The Vought F-8 Crusader Was The US Navy’s Last Traditional Dogfighting Jet
Marketed as ‘Last of the Gunfighters’ and nicknamed the ‘Gator’ by ship deck crews, the Vought F-8 Crusader (F8U before 1962) was the US Navy’s first supersonic, carrier based fighter*. Taking advantage of a ‘coke bottle’ fuselage profile typical of late 1950s jet fighters, the Crusader outperformed the US Air Force’s F-100 Super Sabre in almost every respect even though they both used the same J57 engine. While US Navy and Marine Corps Crusaders were best known for jousting with North Vietnamese MiG fighters and lashing communist ground targets, unarmed reconnaissance RF-8s helped prevent World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis prior to their participation in the Southeast Asian theatre. Despite its popularity with American naval aviators, the Crusader was steadily supplanted by the rival F-4 Phantom II and only exported in modest quantities to two foreign users.
To meet the US Navy’s September 1952 tender for an advanced carrier fighter capable of attaining Mach 1.2 at 30000 feet, maintain Mach 0.9 at sea level and climb at 25000 ft/minute, Chance Vought Aircraft had to tackle several contradictory stipulations peculiar to carrier based aircraft. Possessing high engine power was desirable in any fighter aircraft so it could rapidly climb to meet or escape its enemies. It was even more urgent for carrier based fighters, which needed a decent amount of thrust at short notice to clear the flat top if the deck officer waved off their landing as unsafe. Conversely, landing on a carrier’s short deck required a fighter to lower its airspeed substantially by angling itself upwards for a high angle of attack (AOA) because lowering its engine speed too much would sink the aircraft too rapidly. The corresponding upwards tilt of the nose would inevitably block a pilot’s view of a carrier’s deck, which could prove fatal in foul weather and low light conditions, not to mention the vicissitudes of battle damage and pilot fatigue. Finally, all carrier aircraft tended to be heavier, costlier and more complex than their land based counterparts owing to reinforced landing gear to withstand the impact of carrier landings, folding wings to…
