I was raised on a farm in Minnesota. We had no electricity until 1947. In 1956 I joined the USAF and was trained to work on basically the F 102. By 1957 I was actually working on the airplanes. In the following military training film they explain how to adjust the "tube and discrete components" that made supersonic flight possible by controlling the position and deflection of the control surfaces. They also made it possible as the system supplied to the pilot a means of controlling the aircraft. Mach tuck , control reversal, aircraft instability, random inputs caused by outside influences were all handled and the pilot only did what he was trained to. There were computers, all analog, and all tests measured voltages and adjusted mechanical inputs. The inputs were applied to the physical components, and the actual movements and positions were measured with protractors and gauges. Tolerances were often in .001 of an inch and a degree and this was done at the edge of a several foot long "lever" that meant the actual movement of the pistons in the cylinders were not really visible. A system of MOOG control valves converted the electrical signals to a movement of the hydraulic units that positioned the control surfaces. This made it possible less than 10 years after the first mach 1 flight for a routine trained pilot to not only fly the aircraft, but for it to be stable enough to actually preform a mission. The USAF has severe problems maintaining their aircraft today using basically automated computerized testing of digital controlled equipment. The testing in the 1950's was basically at the test lab state and used physical values. It required 100's of steps and they all had to be right. This film shows how simple the F 102 system was and yet how complex. The pilot using hand controls, turning switches, pushing buttons, had to choose the target, lock on to it, set the range. and then let the computer take over. The computer not only positioned the aircraft to fire the weapons, including the atomic Genie, but provided the inputs that controlled the aircraft and made supersonic flight possible, provided navigation inputs, and could even in theory fly down to the flare out position in landing. All of this done without transistors, printed circuits, digital computers, and in the first generation of supersonic aircraft to ever be operational. In fact the first test models of the F-102 were not supersonic as until the area rule wing etc were developed, the more power applied, then greater the drag and it limited its speed. The engine in the aircraft, the J-57, was the first mass produced engine to exceed 10,000 lbs thrust and was designed to run for a long time and be fuel efficient. Compare that to the 1944 engines in the ME-262. about 2,000 lbs thrust and an average total useful life of 15 to 20 hours. The contract for the F-102 was issued in Oct 1950, the first test flight of the aircraft was in Oct 1953. 3 years to design and build a totally new aircraft to use a new type wing, new armament control systems, new engine and tie it into a new way of controlling the way it was to be used, the SAGE system where the plane is tied into a defense system instead of acting alone.. Compare that to the F-35 with the contract issued in 2001 and first flight in 2006, in service about 2015, and still so buggy that it is not in full production in 2023. As an example of the complexity required in solving the simple inputs for actual air speed, altitude. mach number and feeding the inputs into the computer and thus the flight control systems, an e post on a similar system used on some other early supersonic aircraft is shown here. It is from the early 1050's and thus is modernized to use some transistors and not be limited as the early F-102 to vacuum tubes and their extra layer of complexity. Reverse-engineering an electromechanical Central Air Data Computer. Don't know what changed, but we went from 0 to several hundred MPH in a few years. Supersonic flight, major jet engines, man in orbit and on the moon, nuclear power, transistors and micro circuits, digital computers, all the new things in medical treatments, plastics and chemical changes, etc. We were just into the vacuum tube era in 1930's and most aircraft were still open cockpit and fabric covered. In 1934 Wiley Post set altitude records with a special built pressure suit, and discovered the jet stream, in 1944, major air combat was fought at the heights that had been records 10 years earlier. My grandmother was born in 1874, remembered the arguments about if the Wright Brothers flight was a hoax or not, she was then 30 years old with 3 children and at the time considered middle aged, but lived to watch men walk on the moon on live TV. Probably a waste of time and storage, but as my life nears its end, I can't help but think of all the major things I have seen and enjoyed even as Joe average man and not some highly educated important person. It is even more amazing when I look back on how we used to ignore the impossible and just do it. Kelly Johnson designed fabric winged biplanes and the SR-71 and if something didn't exist, numerically controlled tools for example and he needed it, he created that too. A few organizations seem to at times show some of the old drive, SpaceX, seems to be able to on a limited budget do what NASA could do 50 years ago. New engines, reusable boosters, manned launches, frequent and inexpensive flights in comparison to NASA or United Launch Alliance, etc. Their latest shot at the moon rocket is on hold as the Fish and Wild Life Agency has to give them permission to use the water deluge system to protect the launch pad. Might take a couple years and a few court challenges by the 'Sierra Club, etc, to be sure there are no endangered frogs or butterflies.
I know what you mean, today's local news in the local paper is the opening of a new (replacement) bridge across a creek in this county. The old bridge was built in the 1930s and was closed in 2017... if it takes 6 years to build a bridge across a minor creek in NW Alabama, how long would it take to do something major or important? With all of our advances in building technology it takes longer and more money to do less and less. Sometimes it seems as if we are advancing rapidly into the past! Obama did say one trueful thing, " there is no such thing as a shovel ready job".
The U.S Air Force has always had a MAJOR problem with it's fighter jets, too big, to high tech, lumbering giants that only do ONE thing, sometimes they even do it well! The F-102/106 was one example of many to suffer that policy, largely the Air Force trying to cram as much high tech into a good design making it a slug, and ruining a good plane! The F-104 was the exact opposite ( Much like the original concept of the F-16) make it good enough and simple enough, and it could do many things well enough to be useful, except that went against the thinking, so they withdrew it from service well before it ever really got as good as it could have been, and went on to prove beyond a shadow just how great it actually was! The F-4 Phantom was the one shining beacon of light during those dark days, it was really THAT GOOD at everything, and despite being hamstrung by U.S Air Force polity, it managed to perform extremely well at everything that was asked of it! Mistakes were made, plenty of them, the U.S Air Force alone had nearly 15 of them combined through out the 50's and 60's and even with the newer F-15 and F-16, they hadn't seemed to have learned, which is why there was also the F-14 and the F-18, and why all the big money was spent on the F-14 and F-15 instead of the smaller F-16 and F-18's that were actually that much better! Another BIGGY was the Air Force rejected the F-14 ( partly political policy, McNamara, and it's own massive investment in the F-15) and partly because the F-111 was still just coming into it's own! I have always said the F-14 was the very best of them all, and was waisted on the NAVY who never even came close to realizing what that beast of an airplane was actually capable of, NO, we got screwed, and we got stuck with the F-15 and F-16 combo, and to be fair, both do extremely well, but both fail against the F-14! Now we have the F-15 Echo, which is what we would have had in the F-14 to start with, and the F-111 should have never been built, but again, we got screwed by McNamara who insisted on ONE machine for both branches, and was proven very early on to have been completely and utterly wrong about everything he had planned! Meanwhile, the F-4 continued on, well past it's expiration date, it was really THAT GOOD, it was big yea, but it was the right kind of big, it was fast, it had an amazing payload, it had range, and it was very agile, far more then anyone will tell you, (partly because of marketing of the F-14 and F-15,) and it was MEAN AS HELL! No, the Phabulous Phantom was way ahead of it's time, designed with slide rulers and and mechanical drawings done by hand, it was, and still is, a marvel of what this nation could do when given a chance and not a bunch of un realistic requirements! They say the F-35 is a Purple Turkey a complete Sham and waste of resources, the fact that the A-10 could smoke it in most missions should tell you, basically a stone age Jet that is both BIG and S-L-O-W and goes Berttttttttttttttttttt is actually far more capable, it also says something when every country who was hot to trot for the F-35 decided to bag it and adopt ether the F-18 Echo Super Hornet, or the Saab JAS-37 Grippon, a no joke serious fighter with serious teeth! It is also telling that the F-22 is on the ropes, what was supposed to be the greatest of the great is now nearly a has been, a foot-note to history of really bad policy and really bad decisions by extremely narrow minded idiots in offices with absolutely ZERO concept of what is actually needed, and instead of making more A-10's, they push for the next greatest thing, and instead of making new F-4's for the ONE mission that no other jet can fly, they instead force the Air Force to adapt the F-16 to a mission it has no hope of ever completing unless suicide it now an accepted part of the plan! Hell, the only other jet that could have ever flown that mission WAS the F-14, but the Air Force said NO, the Navy said NO, and then Congress said NO, and now we're screwed big time, and set to challenge China in the mother of all air battles when we cannot hope to take and hold any advantage right from the get go! Mistakes continue to be made, now there is the promise of some far off new 6th gen jet that is supposed to be un beatable in a fight, Yea, another F-35 Purple Turkey, too expensive, too fat and slow, too much tech, and not enough of what makes a good airplane! At least the F-22 could do what they said it could, but NO we cant have that now, now that we have had a taste of it,, no,, we bank everything on a promise of something yet to be delivered, and we won't have enough of them, and they will cost billions each, and sooner or later, congress with say enough is enough, and pull the plug and were right back to where we are today, flying the F-15 and F-16 far beyond their limits or abilities, and expecting them to continue on being the best in the world against newer and better! Sooner or later China will figure out how to actually build good jets with engines that actually work, and no matter who or what they steal, were gonna have to fight that, same with the Russians and India!
I think of exactly the same thing every time I drive over the Mackinaw Bridge: 5 miles long over the Straits. Built in the postwar years. Could we do it again? I have my doubts.
Have to say the F-4 Phantom was a work horse. Having loaded munitions on the F-4 during Nam it could deliver a one hell of a pay load take a beating and make it back to base. The only design flaw was (noted by Col Robin Olds) it did not have internal guns we had to load a centerline gun pod.
Yep, in 1954 we started the "official" interstate hiway system. Been a lot of projects before that, but it all came to a head under Eisenhower in 1954. Built the machines to do the construction, the concrete and steel for the road, tunnels, and bridges all in the USA. Designed it on paper, laid it out with transits, built it with grade stakes, and the 70 year old design still works well. No EPA, no greenies stopping ever crossing of a swamp or river, mistakes were made, but it is darn handy.
The problem with the interstate highway system is that they increasingly want to build new highways when the old highways are in such bad shape! If you can't maintain what you already have stop building and fill in the pot-holes!
Thinking back to the 1950's. Had a pilot of the F 100 tell me one time that the F 100 A was the first plane the USAF had that could break the sound barrier in level flight, and that the F 100 C with its pitch and yaw dampers was the first plane that the USAF had that was controlled by the pilot that could fly faster than the speed of sound. Used springs, one gave the pilot a feel for the resistance of the flight controls at lower speeds and then a second one was also engaged to compensate for the greater effect of moving the control surfaces at high sub and mach speeds. In the A model, if it started to move in any direction, the pilot had to feel it and compensate with stick motions if he could and he often couldn't. Major crash killed the test pilot on the first one and 47 major crashes in USAF A models. In the C model, the dampers compensated for the deviation and the pilot never knew it had happened. In all the rest of the 100 series, they all had the computer controls in even the experimental models. North American F-100 Super Sabre - Wikipedia
Reading a few pilots comments on early days of supersonic and the 100 series planes. One made the comment on the F-104, said "It was on honest plane, if you made a mistake it would kill you"
There is NO Barrier !!! Get over it !! speed of sound, speed of sound, IS ??and we go past that !! Above is US crap , Brit prop planes in WW2 figured it out . Sorry to burst your barrier C S
And build it the way that bridge works.. I cross the bridge about once a month on average, and depending on the season those expansion joints get pretty wide, and the updraft coming through the grate can get a little dicey.. Glad I'm not driving a Yugo...
Might not be a sound barrier, but the fluid dynamics sure change at the speed of sound. Acts more like a liquid above the speed of sound and you really have to change the inputs to the control servos with changes in air speed, altitude, etc, and if you made the same changes in the control surfaces displacements at 800 mph that you did at 500 mph, and the servo's will let you do it, you would pull so many g's that the airplane would fall apart. If you make it to stable, it becomes a dart and you can't dog fight or evade missiles with it.
