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LF Pictures YF-17 Top Gun


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Hey Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

I´m looking for pictures of the YF-17 in the three tone scheme during Navy evaluations for a 1/144 kit of this subject. There are two pictures I know (the ones below pop up immediately in a google search, I don`t own any rights) but they leave a lot of the camo to imagination. Any more material on this beauty out there?

 

Thank you,

Thomas

 

 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUh7o4FUQAAAO7g.jpg

 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUiAbZrV4AEvlNF.jpg

Edited by stu_fishing
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Thomas, 

I've had the Anigrand 1/72 kit for years and I'm old enough to be around when the YF-17 was being evaluated and I followed it;  I have the issue of World Air Power that featured it and I've never seen that particular paint scheme nor have I ever heard it being marked with the Top Gun emblem. There was a 'cloud' scheme but it didn't look like that.  It's possible I could have missed it, but I think it's more likely that someone is pretty good at photoshopping.   I'd like to be proven wrong. 

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Don Logan’s YF-17 Cobra book (Schiffer Publishing) has four color pics of this scheme on both P1 1569 and P2 1570, three stbd side and one port side views, circa 1977.  TOPGUN logo clearly visible. Can’t see the top/bottom pattern but you can see both outer and inner vertical tail surfaces. Also note stbd side says NAVY, port side MARINES on P2 1570. Photo credits are Northrop and Roy Lock. 

 

.

 

 

Edited by habu2
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  • 2 weeks later...

Doesn't look like the typical 'Ghost" scheme that F-5Es and later on, F-16Ns had. The Blue looks much like Intermediate Blue FS-35164.

 

Any other thoughts?

 

By the way, anyone knows what the evaluation verdict from NFWS was?

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4 hours ago, SERNAK said:

By the way, anyone knows what the evaluation verdict from NFWS was?

 

Pretty obvious the Navy wasn't sold on the idea since there were no follow-on sales.

 

Northrop also marketed the YF-17 as the F-18L, a land based "Hornet Lite" if you will, and did not receive any orders for it either.

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1 hour ago, habu2 said:

 

Pretty obvious the Navy wasn't sold on the idea since there were no follow-on sales.

 

Northrop also marketed the YF-17 as the F-18L, a land based "Hornet Lite" if you will, and did not receive any orders for it either.

Not correct sir, the pilots liked the aircraft but the Navy was caught in the middle as they had an agreement with McAir. This is the WHY Northrop won a major lawsuit against McDonnell Douglas as they made sure no one bought the YF-17 despite it being an F-5E on steroids and cheaper to boot! The Air Force should have chosen the Cobra as it would have been a super Legacy aircraft for the Air Guard.

Regards,

Chris the cabbie

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16 hours ago, habu2 said:

 

Pretty obvious the Navy wasn't sold on the idea since there were no follow-on sales.

I asked what the NFWS verdict was not the Navy's. Like Chris said indirectly it is the pilots opinions that count most. The Navy will say and do what the "interests" dictate in favour of one company over another.

 

Similar situation; the air war over Vietnam. If it was in the hands of the pilots to decide what was right, the USAF and NAVY would had air superiority from the beginning BUT, it was companies that wanted to make sales of their new "gizmos" that dictated the route of the war.

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I know alot of ARC members may not be old enough to remember this but, the famed Pugachev cobra maneuver was started by the YF-17 in 1974! Look it up as the Russians did NOT create it, Northrop's test pilots did. This was also the first aircraft that could handle some extreme angle of attack vectors that everything that was in service didn't have a chance in hell of trying.

Regards,

Chris the cabbie

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On 7/11/2019 at 3:47 AM, SERNAK said:

By the way, anyone knows what the evaluation verdict from NFWS was?

 

The YF-17s were assigned to the Topgun squadron (NFWS) in 1977 as part of the F/A-18 development program, not as an evaluation to see if the YF-17 was a suitable adversary aircraft.  As such, there was no "evaluation verdict" from NFWS.   Although I can't find a citation, this was probably part of a pilot familiarization program before the first pre-production F/A-18 airframes were available for Navy pilots to fly. I say this because the first F/A-18 was rolled out in September 1978, with first flight two months later in November 1978

 

.

 

Edited by habu2
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On 7/11/2019 at 9:22 AM, Chris the cabbie said:

Not correct sir, the pilots liked the aircraft but the Navy was caught in the middle as they had an agreement with McAir. This is the WHY Northrop won a major lawsuit against McDonnell Douglas as they made sure no one bought the YF-17 despite it being an F-5E on steroids and cheaper to boot! The Air Force should have chosen the Cobra as it would have been a super Legacy aircraft for the Air Guard.

 

Not correct sir.  While Northrop did have a production agreement with McDD they also had an FMS agreement where the land based F-18L would be offered, not the navalized F/A-18.  When McDD began offering the F/A-18 to FMS customers - the assumed market for the F-18L - Northrop did in fact initiate several lawsuits against McDD.  The lawsuits weren't because the YF-17 was and F-5E on steroids, they were because the F/A-18 was a YF-17 on steroids, and Northrop argued McDD was infringing on Northrop's land based sales of their land based design with McAir's navalized design.

 

Furthermore, Northrop didn't win any of these lawsuits against McDD.  After six years of courtroom wranging the two companies reconciled and the lawsuits were dropped without a ruling.

 

.

 

Edited by habu2
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20 hours ago, SERNAK said:

Similar situation; the air war over Vietnam. If it was in the hands of the pilots to decide what was right, the USAF and NAVY would had air superiority from the beginning BUT, it was companies that wanted to make sales of their new "gizmos" that dictated the route of the war.

This is incorrect, the Johnson Administrations dictated every aspect how the war was to be fought, if it wasn't for their interference the war would have been won by 1968.

 

This is not my opinion, it is stated in every book that has dissected how the Vietnam War was fought. If Johnson has listened to the JCOS the war would have been over by Christmas 67.

Edited by GW8345
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11 hours ago, Chris the cabbie said:

I know alot of ARC members may not be old enough to remember this but, the famed Pugachev cobra maneuver was started by the YF-17 in 1974! Look it up as the Russians did NOT create it, Northrop's test pilots did. This was also the first aircraft that could handle some extreme angle of attack vectors that everything that was in service didn't have a chance in hell of trying.

 

Well I am old enough, and I've met Viktor Pugachev and personally seen him perform the Cobra many times. I didn't ask him if he invented it though.  Pugachev made it famous but it was first performed by a Soviet test pilot (and later Cosmonaut) Igor Volk.

 

Do you have a citation to back up your claim that the YF-17 "invented" the Cobra maneuver?  Yes, the YF-17 was designed to maintain control at higher AoA than then-current fighters, and did reach AoA in excess of 90 deg in tests, but it was not a "Cobra maneuver".  In fact there is a video of the AoA test and it takes the YF-17 approximately 20 seconds to go from level flight to 90+ deg as AoA is slowly increased, showing control is maintained in that range, but it does not show what happens next.  That's quite different than Pugachev's Cobra, which accomplishes the pitch-up maneuver in approx two seconds and is immediately followed by the push-over to level flight (at drastically reduced airspeed).

 

And Northrop named the YF-17 Cobra because it looked like a hooded cobra, not because of any maneuver....

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10 minutes ago, GW8345 said:

This is incorrect, the Johnson Administrations dictated every aspect how the war was to be fault,

 

I see what you did there....  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:

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1 hour ago, habu2 said:

 

Not correct sir.  While Northrop did have a production agreement with McDD they also had an FMS agreement where the land based F-18L would be offered, not the navalized F/A-18.  When McDD began offering the F/A-18 to FMS customers - the assumed market for the F-18L - Northrop did in fact initiate several lawsuits against McDD.  The lawsuits weren't because the YF-17 was and F-5E on steroids, they were because the F/A-18 was a YF-17 on steroids, and Northrop argued McDD was infringing on Northrop's land based sales of their land based design with McAir's navalized design.

 

Furthermore, Northrop didn't win any of these lawsuits against McDD.  After six years of courtroom wranging the two companies reconciled and the lawsuits were dropped without a ruling.

 

.

 

Habu, wrong again as the period news reports clearly state McAir payed $50 million to Northrop over the pending litigation. I don't know where you reside but, if I'm innocent then I sure don't part with 50 MILLION. The settlement came with a gag order on both parties and Northrop accepting secondary supplier status on aft fuselage assemblies IIRC. I live in St Louis and know quite a few McDonnell engineers and they were quite vocal during this period in behalf of the Northrop viewpoint. The McAir marketing and sales departments were ruthless back then and did not play well with others at all.

Regards,

Chris the cabbie

 

A little history for you...

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-04-09-fi-28110-story.html

 

https://casetext.com/case/northrop-corp-v-mcdonnell-douglas-corp-3

 

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48 minutes ago, habu2 said:

Video link of YF-17 AoA test.  This was probably in 1975-76, definitely not 1974.

 

 

Habu,

 

Clearly you like to play pro Soviet and like Wikipedia?? Well, you should have bothered to continue reading as it clearly states that Volk was preceded by the Swedish AF flying J35 Drakens..

 

But Igor Volk was the first Soviet pilot who tested[when?] aircraft behavior at high super-critical angles of attack (around 90°) and performed aerobatics such as the "cobra" maneuver.[3] However, decades prior to this, Swedish pilots in the Saab J35 Draken performed a visually similar maneuver as a training routine while learning how to best recover from a so called "super stall", which had plagued the early years of that aircraft.

 

Look a bit familiar? The first western use (read outside of Sweden) is still the YF-17.

Regards,

Chris the cabbie

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1 hour ago, habu2 said:

 

Not correct sir.  While Northrop did have a production agreement with McDD they also had an FMS agreement where the land based F-18L would be offered, not the navalized F/A-18.  When McDD began offering the F/A-18 to FMS customers - the assumed market for the F-18L - Northrop did in fact initiate several lawsuits against McDD.  The lawsuits weren't because the YF-17 was and F-5E on steroids, they were because the F/A-18 was a YF-17 on steroids, and Northrop argued McDD was infringing on Northrop's land based sales of their land based design with McAir's navalized design.

 

Furthermore, Northrop didn't win any of these lawsuits against McDD.  After six years of courtroom wranging the two companies reconciled and the lawsuits were dropped without a ruling.

 

.

 

Habu,

 

I seriously doubt you understand what constitutes "on steriods" even means? The range of the F-18A & B was 1200 miles while the YF-17 was 2800 miles! Mind you, while dealing with pilots from Canada, Spain and Australia who flew the Alpha model Hornets I got to speak with them at length about the relative likes versus dislikes of using the Hornet. To say the pilots despised the lack of range was to put it VERY MILDLY! To make the YF-17 a carrier capable fighter meant adding tons of weight that sapped the good range of the Cobra and limiting it's  combat capability. Ever talk to F-5E pilots?(remember what the YF-17 grew from!). I spoke with Top Gun pilots stopping over in St Louis to ferry Hornets during the Cold War and they routinely praised the Tiger 2. That's one reason the result with the F-20 was so much of a missed opportunity for the Navy. I think a good part stemmed from the Navy resenting that the F-5E was an Air Force design and not a Navy design from the start. The F-20 was fruit from the poisoned tree as it grew out of the F-5E. Top Gun could be flying them now and waxing Super Hornets and F-35s. The only plane I can recall waxing an F-5E was a RAF Lightning F6 during Red Flag in the mid 80's. They are still flying F-5E's worldwide right now and I'd challenge you to find Alpha or Bravo model Hornets still airworthy these days.

In short, the more weight you add to an aircraft, the more you lose in performance. The Hornet is a text book example of this. The Super Hornet is super in name only and nowhere near a Tomcat replacement. Just ask the pilots.

Regards,

Chris the cabbie

 

P.S.- I never stated Cobra had anything to do with the YF-17 name. Just an assumption on your part.

Edited by Chris the cabbie
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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you for the input. I got the Don Logans book and was able to get most information. Underside and some areas of the topside have to use some imagination but I have the feeling this is as good as it gets with the available pictures out there.1119566-8463bebbf03a415f3bcad93647759a9b

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