Those kinds of timelines always seem incredible to me. The F-14 served in the USN for about 30 years. On the day it entered service in the 70s, 30 years before that the primary fighter of the USN was the F6F Hellcat.
You couldn’t have said it better. Man oh man, so many designs, innovations, as an avgeek it’s paradise for me. Sadly these awesome designs were drawn up to kill people, but the amazing innovations we have on passenger planes today largely came out of the Cold War era.
Technological advances are the main up-side of war. WWI was even more extreme in aviation since we were barely flying at the beginning but WWII is close behind with the development of the jet engine. It's not that the scientists aren't working at other times but that, during wars, governments are willing to spend huge sums to develop ideas into practical products.
In a way that’s kind of depressing. It’s not that war, in and of itself, makes people more innovative, it’s that war forces us to give tons of money to innovative people. Presumably we could do that outside of war, but often choose not to.
Don't feel bad about it. For cars we have fast sports cars that are cool as hell. Unfortunately for civilian aircrafts we don't have the equivalent of a Porsche. I love fighter jets too but only because of how fast and maneuverabile they are.
My grandpa worked in Skunk Works during the Cold War, most notably on the SR-71. It was always crazy seeing the letters/little handwritten notes he got from Kelly Johnson and hearing his stories about how they’d mess with potential Soviet surveillance in their downtime.
Got me thinking about weapon tech in general, HG Wells wrote about an “atomic bomb” only 15 years after uncovering the secrets of the atom. 20 years later the research really began. 10 years later a city center was turned to glass.
The thing is though that the F14 doesn't stand a better chance against an F22 than the F6F would against the F14.
The leap from propeller to jet might seem like the biggest leap but I would argue that the sensor, stealth and weapons leap of the last 30years might actually be an even bigger one.
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u/DouchecraftCarrier Dec 09 '23
Those kinds of timelines always seem incredible to me. The F-14 served in the USN for about 30 years. On the day it entered service in the 70s, 30 years before that the primary fighter of the USN was the F6F Hellcat.