About F-8 Crusader?

Question

Can somebody tell me about the F-8? and how it fared against other fighters of its era? Can we say thats its one of the best fighters of its era?

Answer 1

It was way cool. A real airshow favorite. It was fast, loud, and if you had the RF-8 doing the show, the photo-flash loop was a real crowd pleaser.

Answer 2

it was the last fighter equipped with cannons, for a while.

the Crusaders probably saw some missions during the early stages of the vietnam war.

Answer 3

Crusader was one of the best fighters of its specific era: i.e. early supersonic jets (Wikipedia calls it "2nd generation jet fighters"). It has the moniker "the last gunfighter" as it was designed as a dogfighter using guns and short-range missiles (which were added later).

Its contemporaries in the USN or USAF are mainly designed as missile platforms namely, the F-100, the F-3 (and later F-4), and the F-11 and thus are not really designed for dogfighting. US Navy at the time is undergoing a doctrine change that emphasizes long-range missile shooters from beyond visual range (BVR) to defend against Soviet long-range bombers. Dogfighters are believed to be obsolete. Indeed, that's why the naval version of F-4 doesn't even have guns.

Against contemporary MiGs... That'd be MiG-19 and MiG-21. The MiG-21 is not a dogfighter, due to its delta wings (which bleeds off energy quickly in a turning fight, which is bad). MiG-19 is more comparable, but MiG-19 was not really designed as a dogfighter either. It's considered an intercepter, with cannons for some ground attack, and quickly replaced by MiG-21 due to MiG-21's Mach 2 capabilities.

Answer 4

Here's some pretty good information.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-8_Crusade...

Answer 5

It was a pretty mean plane.  First true supersonic naval fighter.

Here is a video of one (CGI) from the dogfights series.  It's just amazing what this guy (and plane) did!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=k49bFxuCdZc