F-8 Vs F-4
Specifications for a new carrier-based fighter that could fly faster than sound in routine-level flight were released by the Navy in September 1952. Chance-Vought’s F8U Crusader design, which was eventually renamed the F-8, won the bid. The F-8 earned the moniker “Last of the Gunfighters” because it continued to use a 20mm cannon as its main weaponry at a time when radar-guided missiles were starting to become commonplace. The F-8 was an exceptionally effective fighter that was responsible for 18 enemy aircraft downings over Vietnam.
As an alternative, the F-4 was designed to be a high-altitude interceptor. The F-4 was unique since it had no internal cannon, relied on radar-guided missiles for offensive purposes, and needed a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) to manage its sophisticated weapons systems and sensors. The intensification of the Vietnam War forced the F-4 into a tactical setting for which it was not designed. However, it performed well in ground attack and air-to-air combat missions before the conclusion of the war, with Navy and Marine Corps aviators scoring 36 kills.
As explained by Peter E. Davies in his book Gray Ghosts, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps F-4 Phantoms, many of the Phantom’s early cruises were as paired squadrons with F-8 units, which were considered as “day fighter” (or in the F-8 pilots’ estimation, “fighter”) units, compared to the F-4’s “all-weather interceptor” role. The rivalry between the two communities intensified as the F-4 outnumbered the Crusader and F-8 drivers started to move over to the Phantom.
Ensign-killer
Jerry B. “Devil” Houston, who flew Crusaders with VF-11 before making the transition, summed up the situation:
“The F-8 stole your heart from the get-go with its beauty and, for its time, power (God, an afterburner!), but it quickly earned an ensign-killer reputation, rightly or wrongly. In the long run, that reputation contributed greatly to fighter pilot development in the Navy: only the top ten percent of pilot graduates were even considered for the F-8 pipeline—the créme de la créme. And as luck would have it, a damn solid base of mid-level stick-and-throttle talent groomed the hungry youngsters into frothing-at-the-mouth tacticians. Without experiencing it, anyone would be hard-pressed to understand the aura that surrounded that early F-8 Crusader community. An ensign in F-8s took no crap from a Lieutenant Commander who flew anything else. Period.
“Among that small, but growing privileged group, anyone in the first few squadrons knew damn near exactly where they stood in the overall tactics ladder. Killing, capability meant everything: King of the Mountain, in spades. Gunnery, tactics, gunnery, tactics, just enough intercept training to get you into the sky with another victim. F-8s didn’t bomb then—hell, the plane didn’t even have hardpoints on the wings. In other words, everything funneled the best pilots and the best airplanes through a narrow training spout and out-popped the world’s best fighter pilots. They all ate, breathed, thought, and dreamed about fighting airplanes. All the time.
An ugly, two-seated, gas-hog monster
“The F-4, on the other hand, was an ugly, two-seated, gas-hog monster that hit the Fleet with a bunch of F3H Demon interceptor pilots. Consequently, the F-4s got off to a horrid start when running into F-8s. Their reputation was dog-s**t, and the ex-Demon drivers didn’t have a clue about changing it. So they practiced intercepts, avoided tactics, and groomed follow-on clods in their own image. All the while that lovely top ten percent advantage kept aircrew infusing the Crusader community with superior talent, which rapidly molded into long-clawed killers. The rich got richer—and even richer. Better people, better training, frightful competition. Crusader pilots didn’t have to brag; they owned the sky. So it remained, until finally an F-8 jock got into an F-4, screaming and dragging his heels all the way. The rest is history.”
The influx of F-8 pilots and tactics as their squadrons originally transitioned to the Phantom certainly accelerated the development of F-4 ACM training. As late as 1971, when Jerry Houston’s VF-51 moved from the F-8J to the F-4B, he thought of the unit as a “double-barreled Crusader squadron with an extra set of eyeballs in each plane.” However, awareness of the need for ACM began much earlier than that and certainly pre-dated the initiatives of the late 1960s that gave rise to the Top Gun ACM training project.
Gray Ghosts, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps F-4 Phantoms is published by Schiffer Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo by U.S. Navy
