The Worst Blue Angels Jet That You've Never Heard Of (F7U Cutlass)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- Are you a fan of the Blue Angels? If so, you may be interested in learning about the F7U Cutlass. This jet is infamous for its frightening service life. In this video, we'll take a look at the F7U Cutlass and its history of accidents and failures.
Leave suggestions down in the comments for future videos
Thanks for Watching
This might be one of the worst planes from a tehnical standpoint but it one of the BEST LOOKING ones IMO. WOW!
I remember the Cutlass. I used to build plastic models of it as a kid. Little did I know about its problems. I still think it's a cool-looking jet.
I had a 1977 Cutlass circa 1985-86....
A friend of mines father was a career naval aviator . He told me he only flew the F-7 once and told his CO he'd resign his commission before he'd fly one again. He flew 4 tours in Vietnam and said that bird and his wife were the only two things that ever frightened him
My Dad was also career Navy pilot... the Cutlass was one of the many defense contractor provided plastic models on his bedroom dresser. 2 Skyhawks, a Demon, a Phantom, and a Vigilante models also gave me really cool toys to play with as I was growing up. Dad was LSO PACFLEET back in the early 60's.
My dad is the last living F-7 pilot and he says the plane’s bad reputation is overblown and that there were many significant advancements in the design, such as the stick feedback, that made the plane enjoyable to fly. He mentioned recently that there was a time they were being trained to use the plane to drop nuclear bombs on targets and that they were able to achieve accuracy well beyond what anyone expected.
I remember seeing these flying in and out of NAS Millington when I was a kid. Always one of my favorites..
They came with Revell model kits of aircraft carriers
Thank you for the fascinating details of the Cutlass story. I didn't know that the specification was released as early as 1945 and it is interesting to discover that a WWII Wehrmacht engineer participated in the design.
Not "Werhrmacht", neither "Luftwäffe", but Messerschmitt AG.
The aircraft carrier Midway Museum recently added a gorgeous Cutlass to its flight deck.
One of the first model kita that I built as a child decades ago was of the Cutlass.
I have always liked the design and I bet if it were built today with modern engines, avionics and airframe construction methods, it would be a real winner.
It actually had some ground breaking systems such as the first 3000 psi hydraulic system.
The F-14 with its wings swept back strikngly resembles a Cutlass.
We must have gained more valuable engineering and other technical experience with this ever-flawed aircraft in order to put up with its dangerous inadequacies. The quote from Walter Shirra is especially revealing! Thank you for a fine, comprehensive documentary.
Never heard of it? I knew about the Cutlass in the early 50s when I was 10 years old.
It flies great as a RC model...despite not being a verygood full scale jet.
I once made a paper airplane glider model of the F7U. It was a stable flier.
Thanks for sharing. What do you mean never heard of the F7U Cutlass?
This plane was built in Grand Prairie, Texas when I lived there in the late 1940s.
My Dad was an aviation machinist mate at Cecil Field N.A.S. in Jax. Florida.The Demon I believe was a nic name for F7U, all I remember was excitement first of this different type of air frame to disappointment of some pilots breaking ankles, legs dismounting the aircraft, and the maintenance problems. The nose high attitude took some getting use to.
Also called the Gutless Cutless.
The injuries from dismounting does not surprise me, thanks for enlightening me on this not so fun fact
A great looker and concept, but the problems were too many and never licked. Sad.
I get the impression that becasue of the huge Pentagon budget, the ordering of experimental types, like the Cutlass, into production and service was done for familiarisation. A poorer country would want to resolve all problems before considering production and would cancel at prototype stage a plane with this many problems.
Didnt know the cutless was ever a blue angel . Cougers ,panthers , tigers , phantoms , skyhawks and F18's
As stated, it wasn't flown in the BA display.
A beautiful aircraft sabotaged by the common at the time issue of not enough power provided by early turbojets. An interesting comparison is with the contemporary and also quite radical Douglas F4D Skyray. Cutlass 18,000 to 31,000 lbs, 9,200 lbf thrust normal, 12,000 lbf w/ afterburner. Skyray 16,000 to 27,000 lbs, 10,200 lbf thrust dry, 16,000 lbf w/ afterburner. The Skyray also had a fairly short operational history owing to the rapid pace of jet fighter design progress in the '50s.
While working at GDFW Div, a fellow worker and neighbor told me he flew them. The 100 was called the HUN, 105 WAS the thud and the Cutlass was nicknamed THE ENSIGN KILLER
Lots of great information. Thanks for the great video
Glad you enjoyed it!
I was stationed at NAS Willow Grove, Pennsylvania and they had one of these on display outside the main gate for a number of years before they closed the air station down and moved all the aircraft.
I don't care what anybody says, I still think it's a cool plane.
Does anyone know why a landed F7U Cutlass seems to sit on its haunches? The F-14 Tomcat, which the Cutlass vaguely resembles, doesn't sit back on its rear end like that.
I think I may have seen the Blue Angels at Pensacola in 1954.
There seems to be a discrepancy on the year the Cutlass was part of the Blue Angels. Feightner said it was 52. They had a lot of mishaps in the few months they flew.
Ah, the F7U "Gutless."
This particular jet is kinda famous in France because of the comic book Buck Danny “The Blue Angels” and “The Pilot with the Leather Mask” 😊
I’ll have to check those out
The Cutlass would have been the beneficiary of a robust fly by wire computer system - had they existed then. With a computer to control inputs and to keep the wing level, etc., the Cutlass probably would have been a great aircraft. However, absent of that, the design was ahead of its time, but the powerplants were behind the times - with the expected bad results.
The computers of the time were bigger than a cutless .
@@georgesheffield1580 fly by wire had been around since early WWII - with the Heinkel He-111 being a good example.
@@jamesroets800 That was an experimental model that never went into production.
@@derekheuring2984 The Cutlass did go into production. My comment was a 'what-if'. Just thinking out loud. Fly by wire systems had been available for several years by that time.
@@jamesroets800 You misunderstood my response, I was saying the He111 with fly-by-wire never went into production.
The Navy had some oddball fighters back then.
Trying to make a fast plane land on a short wooden moving deck leads to strange choices
🔥🔥👍👍🙌🙌 great job 👍👍
The Cutlass was in service when I was a kid.
well as bad that it was it still looked pretty cool
If only it flew as good as it looked
The Cutlass Project has a rebuild project going that should be flyable soon.
Who hasn't heard of the cutlass? >rolleyes
Beautiful plane. With today’s mechanical reliability with components, if modified, this plane would be fun in the Airshow world. Perhaps with better engines. Rumor is one is being restored..
Walter Soplata had one of these...not sure what became of it...
You're using a lot of footage of Cutlasses operating off the USS Lexington, CVA-16.
My father (USNA Class 1947) wasn't a pilot but he was aboard during the one cruise where they operated Cutlasses on.
He described one accident where a pilot crashed his Cutlass and it went over the side. As the Lex steamed by at full speed (for flight operations) they could see the pilot hammering on the canopy with his fists trying to get out. They had to restrain some crew members from trying to dive over the side to help him.
(30+ Knots, plus the drop to the ocean surface would have killed anyone who jumped.) As the plane past the fan tail, it sank, taking the pilot with it to the bottom.
By the time the Lex reached Japan, the Cutlasses were no longer allowed for flight ops. I'm not sure, but I think they were offloaded in Japan and the Lex returned to California.
Dad always referred to the Cutlass as "The Ensign Killer."
I don't know the name of the pilot. God Rest His Soul.
Another story showcasing how it never should have left the test phase 🫡
Simply a matter of overreach. Nothing wrong with the basic design, but the engines available simply weren't up to the task. The hydraulic system wasn't, either.
Ironically Feightner made that emergency landing at O'Hare airport. Feightner, was O'Hara's wingman on the USS enterprise ww2🇺🇸
They should train IISIS pilots on the F-7U
How can it be that the aircraft that look the best also fly the best? And Fugly aircraft never seem to excel - whether in the field, or in model airplane sales? Like my old coach used to say, that one fell out of the ugly tree, and hit every branch on the way down.
More technical pls
Will do 🫡
Not withstanding it's numerous flaws, it was still an attractive aircraft. But like so many other good designs, the airframe was ahead of it's powerplant. . .
Blue Angels used the F7U-3, not the F7U-1...
Looks dangerous alright.
A.i. goodbye
Some pilots say it was a great flying plane when everything worked
The late 40s and early 50s were a time when the aviation community was searching for new ways to create aircraft and in some cases, common sense seems to have been lost. Can anyone with any mechanical sense not see that nose strut will always be a problem on carriers? Ejection seats were new and didn't work at lower altitudes so TO and landings had to be made with the canopy open. The hydraulic flight control system, if lost would not be replaced with a mechanical one for 11 seconds! In a high-speed dive or formation flying, that is a lifetime! Obviously, no pilot would have even thought that was acceptable. Jet engines were also new and many on paper never lived up to their expected thrust rating. The only plane from this era that was successful was the F-8 Crusader. It had the new J-57 engine and even though it solved the carrier approach angle with the movable wing, it was a much better solution than the long nose strut. One major mistake in my opinion was forgetting the bubble canopy that came out at the end of WWII. All of the jet planes other than the very first group like the Panthers and Cougars had blended canopies into the fuselage and rear visibility was severely hampered. This continued on through the F-4 and then came to a halt.
I was wondering why the video showed planes landing with canopy open.
An advanced air frame design with flakey hydraulics and 11 seconds without flight controls on a jet. That's insane.
It’s always funny to look at how no matter how many problems an aircraft had, the engineers wouldn’t fix them. They would just add more things to go wrong in hopes of fixing things. Also the F-8 is a great jet and I plan on making a video on it soon.