The Airplane Design that Took Russia Completely by Surprise

I kept waiting for the explanation of how the Soviets were taken by surprise.

In the fall of 1974, I was working as an engineering intern "co-op student" at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis. I was assigned to a structural engineering group studying metal fatigue in the newly developed F-15, when the partnership with Northrop to develop a Navy version of the YF-17 was announced. Immediately, about half the engineers (on the order of 100) from our department (and a similar proportion from almost every other engineering department), were reassigned to this project, and moved to another building where they were sequestered working 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week. Although the project was being developed in extreme secrecy, that didn't keep then remaining engineers in our department from expressing their skepticism that such a feat could be carried off, given the significantly greater dynamic loads generated by, and slower speeds required for arrested carrier landings and catapult assisted takeoffs. Somehow the "Mac Air" engineers managed to successfully pull off the first conversion of an Air Force jet aircraft for carrier use by the Navy, despite the ridiculously short amount of time they were given to develop/validate the concept of design. This was done 1 year after the first handheld scientific calculator hit the market (HP-35 costing $400 in 1973 dollars), and company developed structural/stress analysis programs were being run on mainframe computers using programs compiled on tens of thousands of IBM punch cards. Heck, most of the engineers I was working with were still using slide rules. Their efforts have withstood the test of time: 49 years later, the Super Hornet variant of this aircraft is still in production.

For some reason the design of the YF-17 has always been my favorite fighter design ever. The proportions just look right and i love the canted tails.

I was flying century series aircraft in the 70s and 80s when we transitioned to the F18. It was an amazing upgrade in ground attack and air superiority. Truly a great design that has lasted 40 years with updates.

F16 and F18 still flying and still deadly with recent upgrades

I was stationed at Pt Mugu NAS from 1979 until 1981 being assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four (VX-4) In 1979 during the annual air show, one of the YF-17 prototypes flew in and parked themselves on our ramp. I remember the leading edges of the wings and stabilators were almost knife thin. Overall it was a small aircraft. A year later we received a couple of brand new F/A-18's for eval and testing.

Lazerpig does a very well presented view on the Fighter Mafia

This video gets much of the story backwards and incorrect. The Vietnam War proved that long range missiles were not capable at that time and that the dogfight was absolutely not dead. The US jumped through hoops to add a gun to the F-4 Phantom and to teach dogfight tactics to pilots (ie: Top Gun). In parallel, Boyd and the fighter mafia were advocating and specifying maneuverability in the design of new aircraft, especially what became the F-15 and F-16. Both were evaluated and improved based on modeling from E-M Theory.

The F18 has always been my favorite modern fighter. Just looks freaking cool.

My dad flew F 18s in the Marines, so seeing the history of its conception was really cool!

I knew about the YF-17, being the aviation geek I am, so imagine my surprise when I go visit the USS Alabama in 2014, and what do I see inside the hanger there but one of the two YF-17 prototypes. I had no idea it was there, and I was very excited to see in person that which I had only read about up until then. I felt much the same way when I visited the USAF museum at Wright Patterson, and got to see the X3, XB-70, XF-107, and YF-23.

The Navy needed an aircraft to replace the F-4 Phantom on their smaller carriers like the Midway class carriers that the F-14 was too big to operate from, but the navy needed surface attack capability.

The YF-17 Cobra has an interesting family tree, based on the F-5E Tiger II, used as the basis for a larger different aircraft in the F/A-18 Hornet, that was itself used as the basis for a larger different aircraft in the F/A-18 Super Hornet.

Were the Fighter Mafia the people that said that the USAF needed a plane that had Cannons, no Radar, Radios you could buy in a shop and only enough fuel to get to and fight in a combat (but no fuel to get home)?

F/A-18 Super Hornet is one of my favorite jet aircraft. Nice to know its legacy.

7:53 - That width of 114 feet has to be some kind of typo.

The Northrop F5 was so trim and beautiful (and comparatively cheap) that I wish it had more time for refinement and development. I know that the US made it a great "trainer" and an all purpose supper sonic capable for the Airforce and NASA; I' glad that there were some decent overseas sales but I wish it had been given more opportunities

So did I miss the explanation of why the aircraft “took the soviets by surprise”, or was it just missed out?

I had forgot about the YF-17! I remember there was a plane running against the F-16, but I did not remember what it was. Thank You for reminding me.

The TFX became the F-111, not the F-15. F-111 had the swing wing and way too much weight, F-15 makes enough power to accelerate while vertical.