Original subtitles

- This program was made possible by Wings Over the Rockies,

educating and inspiring all people

about aviation and space endeavors

of the past, present, and the future.

Hi, I'm Shahn Sederberg, and this is "Behind the Wings".

In this episode, we'll get an inside look

at the Century Series fighters.

- [Narrator] Three Century Series strike aircraft.

- You ever flown an airplane, Lieutenant?

- No, sir.

- [Shahn] The Century Series defined an era

of aviation during the Cold War,

charting a course from one era to another.

- [Narrator] First of the supersonic fighters.

- Jets were in their infancy, and many milestones,

including the sound barrier, loomed large.

- [Narrator] Welcome to supersonic pilot training.

- Morning, sir.

- [Shahn] In an arms race with the Soviet Union,

a rising superpower,

the US got to work

developing a variety of impressive fighter jets

known as the Century Series.

It's time to go "Behind the Wings".

(cheerful music)

- I'm Chuck Stout.

I'm the curator

at Wings over the Rockies Air and Space museum.

As soon as we started developing jet fighters,

we knew that we wanted to build something

that would go faster than the speed of sound.

So the sound barrier was first broken

by Chuck Yeager in 1947.

Manufacturers started trying to figure out immediately

how they could build a supersonic production airplane,

an airplane capable of exceeding the speed of sound

in level flight.

We recognized that the Soviet Union would be a major threat,

a threat to democracy.

We had nuclear weapons and they didn't until 1949.

So as soon as they started exploding nuclear weapons,

then it became the Cold War.

In the late '40s, early 1950s,

we realized that the biggest threat now

would be Soviet bombers coming over the pole,

carrying nuclear weapons.

So the first efforts

towards building supersonic fighters and interceptors

were to take out nuclear bombers

coming from the Soviet Union.

Because of the Air Force numbering sequence

of their fighter planes,

the first supersonic fighter happened to be the F-100,

hence the beginning of the Century Series.

- [Narrator] The big punch of the Tactical Air Command

is made up of these three Century Series strike aircraft.

All can deliver nuclear or non nuclear weapons.

The North American F-100 Super Sabre,

first US Air Force fighter to fly operationally

in supersonic speed in straight and level flight.

- My name's John Stewart.

I joined the Air Force in 1966

and I went to F-100 training school at Luke Air Force Base.

Graduated from that and went directly to Vietnam

in October of 1968,

I had gone to high school overseas

at Wheelus Air Force Base.

And so I'd seen an F-100 when I was in high school.

When we'd go to lunch, they'd be at the officer's club

and you'd see the pilots hanging around

and you thought, this was really something.

And then eight years later, I was flying one.

The first time I flew the F-100 was quite a thrill.

The first time I soloed and got in an airplane

with only one seat, no one in the airplane

and lowered the canopy, and I said, here I am flying

what at the time was one of the most iconic fighters

in the Air Force.

The people that flew the F-100s

were hardcore fighter pilots.

They lived on the edge.

It just had an image of a big, bad machine.

You had to be completely in charge of the airplane

to fly it and survive.

And so you looked at these people

as almost demigods of aviation.

Almost the first day in F-100 training,

they showed us a video of one of them, the early models,

that did what they call a sabre dance

and it ended up crashing.

It was at Edwards Air Force Base.

And they talked about the challenges of flying this airplane

and the characteristics of this airplane when it gets slow.

And the fact they drilled into our head

that you must understand how to fly it,

or you'll be one of those people that does a sabre dance

and you won't live through it.

And the flying of it, it was very heavy.

38,000 pounds maximum weight.

It had low performance unless you had the afterburner

and the afterburner gave 60% more power.

- [Pilot] Okay, I got the burners.

It's a good light.

- It was a very responsive airplane

once you got up to about 300 miles an hour.

Before that it was a little sluggish at slower airspeeds.

Well, the F-100 had a worldwide reputation

as the first fighter aircraft

that would go supersonic in level flight.

- [Narrator] Unveiled in 1953

was the first of the supersonic fighters,

fighters capable of operating regularly

above the speed of sound.

- Prior to that, all the supersonic flight had occurred

in taking the airplane up to 40000 or 50000 feet

and going in a steep dive and going supersonic.

During training and we'd go out and accelerate it,

go through Mach 1.

And then when you got back, Northrop gave you a pin.

And so that was cool.

The airplane, when you went Mach 1, you hardly knew it.

There'd be a little change in the feeling

of the flight controls

because when you go supersonic,

the pressure on the airplane changes dramatically.

You said, well, here I went supersonic

in the first airplane that went supersonic in level flight.

You felt like you were in a special group of aviators.

Like the space race, we were in a race in the nation

and the people that were developing airplanes

were trying to improve the airplane's performance.

- [Narrator] Now from experimental labs and drawing boards,

there came yet another aviation miracle, the jet!

- Before that in World War Two,

except for a few German jets, there were just prop planes.

And so the transition from propeller planes to jet airplanes

was just taking place when the F-100 came in.

- [Narrator] After many years of study and research,

jet powered aircraft was a reality.

More powerful than any plane previously conceived,

the jet opened up a new vista in aviation progress.

- And the shape of the fuselage

was part of the technology.

And a lot of it was experimental.

They didn't really know what was going to happen

until they got the airplane and tested it.

The F-100 started the series.

And each one, they were trying to go

faster and faster and faster

and have more combat capability

as they went through the Century Series.

- Okay, we get it.

These fighter jets are super fast.

But how exactly do sonic booms work?

Next we'll hear from Camille Calibeo

to learn a little more about sonic booms.

- The Century Series fighters

were some of the first planes to reach supersonic speeds.

But how do sonic booms work?

Imagine you are walking down a crowded sidewalk.

You were walking at a decent pace

faster than the other people,

but they have time to react and move out of the way for you.

This analogy applies to subsonic flight.

You are the plane

and the people around you are the air molecules

the plane is trying to move through.

The air molecules have time to react to the plane coming

and can move out of the way for it.

Now imagine that you are in a big rush.

This time you are moving much faster than the other people,

and they don't have time to react

and move out of the way for you.

This analogy applies to supersonic flight.

Again, you are the plane

and the people around you are the air molecules

the plane is trying to move through.

The plane is moving much faster

than the air molecules can react,

which means they don't have time to move out of the way.

The supersonic plane in this instance causes a shockwave

because the air molecules have compressed

and built up a lot pressure

just like you would compress the people in the crowd

if you were running and pushing through it.

Shockwaves looks similar to wakes created by boats,

except that they are three dimensional cones

that extend all the way to the ground

from the front of the plane.

On the ground, a sharp release of pressure occurs

and creates what is called a sonic boom

that you would hear whenever the plane passes over you.

- Development was very fast

and progress was going at an astonishing rate.

At the same time that North American

was developing the F-100,

McDonnell was developing the F-101,

and Lockheed was developing F-104,

Convair was developing the F-102.

- [Narrator] The year 1957 was an increasingly active one

for the F-102 flight test program.

- [Chuck] The F-102 was intended to be supersonic,

but during its initial test flights, it was subsonic.

That was very disappointing

because they did everything right.

They did everything according to the rulebook.

- The first jets were tubes with intake in the front

and exhaust in the back.

And you would attach wings and fuel tanks to it

and a cockpit and away you would go.

When we started to getting to the point of pushing the Mach,

going Mach 0.9, 0.95, 0.97,

you'd run into a wall.

Drag profile would go way up

and the thrust profile wouldn't change.

That was what was called

for many, many years the sound barrier.

- [Narrator] Now at the speed of sound,

it forms a dangerous wall of shockwaves

known as the sound barrier.

- It's not a barrier at all, it was an aerodynamic problem.

- Meanwhile, in another part of the country,

NASA had scientists working on aerodynamics.

One of them, Richard Whitcomb,

had been studying the area rule for years.

- When you started approaching the Mach

you would get huge drag rise over those wings.

This guy found out that you really needed

to have the profile that looks like this,

including the wings.

So to do that, they took a big piece out of the fuselage

called the Coke bottle effect.

And that would give a total profile going through the air

of a fairly sleek design.

- When you look at the old-fashioned

glass Coca-Cola bottles,

they start out narrow, they get fat,

then they narrow again and then they get fat again.

And if you look at supersonic airplanes,

there's always a narrow part

where the wings stick out from the fuselage.

And usually the tail gets a little bit wider behind that.

So that's the Coke bottle that everybody talks about.

- The F-102 wouldn't even come close

to going through the Mach.

They changed it.

They put some big twofers on the outside of the engine,

in the rear.

They changed the intake design, which was upfront.

And then they took a big chop out of the fuselage

to give it an area rule.

Then they found out the thing went supersonic just fine.

With the same engine.

(pensive music)

- The Century Series exemplified an era of rapid development

fueled by the military tensions

and resulting demands of the Cold War.

The US government approached manufacturers,

simultaneously producing a variety of aircraft

each with their own unique characteristics and capabilities.

Next we'll take a look at the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter,

a single engine supersonic interceptor aircraft

that was used extensively during the Cold War,

and eventually saw widespread manufacturing

and use outside of the US.

- When I got into the Air Force,

I decided I had to be a fighter pilot.

That's how I got into F-104s

is on the heels of the Cuban Crisis in early 1963.

- [Narrator] The F-104 is a tower in the sky

from which men can keep vigil over their homeland.

- The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

was designed under the same design team under Kelly Johnson,

who was also responsible for the P-38 Lighting

in World War II

and for the F-80 Shooting Star,

which was our first operational jet fighter.

So when he approached

this point defense interceptor problem,

he and his design team, the Skunkworks at Lockheed,

went for simplicity, lightweight,

and a very efficient design.

- Kelly Johnson came up with the Starfighter

and we called it the high fastie.

The high, fast, faster airplane would win the battle.

What would it do?

Go high and fast.

Once you did that, you better head back home

because you're out of gas.

And you better not try to turn real hard

or you'll fall out of the sky.

It took a big piece of airspace to make a 360 degree turn.

- [Chuck] You'll notice that the wings on the F-104

are proportionately very small compared to the wings

on other airplanes.

And they are designed strictly for supersonic flight.

That means you have to get them going

really fast on the ground before you can even take off.

- The F-104 went supersonic on its first flight.

It was always fast.

It carried very little fuel and had a great big engine

and was very pointy so it was easy to go fast.

The 104 was a basic airplane.

When we were flying the thing out of Homestead

in those early days,

we didn't even have a navigation system.

We'd just go out there until we sort of passed over

a little set of islands that we knew

that was sort of where the line was between Cuban territory

and US territory.

That was about the most complex system that we had.

We had sort of a super squadron at Homestead.

We had 26 unit equipment airplanes.

And we could scramble from wake up at 2:00 in the morning

to the sound of a horn, and it would go, eee,

and we would come awake, run out the door,

run to our airplane, get in and start up

and be airborne in less than three minutes.

I have gotten airborne

and then been going through 10000 feet

when I'm saying to myself, come on, Charlie,

wake up, wake up, you're flying now.

And that's the way you feel sometimes

when you're scrambled in the dead of night.

We scrambled on some very interesting things.

Sometimes they had an idea of what it was or who it was.

But most of the time it was we get airborne

and we're on the way out to take a look.

And that happened the time

that I intercepted a nuclear submarine.

Nobody knew what it was.

- [Narrator] Field of radar,

which will search out on unknown aircraft

long before they reach US borders.

- But it was clearly a nuclear submarine on the surface.

Is it friendly or not friendly?

In this case turned out to be a British submarine

coming in to Cape Canaveral.

The typical air defender says when you make your intercept,

get type and numbers and color.

I'd say big black submarine with three numbers.

Submarine's not going very fast

and the slowest I can fly is 180 knots,

which is pushing 200 miles an hour,

going well, psh, going to have to come back around again.

I didn't quite get the numbers that time.

But that's how you get to intercept a submarine.

- F-104s gained a reputation as being widowmakers.

They were dangerous to fly.

They had a high accident rate compared to other airplanes,

even other really high-performance airplanes.

The good news is boy, is this airplane sexy.

And the Air Force recognized that

and used it a lot for their recruiting.

(energetic music)

They would show an F-104 doing aerobatics and steep climbs

while an announcer read the poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

called "High Flight".

This video inspired a whole generation of pilots

who were maybe six to 10 years old when they saw this on TV.

- As a young kid growing up, I saw "High Flight"

before I got into the Air Force Academy.

When they would say the poem,

I was all set to go fly this thing.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

and flown on laughter and silver wings.

- [Narrator] Sunward I climbed,

and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,

and done 100 things you have not dreamed of.

Wheeled and soared and swung, high in the sunlit silence.

Hovering there, I chased the shouting wind along

and flung my eager craft through--

- That was my motivation.

And the fact that I ended up

getting to have a long tour in the Starfighter

was just magic.

- Hearing directly from these pilots,

we can only begin to imagine the full experience

of flying these remarkable machines.

Being at high altitude at supersonic speeds

and alone in the cockpit

is something that most of us can only dream of,

something that pilots can only describe as magic.

Next we'll hear from Charlie Johnson,

who flew the Republic F-105 Thunderchief.

- [Narrator] A pilot's tour of duty is 100 missions.

♪ 100 missions to be flown

♪ 100 targets still unknown

♪ But it's my belief that my Thunderchief ♪

♪ Strikes a telling blow to help GI Joe ♪

♪ 'til 100 missions, I myself have flown ♪

- My name is Charlie Johnson

and I had the privilege of flying the F-105

in 1969, '70, '71, and '72.

I have been a fan of airplanes all my life

since I was three years old.

I believe in motivation

and I've never been motivated to do anything

other than be a fighter pilot.

The 105 to me personally

is a machine you truly connect with.

It was, in my estimation, the epitome of airplanes

in its time.

Carried more, did more, just a tremendous machine.

- [Narrator] And this is the Republic F-105 Thunderchief.

- At the same time that the other Century Series fighters

were being developed by other manufacturers,

Republic Aviation in New York is developing the F-105.

- [Narrator] Screeching through the clouds at Mach plus,

these F-105 Thunderchiefs are bent

on destroying the enemy's ground potential.

- The F-105, although it's got an F for fighter designation,

was really designed around the idea

that it could carry a nuclear weapon internally

and deliver it supersonically.

Nevertheless, it became a superb air to air fighter

and it was mainly used for ground attack

during the Vietnam War.

(explosions thundering)

- 105 development rumors started in 1951,

started getting serious in 1958.

Almost everybody that ever flew it flew it in combat.

You really start to identify with the power,

the magic of the airplane.

And when I went to pilot training at that time,

if you were first in your class,

you could pick any airplane in the inventory.

And the 105 was all I ever wanted to fly

since I was in high school.

So I had the good fortune

of knowing a lot about the airplane, watching development,

watching it go into service.

And then when I graduated from pilot training

being selected to go to F-105 training.

Have always felt that there was never a finer fighter built.

One of the interesting things about flying fighters

is that you have to be very competitive.

And there is an attitude in fighter pilots,

and it's kind of an invincibility almost.

And you're pretty much convinced that if anything happens,

it's never going to happen to you.

If you walked into a room with 100 people

getting ready to go out on a mission

and whatever you believe in stood up on the stage and said,

99 of you folks are not going to come back today.

Everybody would stand up in the room and walk out,

saying it's really sad

that all those other people aren't coming back today,

because I am.

And there is always the element of risk.

The people that are concerned

about hurting themselves in a fighter

don't last in a fighter,

they generally will quit or wash out.

It's driven by attitude.

It is driven by incredible training.

There's not an emergency or a system

or a thing that can happen in that airplane

that the pilot doesn't know about before you take off.

So you're trained to handle whatever happens.

- The two seat F and G models

were used in extremely dangerous missions

called Wild Weasel missions, where they would go out

and try to protect other American airplanes

by attracting surface to air missiles.

They would fly over and mimic

an attacking force of American airplanes,

get the North Vietnamese radar to lock onto them

so that they could see where those radar sites were,

and then they would attack them

with anti-radiation missiles, anti radar missiles

The problem with that is

by the time you find out where that radar is

and lock your missiles onto it,

they've launched missiles at you.

And so it's extremely dangerous.

You're purposely drawing their fire

and getting them to shoot at you

and then hoping that you can get out of the way

of those missiles that are already airborne

or get to the radar before they can launch the missiles.

- They found the 105

was the absolute ideal airplane for that.

They built an F model, which was two seats.

They converted those

to put all the electronics warfare equipment in the back.

We equipped them with standard arms,

which was a very, very lethal weapon.

The Weasel's total job

was to fly ahead and behind the strike force

and to keep the missile's heads down.

Republic has always had an interesting design philosophy.

It was overcoming weight with power.

We literally had to refuel within 20 minutes of take off.

We'd take off lightweight and then refuel,

and then we'd refuel again going into the target.

Most missions had at least reached three refuelings,

two going in, one coming out.

I had one where I was doing a search and rescue Air CAP

that I had 11 refuelings.

So it brought the boom down and give you some gas,

and you'd keep going.

There's nothing I would love more

than for somebody to fuel up a 105 and go jump in right now.

If I could go back and do anything in life,

let me go fly one more force show,

let me go fly one more flight.

So a lot of lessons were learned from the airplane.

Evolutionary is the right word

because every piece of the airplane,

the way that it works

and redundancy that you build into the airplane

is all a result of losses in machines

like the Century Series fighters.

Each of the fighters that you see

in each of the Century Series fighters

contributed tremendously

to the fighting forces that we have right now.

- We look back at the 1950s and the Century Series

as a time of enormous growth in aviation technology.

Anything was possible

and development was happening at a lightning pace.

We still see the legacy of the Century Series

in the aerodynamic profiles of modern day fighters.

Avionics, automation, and intelligence

make today's fighters safer, faster, and more effective

than ever before.

The Century Series was a part of that trajectory,

but what the future holds,

we will have to just wait and see.

(energetic music)