The design role of the 104 was never air to air combat. It was designed as a ground attack aircraft, not as an fighter/interceptor. It had no need for air to air combat capability as it could out run any fighter/interceptor in the world when it was introduced. Also It did not have the maneuverability a fighter/interceptor needed. Yes, I know some small countries used it as an fighter/interceptor, but that was because they were given the aircraft by, guess who, probably with the knowledge that if we ever needed to attack their country they would not be able to fight off our planes with it. The Air Force did not see much need for air to air fighters in that period; on the other hand the Navy was heavily into air to air fighters as their perceived role was to fight off air attacks on the fleets.
mike wilson wrote: >> From: Adam Maas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Date: 2007/10/18 Thu PM 08:14:36 GMT >> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <pdml@pdml.net> >> Subject: Re: Completely and totally OT: Politics >> >> Well, Canada did buy a bunch of F-104's. Too bad ours were low-level nuke >> ground attack birds (Absolutely no air-to-air capability due to lacking a >> gun prior to 1972 and a dedicated ground-attack radar instead of the normal >> air-to-air set). We shoulda bought F-105 thuds instead. >> >> The CF-104 killed a lot of Canadians. > > Not to mention the Germans and Americans. Should have gone for the EE > Lightning. > > > > ----------------------------------------- > Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email > Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
