F-107 Ultra Sabre R/C rocket glider

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burkefj

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I was going through cleaning out my old plans I did back in 2007-2010 which were mostly profiles and I decided to see if I could adapt my F-107 profile to be more of a full fuse design, but use a rocket tube and nose cone to make it simpler. I had to make some concessions to scale appearance but I think it captures the look ok. Length is 36", winspan is 34", weight is 11.25 oz ready to fly using a 24mm Aerotech composite e-6 longburn motor. In this video I still had to finish the vinyl markings on the other half of the plane, but the weather was perfect for a maiden so out it went. These are the first three flights in order, flew beautifully.

 
The F-107A is one of my favorite airplanes.

Too bad it did not go into production.
 
From the documentaries I've seen, North American built what they thought the air force needed which was a fast clean aircraft with exernal store capability, Republic talked to the air force folks and built what the air force really wanted which was a fighter/bomber with an internal bomb bay. In the end for what the thunderchief was really used for in Viet Nam which was carrying a lot of ordnance, the thunderchief was probably the right choice in hindsight....

QUOTE="kuririn, post: 2046834, member: 25677"]
The radical design may have been a factor in why the Thud won the competition.
In terms of performance they were both really close.
[/QUOTE]
 
The F-107 was an interesting design... but how would a pilot be able to safely eject in front of that intake? They could have used downward ejection like of the F-104, but that proved deadly in low-level ejections.
 
it's funny people obsess over the intake when it's really the tall vertical stabilizer that you need to clear and it wasn't ever a problem and pilots were not concerned with it that flew it, Go to the 7:30 point of this video and you can see a test of the rail assembly that guides the ejection seat safely past the engine intake.

The F-107 was an interesting design... but how would a pilot be able to safely eject in front of that intake? They could have used downward ejection like of the F-104, but that proved deadly in low-level ejections.
 
From the documentaries I've seen, North American built what they thought the air force needed which was a fast clean aircraft with exernal store capability, Republic talked to the air force folks and built what the air force really wanted which was a fighter/bomber with an internal bomb bay. In the end for what the thunderchief was really used for in Viet Nam which was carrying a lot of ordnance, the thunderchief was probably the right choice in hindsight....

QUOTE="kuririn, post: 2046834, member: 25677"]
The radical design may have been a factor in why the Thud won the competition.
In terms of performance they were both really close.
[/QUOTE]
The F105 Thud couldn’t defend itself worth beans with a full bomb load, and the planning idiots had them fly the same routes, the same times, the same call signs, and the same frequencies, so the Migs would show up along the known route, the Thuds would dump their ordinance and skeddadle for home.

Finally an Air Force Colonel, Robin Olds, engaged his brain and set up several flights of F4s, flying the routes, freqs, and call signs of the Thuds, even loaded up with the Thuds SAM-jammer pods. The North Vietnamese sent up the foxes (Migs) expected the defenseless rabbits (Thuds) and met the 8th Fighter Wing F4s (aka the “Wolf Pack.”)

12 minutes later it was F4s 7, Migs 0.

It makes for great reading


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo
I met then General Olds when he gave a lecture when I was in college.

Still baffles me how stupid many of our combat tactics were in Vietnam. It’s like nobody except Ho Chi Minh ever bothered to read Sun Tzu.
 
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