Other Mods

Speaking of wallowing pigs...

This is the F3H-2 Demon, redesignated F-3B in '62.  Mounted are two AIM-9B Sidewinder and two AIM-7D Sparrow missiles.  The Demon was designed to carry four 20mm cannon, but two were often removed and the ports faired over to save weight.  That's because the Demon is one of the most under powered fighters to ever go aboard ship.  It's nickname around the boat was "Lead Sled" or "Sled".

And the F3H-2M, changed to MF-3B...  M is for "missile" please note the spiffy AAM-N-2 Sparrow I hanging on the outboard pylon and the AAM-N-7 Sidewinder I on the inboard.  After McNamara, they're AIM-7A and AIM-9A respectively.  The AAM-N-2 is what is known as a beam-riding missile.  The firing aircraft illuminates the target and the missile rides the beam to it.  It's got antenna on it to stay centered in the cone projecting from the firing plane.  It's not very accurate because the firing radar is locked onto the center of the radar signature and that may not exactly correspond the the physical center.  It's not accurate because the cone of the beam gets wider and wider the farther from the target you get.  The missile, while it tends to stay in the very center of the beam, can drift around a bit and can miss by a pretty wide margin.  The later versions of the Sparrow use "semi-active radar homing" and that's where they missile is trying to hit the light reflected off the target being illuminated by the firing plane.  This gets more accurate as ranges decrease because the missile starts in the wide part of a cone and moves toward its point.

F3H-2N or F-3C the final Demon variant I've downloaded.  The 2N has a better engine than the 2 and 2M.  Shown here with four AIM-9B missiles and with all four 20mm cannon.

Then there's a plane that's just plain fun to fly.  The A-1H, here in USAF livery and loaded out to play Sandy (close air support for search and rescue).  The Skyraider was originally developed as a carrier based attack plane in World War 2, but didn't make production in time to see combat.  But production continued anyway and it saw service in both Korea and Vietnam.  The original designation of the A-1H was AD-6.

As I mentioned, the Skyraider was a Navy bird and it hung around until finally driven out by the A-7 Corsair II.  Here is an AD-7 or A-1J.  The Skyraider was sometimes referred to as a Spad because it was such an anachronism among all the high-tech jets.

The Spad was so successful at the close-air role compared to the supersonic multi-role fighters in Vietnam that the Air Force's replacement resembles it a great deal in performance, that'd be the A-10A Thunderbolt II (aka Warthog).

Last, but not least, a pretty plane to salve the soul.  The RA-5C Vigilante.  Originally intended to be a heavy nuclear bomber it served out its life as a reconnaissance photo bird.

The bomb-bay on the Viggi is a tube running between the engines.  Originally a nuke and two fuel barrels sat in the tube and when the pilot hit the pickle, the tail fairing popped off and a chute dragged the bomb and empty tanks out the back.  It wasn't very accurate and had an alarming tendency to stay put when the plane was launched.  Oh, did I mention that the Viggi was a carrier based plane?

In recon service the tube was given three gas barrels and a "canoe" of cameras and sensors was attached to the belly.