct the spin testing program,
00:13:16and a spin recovery parachute was installed on the tail of the plane.
00:13:20This required removing a panel to afford room for the chute
00:13:23and removing the air brake so that, if needed, the chute would be unimpeded.
00:13:29Trials on the chute demonstrated that it worked satisfactorily.
00:13:32The aim of spin testing is to ensure that a plane can be recovered from a spin to normal flight,
00:13:46that once control has been lost, it can be regained.
00:13:50Of course, the first thing to do in such a test
00:13:52is to lose control of the aircraft deliberately.
00:13:56Then the test pilot sits there while his plane plummets through the air
00:14:00for a specified duration, and then he attempts recovery.
00:14:04This is not work for the faint-hearted.
00:14:30The emergency spin recovery parachute was not needed,
00:14:34as the planes proved to have a natural tendency to level out after each revolution,
00:14:39and the pilots were able to resume control fairly easily.
00:14:49However, the airframe still had to be tested, and so the trials went on.
00:14:5447 times, the pilots let go and watched the horizon slide away sickeningly
00:15:13as the plane commenced its fall.
00:15:15If you look carefully here, you'll see a pillar of flame leap from the tail of the plane
00:15:27as the engine stalls.
00:15:285.
00:15:54Though the flight tests proceeded well,
00:15:56the technical problems persisted, with the engine and the avionics still unreliable.
00:16:02The uncertainty of performance was matched by a wider uncertainty about the future of the plane.
00:16:07The original expectation of large production had been amended to 37,
00:16:12then cancelled altogether in December 1953.
00:16:15A reinstated order in February 1954 was for 15 aircraft,
00:16:20but by September this had been cut back to three.
00:16:23In October it was back to six.
00:16:26Parallel to this state of flux,
00:16:28the operational requirements for the new fighter had already been repeatedly amended
00:16:32before being first published in December 1954,
00:16:35and by April 1955 had been changed three more times.
00:16:40The men conducting the test series went on with their work,
00:16:43while uncertainty continued to shroud the future of the project.
00:16:46The 105's already considerable range had been augmented by the addition of external fuel tanks,
00:17:00and these too had to be tested,
00:17:02to establish the effect they had on the plane,
00:17:05as well as to test the tanks themselves.
00:17:07Throughout 1957, the testing went on,
00:17:25with the test aircraft logging many hours over the desert
00:17:28as the plane was slowly sorted out through multiple modifications.
00:17:31One of the specifications added in 1954 was that the F-105 should be capable of in-flight refuelling,
00:17:48another recent innovation already being widely used.
00:17:50With an aeroplane like the F-105, this was a tricky proposition.
00:17:55For the fighter pilot to slow down to the same speed as the tanker,
00:17:59left him with insufficient airflow over the wings to maintain lift.
00:18:03The top speed of the tanker and the lowest speed of the F-105 were very close,
00:18:08and as you see, the fighter becomes very hard to manoeuvre,
00:18:11especially in the turbulence of the larger plane, and often stalls entirely.
00:18:16Attempts to alleviate the problem by adding jets to the tankers,
00:18:20as here to a B-29, didn't help all that much.
00:18:23All supersonic fighters had trouble,
00:18:26until jet tankers raised the speed of refuelling to safer levels.
00:18:33Enter rates of controls and operates in a building.
00:18:36Instead it could also be a Services- 1.0 would be a better record
00:18:37of the level 1.0 would be a good light that the role of a previous plane
00:18:40have always removed from the X-8erm ballot appears,
00:18:42they might receive h review of the top speed
00:18:44under the crossing of K-119-18,
00:18:47what is a superpower to reduce the economy in a very possible regime?
00:18:49A computer could change the view of the country by using the B-29,
00:18:51the C-3100.
00:18:52And our drones can attack them with the up
00:18:54to the carbonate and the water is often specifications.
00:18:56But through that we have to monter up their properties,
00:18:57we gotta use them as a supermarket,
00:18:58there's not to nurture them in the direction that!
00:19:00It's enough speed of all right to be used,
00:19:02so
00:19:32The tests confirmed the difficulty
00:20:00for the pilot of the fighter, and although successful couplings were made, the system
00:20:04remained largely impractical, not due to any failure of the F-105, but because of the
00:20:10inadequacies of the tankers.
00:20:12Having the drogue trail from the wing tip rather than from the tail of the plane removed
00:20:17the operation from the worst of the larger plane's turbulence and facilitated matters
00:20:21somewhat, but the tendency to stall remained.
00:20:30The equipment in use, the long drogue hose, did not help to make things any easier with
00:20:46the requirement for the pilot of the fighter to manoeuvre onto the drogue.
00:20:50Not until this necessity was replaced by a system where he simply holds position in relation
00:20:55to the tanker, and the operator in the tanker directs the connection, was refuelling truly
00:21:00a practical affair.
00:21:02The F-105 was equipped with two types of refuelling connector, and these were to see a lot of use
00:21:07in the Thunder Chief's career.
00:21:14of Telethinum, and two types of Launchedバター.
00:21:20The other names came from Totsin and Valerie announced fundamentally,cando feigned to the
00:21:27dig-up object of hand over the suchehive pathway, which is with a door.
00:21:29Now you could includeausrious, how can you use the final one door at thestenuse?
00:21:32Now, if your testemates you for theiful blade, please welcome back to the flow of the
00:21:35dreads- today or beloved side of Elizaldeus.
00:21:36Let it regard you when a passionate actor traceity with the film constitäter.
00:21:40Back at the end of 1954,
00:22:08the Republic must have been wondering about the fate of the 105,
00:22:12and their anxiety can have only been slightly alleviated
00:22:15by the bittersweet news they received in February 1955.
00:22:19The order was lifted back to 15,
00:22:21with allowance for the rest of the original 34,
00:22:24only if funds were available in the coming fiscal year.
00:22:28To add to this ambiguous news was the unsettling proviso
00:22:32that there be a fly-off against the North American company's F107,
00:22:36an updated, high-powered and re-equipped Super Sabre variant.
00:22:51The F107 has been described as the best fighter never to be bought by the USAF,
00:22:56and it was certainly a potent plane.
00:22:59With the same engine as the Thunder Chief,
00:23:01it was an extremely advanced and powerful design,
00:23:04and offered comparable performance.
00:23:06However, in the vital tack interest in stores, carriage and delivery,
00:23:10it fell behind the 105,
00:23:12and the contest could be seen as a bit of a non-event.
00:23:15The F107
00:23:43had the F107 been compared to almost any other plane at that time,
00:23:47it may have outperformed it.
00:23:49However, the 105 was a rather special opponent,
00:23:52and the performance of the controversial big plane
00:23:54was beginning to quell the doubts about its worth.
00:24:01The revisions of the Thunder Chief's specifications had continued,
00:24:05in a stream of expansions of its systems capability.
00:24:08Constant electronic renovation proceeded throughout the plane's development
00:24:13and its operational lifetime,
00:24:15continuing to maintain the 105 at the forefront of performance.
00:24:19The plethora of design changes meant that the first 15 105s produced
00:24:33represented five distinct subtypes.
00:24:36Eventually, there were to be 19.
00:24:38During the testing program, of course,
00:24:41the revisions of the plane meant that the trials were regularly extended.
00:24:44The normal flight testing programs were consistently completed with little trouble,
00:24:50as the airframe behaved very well and had admirable flight characteristics.
00:24:55However, the electronics of the newly conceived and developing systems
00:24:59caused continuing delays,
00:25:01as their performance was lifted to their supposed specifications.
00:25:05With the benefit of hindsight,
00:25:07we can appreciate what a fine aircraft was evolving in the process.
00:25:11But at the time, eyebrows were being raised,
00:25:14and there was considerable scepticism about the plane.
00:25:17On the 28th of May 1958,
00:25:30three years later than originally expected,
00:25:33the USAF took delivery of its first operational 105.
00:25:37Fittingly, it was the only one of its subtype.
00:25:40The Air Force fighter pilots had been disappointed
00:25:46to hear that their new mount was in fact a rather large bomber,
00:25:49and had christened the plane in advance, rather disparagingly,
00:25:53as the Lead Sled, Thunder Thud, or plane Thud.
00:25:57Now they got their hands on it for the first time,
00:26:00and immediately changed their minds.
00:26:02The nickname Stuck, and Thud in particular came to mean F-105.
00:26:09But no longer in any derogatory sense.
00:26:12The big plane was to be universally popular,
00:26:14with all those who flew them.
00:26:16Not only did it handle and perform as a fighter,
00:26:19but it packed a combination of punches that was truly awesome.
00:26:23Fully laden, a 105 could carry 14,000 pounds
00:26:48of a very wide range of external stores,
00:26:51including all normal bombs, rockets or rocket pods,
00:26:54cannon pods, electronic countermeasures packs,
00:26:57air-to-surface missiles, and sidewinder air-to-air missiles.
00:27:01But almost as the reason for its existence,
00:27:04the Thunder Chief also had a bomb bay.
00:27:07To minimise supersonic drag,
00:27:12the bomb bay doors retracted neatly into the plane.
00:27:15To control the ejection of the bomb,
00:27:19both for accuracy's sake and to ensure the bomb was clear of the aircraft,
00:27:23it was pushed down with a pneumatic rack.
00:27:26The rack was strong enough to be used as a jack
00:27:28to load the bay if there was no bomb trolley available.
00:27:32In wartime operations, however,
00:27:34the Thuds carried very few bombs internally.
00:27:37Most of the time the bomb bay was occupied by a further reserve of fuel.
00:27:41On the outer wing there was provision for two stores pylons to be fitted.
00:27:56These could be used to carry weaponry and fuel in any desired combination,
00:28:00or removed to allow the attachment of specialised delivery racks for other armaments,
00:28:06like this installation for the sidewinder.
00:28:23The standard built-in armament of all Thunder Chief variants
00:28:26was a General Electric M61 20mm multi-barrel gun.
00:28:31This gun fired at 6,000 rounds per minute
00:28:34and could fire off the entire 1,029 shells it carried in less than 11 seconds.
00:28:39Air Force deliveries continue with the 335th Tactical Air Squadron
00:28:50becoming the first fully equipped with the new fighter
00:28:53and celebrating by setting a world speed record.
00:28:56faculties for 325-429 mogą-ine killings Emily-Mravio-Movio-R verset
00:29:06track So what, however, can that happen?
00:29:08Make sure they unlock the support these exactithes,
00:29:10the number of blue stripes and ell突然
00:29:11and the audience's line as the target forces bring the evening back to flying,
00:29:13and they're meant to, still quickly,
00:29:15every time the other day will take the help of Earth
00:29:17which can become creatures of energy.
00:29:19By phone, they can dig in the moment,
00:29:20thereby they can log payments around and cannot establish it.
00:29:22And if you know something,
00:29:23there is going to be some details as a young man's mind,
00:29:24In 1961, the first overseas deployments were made to bases in Germany.
00:29:54In 2015, the first overseas deployments were made to base in Germany.
00:30:24Europe, the summer of 1964 saw the Thuds go into action for the first time.
00:30:30Soon they were sporting new camouflage as they were deployed in larger numbers
00:30:34to bases in Thailand and South Vietnam. From those bases they launched the
00:30:40campaigns that were to write their name into history.
00:30:44For the F-105 Vietnam was the right place at the right time. Even during their
00:30:56service life up to that time there had been continued problems with
00:30:59reliability and as recently as 1962 they had all been grounded. Though those
00:31:05problems had been ironed out the plague of minor defects and a series of
00:31:09accidents had continued almost up to their first Vietnamese missions. But the
00:31:15Thuds in Vietnam were to earn a completely different reputation as reliable and
00:31:19durable aeroplanes. They also earned a fearsome reputation as weapons. The
00:31:25importance of the Thunder Chief in Vietnam can be simply indicated. During the
00:31:30first five years of their involvement there they flew an amazing 75% of all
00:31:35USAF attack missions.
00:31:39If the skies of Vietnam were full of bombs it was because thuds put them there.
00:32:09what has been seen?
00:32:13the
00:32:16the
00:32:16rough
00:32:16the
00:32:17rough
00:32:18the
00:32:18the
00:32:20the
00:32:20the
00:32:22the
00:32:23the
00:32:23the
00:32:25From March 1965, increasing numbers of airstrikes were made on North Vietnam, predominantly directed
00:32:53at communications targets, the raids relied almost entirely on the F-105s.
00:32:59The planes would heave themselves into the air with their loads of bombs and head for
00:33:03a rendezvous with a tanker near the North Vietnam border.
00:33:06For with the level of external stores they were carrying, and the way that, increasingly,
00:33:11they had to fly flat out all the way across Vietnam, rather than cruising to and from
00:33:15the target, their range had been cut considerably, and even with full tanks, the journeys didn't
00:33:21leave much to spare.
00:33:23Then they flew on into hostile airspace.
00:33:30At the beginning of the war, the North Vietnamese had only limited air defences, and the earliest
00:33:35raids were relatively quiet.
00:33:38Soon however, supplies of anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles and MiG fighters began
00:33:43to multiply, and the raids were flown into the teeth of the most intense air defence system
00:33:48ever tested in warfare.
00:33:49The thuds pounded the enemy bridges and roads, truck parks and military bases, and the Vietnamese
00:34:08fought back ably with very formidable weapons.
00:34:11While the loss ratio on individual raids could not be considered critical, a process of slow
00:34:16attrition that was to halve their number had begun for the Thundercheeks.
00:34:21Only 833 were built, and nearly 400 were to meet their end in Vietnam.
00:34:39Production of the 105s had been completed in December 1964.
00:34:44Only 78 of the B model had been built.
00:34:46The majority, 610, had been F105Ds.
00:34:51The D had acquired an extended nose in accommodating updated all-weather navigation systems, and thus
00:34:58was externally markedly dissimilar to the B.
00:35:02The other 143 were the twin-seat F model.
00:35:06It had always been expected that there would be a twin-seat version of the plane, but two
00:35:10earlier twin-seat proposals had been dropped.
00:35:13The Fs were to provide the stock for the later development of the last 105, the G, the wild
00:35:19weasel.
00:35:21The workhorse of the bombing raids was the D. The single-seaters abounded on the bases,
00:35:25where the work of war went on 24 hours a day.
00:35:28The other 143 were the two years later.
00:35:28The other 143 were the first half-time입니다.
00:35:31The local authorities were named at the base of the final
00:36:20At the end of each mission, the returning pilot would confer with his crew chief about
00:36:27the performance of the plane and hand it over to him for service.
00:36:39The service record of the 105s in Vietnam was excellent.
00:36:43On any given day, over 90% of the THUDs were ready for work.
00:36:47This figure was higher than the overall average within the USAF.
00:36:51And considering the complexity, workload and relative scarcity of the big planes, it's
00:36:56all the more outstanding.
00:36:58To keep them in the air, facilities for total maintenance of the planes were built at the
00:37:02bases they flew their missions from.
00:37:04And specialist teams were constantly available to fly in to handle specific problems.
00:37:10Companies of ground crew at the bases carried out the normal turnaround routines, like refuelling,
00:37:16filling the water tank in the tail for the afterburner, re-arming the plane and the other
00:37:20servicing required between missions, quickly and efficiently.
00:37:27labs and maintenance.
00:37:28The home is very small and big, both in the known side of the plane but not the other
00:37:31ones.
00:37:32But on the Last 8, we have a great time.
00:37:35And at the same time, friends, they also have the potential and battery
00:37:38in the air when the aircraft in the air.
00:37:39They also have another help from the aircraft and the other aircraft, follow the aircraft
00:37:42together with our aircraft in the other aircraft.
00:37:44And when they have some health, the aircraft, they have the equipment, and the aircraft
00:37:48in the aircraft they took.
00:37:49The
00:38:16body of the plane was a patchwork of hatches, allowing access to the equipment inside.
00:38:22The big fuselage had very little spare room inside it, but the layout was good enough
00:38:27to ensure that servicing was relatively straightforward.
00:38:40The bases were a far cry from the mud and improvisation of the Second World War. A thunder chief parked
00:38:46on Tak Lee's acres of hard stand could be serviced with relative ease. The wing point combinations
00:38:52for the next mission were selected and effected, and the plane armed in a smooth and practiced
00:38:57routine.
00:39:04A large part of the bombs dropped on Vietnam were iron bombs of Second World War vintage.
00:39:11Sadly, they were of a design philosophy and era that should have been long gone. However,
00:39:18modern smart bombs were not to really arrive in Vietnam until the F-111s used them in the
00:39:25last phases of the conflict. So the 105 missions were often flown to T-105. They were of a design
00:39:30philosophy and era that should have been long gone. However, modern smart bombs were not
00:39:35to really arrive in Vietnam until the F-111s used them in the last phases of the conflict.
00:39:41So the 105 missions were often flown to deliver hardware that was uncontrolled in flight, often
00:39:51unstable in trajectory, and sometimes unreliable in effect. But with these bombs, the thuds hammered
00:39:57the north, and in most instances destroyed their allocated targets.
00:40:04Right through the night, the bases were a hive of activity, as the work of repairing, servicing,
00:40:30and arming the planes went on.
00:40:43Another factor that makes the 90% availability of the thuds even more impressive was their
00:40:48toughness. They kept coming back from missions with major battle damage to repair. Thuds sustained
00:40:54strikes from SAMs, as well as AAA and MiG cannons, and survived. This one has actually been hit
00:41:01by a sidewinder missile.
00:41:12Each morning, the one-man Air Force has waited, ready.
00:41:19It's not that much prior to the next phase of the airplane, its burning
00:41:39from the night, the one-man Air Force is risen
00:41:41by one-man Air Force.
00:44:24North Vietnam was not an ideal target for a sustained bombing campaign.
00:44:28There was very little industrial infrastructure to damage and almost no war production.
00:44:33The country had an agrarian society, predominantly rural and dispersed.
00:44:38The few major targets in terms of docks and storage were within the exclusion zones around Hanoi and Haiphong, the two major cities.
00:44:47For political reasons, these areas were not bombed for most of the war, as the U.S. consistently tried to negotiate an end to the fighting in the south.
00:45:06The thud pilots learned their own ways of coping with the streams of sands that rose at them, splitting and diving to confuse and evade the missiles.
00:45:17I think we're all right with the time, man.
00:45:19I think it looks good.
00:45:20Okay, Detroit, let's get out of here to the south west.
00:45:34In tangles with the MiGs, the 105s came off well.
00:45:38They had such reserve of power that if a MiG managed to get in position to fire, they could, in most cases, simply accelerate away from them.
00:45:46Further, the thuds were capable of turning the tables on their attackers and really mixing it.
00:45:52Twenty-eight MiG-17s were downed by 105s.
00:45:55The bombs continued to rain down on Vietnam.
00:46:02The bombs continued to rain down on Vietnam.
00:46:08The bombs continued to rain down thezić tour.
00:46:10The bombs continued to be on and divided until midnight period
00:46:30Supporting the bombing was an electronics and communications network of unprecedented
00:46:55technical sophistication. Operations controllers directed a huge fleet of varied craft in the air
00:47:02at every level from artillery spotter planes to B-52s. They dispatched rescue operations for
00:47:08downed pilots and coordinated the activities of tankers, bombers and fighters.
00:47:13Off the coast of North Vietnam prowled the Big Eye planes, packed with sensitive radar and alert
00:47:29for the slightest activity from the MiG squadrons. Any appearance of the MiGs was monitored and the
00:47:35information relayed to the fighters in the area. The constant observation, coupled with the air
00:47:41superiority of the phantoms and thunder chiefs, served to ensure that for large periods of the
00:47:46war, the communist air force stayed on the ground, pragmatically accepting that they could not compete.
00:47:52The controllers and their equipment directing the airstrikes were
00:48:11themselves part of a chain of command that stretched back from Vietnam through the
00:48:15Pacific headquarters in Hawaii, all the way to Washington, where the targets were
00:48:20identified and authorised.
00:48:21At the very end of the chain were the thuds, setting off daily with their loads.
00:48:30And the Marine Guard's head is very high and controlled by the field of war.
00:48:31The Marine Guard has a huge issue. The Marine Guard has a huge issue of leaves in the
00:48:40area right now and fertiliser. The Marine Guard is in the area and is in the area and with their
00:48:46need to leave the unit of their load. The Marine Guard has an air force. The Marine Guard is in the area and is in the area of the
00:48:48Okay, I got them here.
00:49:18Thousands and thousands of sorties succeeded one another, with the F-105 carrying most of the load.
00:49:25Whether or not one questions the strategic effect of the program, it is impossible to not acknowledge the burden that the Thunder Chiefs carried,
00:49:33and the effectiveness with which they pursued their assignments.
00:49:37In June 1967, the first of the Thuds to do so reached the halfway point in their theoretical 4,000 hour fatigue lifetime, to be followed soon by others.
00:49:55The most critical fatigue concern was the strains upon the engines. The missions that the Thuds were flying were unlike anything originally envisaged.
00:50:04They were regularly running at full power, with afterburner, for extended periods of time. The stress on the power plants was enormous.
00:50:12The hot sections of the huge J-75 engine were particularly vulnerable to this type of treatment.
00:50:19Already there had been some shortages of spares.
00:50:22As a safeguard, the normal engine life between changes was reduced from 200 to 125 hours,
00:50:29and teams of mechanics worked on overhauling the engines, testing them and reinstalling them on the planes.
00:50:35¶¶
00:50:42¶¶
00:50:45¶¶
00:50:52By August 1968, the 388th Squadron was flying a Thunder Chief with 3,000 hours under his
00:51:22belt, having gone out on 500 missions, received flak damage on several occasions and been
00:51:27involved in a mid-air collision earlier in the year. By October, three more had passed
00:51:33the mark. They were growing old fast. An earlier suggestion to reopen the lines and build more
00:51:40F-105s had been considered, then dropped. There was a replacement for much of their work already
00:51:47available in the Phantom, and construction was proceeding apace on their successor, a
00:51:52design that had been much influenced by the story of the Thud, and which reflected many
00:51:56of the lessons learnt in its combat life, the F-111. For the time being, the Thuds remained
00:52:03indispensable, and they were constantly tended to maintain their status and prolong their
00:52:07life.
00:52:14The Thuds remained in Vietnam to the end. Not only the two-seater Sam-suppressing Wild Weasels,
00:52:21but also the Ds and Fs, with their bombs, tactical support, and electronic countermeasure systems.
00:52:29The Thuds were still workhorses, right through to the devastating Linebacker 1 and 2 operations,
00:52:34that finally brought the North to a negotiating position that allowed the US to withdraw from
00:52:39the conflict. Their bombing had sustained the air war against North Vietnam. There was
00:52:47no other plane at the time that could have done the job. The bombing was fiercely pressed
00:52:52home, and the results devastating, particularly when they were directed against a specific industrial
00:52:57target, as here on this truck maintenance depot. The Ho Chi Minh trail buzzed with activity
00:53:04during the bombing haunts, with trucks bumper to bumper, illustrating two points, the wily
00:53:10resolve of the Vietnamese in pursuit of their aims, and the effectiveness of the bombing. With
00:53:15thuds about, the trucks were far more circumspect.
00:53:29The pilots' tour of duty was 100 missions, and the thuds saw hundreds of pilots through
00:53:35their tour and home again. They were men who were undoubtedly universally glad to be out
00:53:40of the war, glad to have done their job and survived. However, many of them were to miss
00:53:46their big machines, and the sensation of howling through the air in a huge metal monster at twice
00:53:51the speed of sound.
00:53:54Captain John Piawati began growing his moustache when he first arrived in Vietnam in 1967.
00:54:00When he finished his 100th mission, the moustache was 12 and a quarter inches long. On his 55th
00:54:06mission, his thud was hit by artillery over the Paul Duma bridge near Hanoi during a bombing run.
00:54:11His story is typical. Not only did he hit the bridge and bring down a span, but the damaged thud
00:54:17brought him home to finish his tour.
00:54:20Some of the Wild Weasel and other specialist planes stayed with the USAF after Vietnam,
00:54:25but the 105s were progressively phased out and retired into the hands of the pilots of the Air Force Reserves.
00:54:32There were not too many of them about, and they faded rather quickly from use.
00:54:38The last reserve flight of an F-105 was on the 25th of May 1983, exactly 25 years after
00:54:45the accident on the first flight of the F-105B.
00:54:52The last period was on the 25th of May 1983.
00:54:58The list was found in the U.S.A building in the future, so that the aircraft was
00:55:12center from the Hanoi to the center of the P-105.
00:55:15And, it was not that 3.6B.
00:55:18Many pilots sat in the seat of an F-105 and went through the start-up process.
00:55:31Many owed their lives to them.
00:55:33Most of them considered their plane the best in the inventory.
00:55:37The big fighter grew from its problem childhood,
00:55:40and the parameters of what an aircraft could be asked to do grew with it.
00:55:44In an era of multiple transitions, it is an astounding achievement
00:55:49that so much was got right so well in one package.
00:55:53There were never very many of them, and their reputation is perhaps not widespread.
00:55:58But if the words Great Plane can be ascribed to any plane,
00:56:02then they can certainly be ascribed to the F-105 Thunderchief, the Thud.
00:56:14The Thud.
00:56:44The Thud.
00:57:14The Thud.
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