William Tell What If

[tigercat2]

In this What if world, the Vietnam war ended in 1963 before it ever really started, and the USSR did not develop ICBMs until the mid 70s.  Therefore the USAF built a huge interceptor fleet for the Air Defense Command, and never threw anything away.

This is what a flightline at the William Tell meet might have looked like in, say, 1968.  The F-103 is being phased out, but still around, and the USAF has borrowed a few squadrons of Arrows to augment ADC.  The Blackbird fleet is coming up to strenght to augment the F-108 fleet, and the F-15 is still several years in the future.


Wes W.

[tigercat2]

Here is a better shot of the ADC interceptor fleet, taken on Mrs. W's kitchen table.  I always thought that ADC would have been a neat command to serve in, since they defended the homeland and they got to wear orange flight suits!!


Wes W.

[Captain Canada]

Cool....

The Century jets were all such sexy birds....

Always nice to see an Arrow about as well.

[The Rat]

Jeeves, some linament for my wrist, please.

   

[John Howling Mouse]

     

[Alvis 3.1]

Nice line up!



Alvis 3.1, who likes ADC grey AND Arrows!

[Sisko]

Nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!    

[K5054NZ]

Love that A-12 interceptor Blackbird....mmmmm   The whole lineup rocks! Great stuff Wes!

[AeroplaneDriver]

Wow!

Great looking interceptor lineup!

[Ollie]

Awesome1

   

[cthulhu77]

Fantastic jet line up !!  

[anthonyp]

I still want to see more pics of your F-108!  The conformal fuel tanks you have on it intrigue me.

Good job on the fleet!

   

[elmayerle]

Excellent job!!!  I need to start laying the necessary changes to make a F-12B according to the drawings in the latest revision of the Aerofax book on it.

[tigercat2]

I still want to see more pics of your F-108!  The conformal fuel tanks you have on it intrigue me.

Good job on the fleet!

 

The external tanks on the F-108 are actually the "smaller" pods from the Italeri B-58.  I had one each from two B-58 kits (I think they were actually part of the B-58's component pod).  Also, I had two FAST packs from an F-15E on as well, but they are not on now.   The fit on the FAST packs was actually pretty good, and allowed more AAMs to be carried, as on the F-15.

The reason for the externals was that the '108 was to have about a 1000 mile radius on internal fuel, I thought why not beef up the landing gear somewhat and have a significant amount of extra fuel in the externals.  This way the Rapier could take off and climb out on the externals, punch them off well down the road (maybe only at Mach 2 or so), but then it would have a full load of internal fuel for much greater range and/or loiter time.  

This would preclude the need for tanker support for any part of the intercept mission.


Wes W.

[lancer]

That is one hell of a line up....Some damm fine looking aircraft there.