Interview with Charles Yeager

CY: Well you can’t answer that with just one aircraft, it’s according to what you want to do with it. I enjoyed the Mustang in World War Two because it was the best prop fighter that flew in World War Two. If I had to just pick an aeroplane to fly for the fun of flying and I didn’t have to buy the fuel, I’d probably pick an F-5, it’s a very simple basic kind of lovely aircraft to fly.

JT: Overall, which allied fighter do you feel was the most effective during World War 2?

CY: Well, the Mustang. A lot of people think that the Spitfire was, the Spitfire wasn’t worth a damn as an air combat fighter on any offensive role in which we were involved in. It was an excellent air defence fighter, but that’s all, it had no range, it couldn’t fly an hour and half, whereas our Mustangs – which had the same manoeuvering performance as a Spit, carried as much as eight hours of fuel. We often ranged six to eight hundred miles inside of Germany and Poland on some missions.

JT: What do you think of the established Luftwaffe aircraft such as the BF-109 and FW-190?

CY: Well, basically, they were pretty good aeroplanes when they were built, but they were certainly outclassed by the Mustang.

JT: If Germany had proceeded with fighter development of the ME-262 Jet at an earlier stage and that aircraft had been operational a year and a half earlier and in great numbers do you think it would have greatly changed the course of the air war over Europe during the last two years of the conflict?

CY: Yes, they did produce them in quite heavy numbers, but the effort was dedicated to close air support by Hitler’s own order and that was a big mistake.

JT: Following the successful Bell X-1 Supersonic Rocket flight tests you returned to Europe in 1954 to take command of the 417th Fighter Squadron at Hahn Air Base, West Germany flying F-86 Sabres. What were the major differences in flying air-to-air combat in the early generation radar-less jets against the piston-engined fighters of a decade earlier?

CY: Well, there were none, the first Mustangs that we flew had a ring and bead gunsight and all of your lead had to be done by estimating. Sort of like shooting ducks with a shotgun. Then the P-518 came out with the first lead-computing gunsight, but it was a manual lead-computing gunsight, and when the first jets came out, we were able to equip them with radar, which measured the distance and fed the data to a primitive computer that measured the lead and it was automatically locked into the aeroplane. That made gunnery very much a lot easier than it was in World War 2.

JT: From the late fifties through to the mid-sixties you were based in the U. S. commanding a fighter group at George AFB, California. In 1962 you became commandant of the Aerospace Research Pilot School, where military astronauts are trained. War was with us again though and in 1966 you took command of the 405th Fighter Wing at Clark Air Base, the Philippines. It was during this posting that you flew 127 missions in South Vietnam flying B-57, F-100s and F-4D aircraft. Certainly, what was one of the greatest lessons learned from the Vietnam era in the air-to-air regime?

CY: Well, a couple of things were very important, the first thing that we learned – most of the airplanes that we had developed previous to the Vietnam conflict were developed to deliver nuclear weapons, so consequently the weapon systems that we put aboard the airplane had a very broad accuracy capability, they weren’t precision weapon systems for dive bombing or delivering air-to-ground weapons and consequently we ended up in a dumb bomb war, meaning conventional weapons without the systems aboard the airplane to deliver the weapons accurately, and consequently they weren’t very effective. The second thing we learned was that you cannot build a dual-role weapon system in a fighter without penalising it. We found that out very drastically against the MiG-21 which was an air superiority fighter and designed solely for that, whereas we were trying to fight it with F-4s and F-105s which had dual role capabilities and consequently we were very handicapped. So that’s the reason we developed the lightweight fighter families of F-15, F-16. Those were the two main lessons we learned there.

JT: Of course, Vietnam gave us the philosophy for such aircraft as the F-16A and to a lesser extent the F-18 via the simpler and lighter Y F-17. The West also developed larger, more expensive combat aircraft such as the F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle and in the UK the Tornado F2 air defence variant of the strike aircraft. How do you rate these various western fighters to their Soviet counterparts including the MiG-23 Flogger, MiG-25 Foxbat and the new MiG-29 Fulcrum?

CY: Basically, we have been able to develop the lightweight fighter family like the F-18, F-15 and 16 with a high thrust-to-weight capability, a thrust-to-weight ratio that will sustain a maximum of nine g’s, and all of the sea aeroplanes are built to specs that are superior to the MiG-23. The MiG-25 is not a fighter. It’s a recce or air defence system like the SR-71 which is absolutely useless as a fighter, or as a weapon system, fighter aircraft like the advanced MiG-21s and the advanced MiG-23s have certain limited capabilities and all of the F-15s, F-16s, F-18s and F-20s are far superior to those aeroplanes in turning radius. They can out-turn them and in some cases the MiG-23 can out-accelerate an F-15, 16 or an F-18 or an F-20 in a certain match range but that’s carrying missiles. We have flown most of the aeroplanes that the Russians have built, we can say without exception that the aeroplanes that are flying today, such as the F-18 and the F-20 are far superior to the advanced MiG-21 and MiG-23s in a dogfight. And we’ve got better missiles.

JT: What about the MiG-29 Fulcrum, what do you think of that?

CY: We are getting into airplanes that in my opinion the F-20 and the F-18 can handle and will be able to handle in the future. A lot of these aeroplanes are beginning to be specialised, and when you say is this aeroplane better than that aeroplane, then you have to specify the role, is it the defensive role or an offensive role?

JT: The Soviets of course have a completely different approach to air combat, relying primarily upon ground-controlled intercept procedures and strictly inflexible and highly regimented tactics. In a possible NATO/Warpac confrontation how well would our Western fighters and tactics operate in view of a 2:1 or better numerical superiority in favour of the enemy?

CY: Basically, as has been demonstrated, Soviet doctrine in air combat tactics, is pretty narrow-minded. It’s a one-track system and it was demonstrated in the Pakistan/Indian war in ’71, where all of the Indian pilots were trained in Russia and the Pakistanis were trained either in the United States or Great Britain. The Pakistani pilots lived and breathed air combat tactics, and they’re good at it, and most Western air forces are. Soviet air forces, they have a tendency to have no latitude or flexibility in anything they do and they totally rely on ground-controlled intercept orders given from the ground. They don’t depend on the capability of the pilot to make decisions or handle any deviation or any immediate situation that faces them. That, in my opinion, is a real handicap that the Soviets operate under and has been demonstrated rather vividly in the Middle East, and even, to an extent, in the recent Korean 747 debacle. The techniques that are being used today between the West and the Soviet-trained air forces obviously leave no comparison.

JT: One of the major lessons of Vietnam was the need for dissimilar air combat training, training in which Western fighter pilots can train against aircraft mimicking Soviet performance and tactics. This has certainly improved the overall level of pilot proficiency. How would you compare the training attitudes of the fifties to those of today, particularly in terms of pilots entering fighter squadrons straight from the training units?

CY: Well, basically the training techniques today under the Red flag concept is an excellent training arena and it’s really good. Since we have flown just about everything the Soviets have, we also can put them into a Sam missile environment and work in a hostile environment and give very realistic training. And with the avionic systems that we have today, with real-time readout, we can pretty well tell exactly how good a squadron will be and when you bring a squadron in en masse and train it as a unit, at Nellis in the Red Flag environment, its an excellent training technique. We had no such thing back in the 50’s or 60’s and it obviously would have paid off, but it took us a while to learn this.

JT: The Falklands Conflict, and indeed the Israeli decimation of the Syrian Air Force over the Bekaa Valley, certainly indicated that the infrared short-range air to-air missile has come of age. Lightweight, small all-aspect and inexpensive, the Sidewinder 9L, the Matra Magic and Raphael’s Python have given new meaning to small relatively inexpensive high-agility fighters such as the F-16A, F-5E and the new F-20 Tigershark. Do you think that the trend must now move away from high-value very high-performance fighters carrying long range radars and expensive radar-guided missiles to simpler, less expensive to acquire and maintain lightweight fighters?

CY: Yes, what’s happening today is the evolution into the F-18, F-20 arena. What we need are aircraft, number one that can generate a lot of sorties, cheaply, and then be easily maintained because it has been shown that the most experienced pilots do the best work. Whether they get that experience in an F-16 or an F-5 or anything else, as long as they are trained in the mission that they are performing, and that’s the same thing that we see today. The old pendulum is swinging back from the high technology engine, like the F-100 that’s in the F-16, F-15, back to the 404 engine which doesn’t bleed as much energy out of an ounce of fuel as an F-100 does, but it’s a more reliable engine, easier to maintain and consequently can generate more sorties. The same way with the new inertial navigation systems, with the new Laser INS system which has alignment times of 22 seconds, it’s fully aligned before you can get the engine started, versus eight or nine minutes of fully aligned times in F-15s and F-16s. This is very important since all of the weapon management systems on current aeroplanes, like the F-20 and F-18 depend an exact position knowledge. Regarding radars and sensors, you’ve got to have some capability of looking at what’s going on out there, if you don’t have an AWACS environment. You’ve got to see what you are facing, and that’s what you can see and set yourself up for. The new AIM-9Ls are taking all the fun out of dogfighting. As it was demonstrated with the Syrian Air Force by the Israelis, I suppose that’s a very bad example to use as the true value of Western systems versus a Russian system, because the Syrian pilots were set up, see they were purged, the President took all of his experienced pilots out of the Syrian Air Force and the average flying time of the Syrian pilots that were destroyed, flying the MiG-21s and the MiG-23s in that little fight with the F-15s was about 40hours, they were set up in an AWACS monitored environment which spread the F-15s out and they were sitting there with brand new 9L’s with head-on capability and it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

JT: In the early days of a NATO/Warpac conflict, do you think that there would be any room for actually firing beyond visual range air-to-air missiles without prior visual verification of the identity of the designated target?

CY: That’s a good question. It’s a question that’s received an awful lot of discussion amongst pilots especially. It’s a question that concerns the rules of engagement that an air force operates under. Just like in Vietnam, the rules of engagement state you do not shoot anything at any aeroplane unless you visually identify it. I’m afraid we are going to be stuck with those rules of engagement for a long time, and that’s the way it is because when you operate under a ground rule that you are not a first-strike air force, it makes it tough for you to sit there and try to pick out and launch beyond the visual range the appropriate missiles. It’s a tough rule to operate under, and that’s the thing that makes these short-range 9L’s with their high G capability a pretty attractive missile.

JT: Is there a possibility that in reality the advanced beyond visual range radar-guided air-to-air missile would be little used in a ‘real’ air war?

CY: Yes, under most rules of engagement, that’s right. Radar-guided missiles will slowly become a thing of the past because of ECM capability. Infrared missiles are the guidance system of the future, although you can offset with certain, infrared range frequency shifts. Most missiles though, like the AlM-9L don’t pay any attention to flare decoys of any kind, they are pretty smart little missiles and so the long-range radar missile is becoming a thing of the past because we are building such good ECM or radar warning gear into our aeroplanes that you can pretty well sit there in the cockpit and tell if anybody is working on you, and consequently be able to either decoy it or jam it.

JT: Anti-radar missiles are certainly beginning to get some publicity. The ubiquitous Sidewinder is now being offered in an anti-radiation model with the traditional infrared seeker being replaced by an aradaremission sensing unit. Sidearm, as it is called looks like being adopted by the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps for use primarily against small ships and mobile Sams. Such a missile could also operate against an aircraft with its radar transmitting. In view of this, do you think that further development of such missiles could lead to a future downgrading of the requirements for an advanced, complex and expensive radar on the next generation of air superiority fighters?

CY: The problem is that we start pitting an airplane’s capability against a missile’s capability when we start moving into this arena, and what happens is that an aircraft has the capability of frequency shifts on radar scans, and it can go anywhere and it can be computerised and it also consequently has a tremendous source of power in your aircraft generators and the like, and in competing with this thing is a little missile that is rather limited as to what it can carry, power source or frequency shiftradars or the like, so consequently the bigger system will always win.

JT: How do you grade airborne early warning or an AWACS capability as an asset in any future air war?

CY: It’s very important that you are operating with AWACS support, it’s pretty important to know what’s going on around you because your whole life depends upon it.

JT: There are several new fighter types entering the scene through this decade. The general dynamics cranked-arrow wing F-16XL and the Northrop F-20, for which you yourself are a consulting test pilot, offer quantum advances in capability over their respective forebears. Can you tell us more about these two aircraft and how they might influence future fighter design?

CY: Well, basically G. D. has come out with their Delta Wing fighter to compete with the F-15s in air superiority and the ground attack role, and to give the airplane more range and more weight-carrying capability. The basic F-16A is a very limited fighter in other than a clear air mass environment. It has a poor radar acquisition capability and little all-weather capability, so those are the things that G. D. are trying to correct in their Delta Wing airplane. How it works out we will have to wait and see. The F-20, what they did was take a wing planform similar to the F-18 as its the best wino that they could come up with that has a9g capability and a proven non-departure characteristic and they picked the best engine that they could, they picked the best INS that they could and they picked the best, newest radar that they could, and compiled all of that into an airplane that has a reliability factor of maintenance man-hours versus flying hours as low as any combat airplane that has ever flown, and that’s what they are working on now. The avionics curve of technology is going straight up. It’s amazing, every year it’s amazing in what happens in the avionics field, and consequently just like in your F-18 that the Australian Air Force is buying, the weapons management system that the pilot uses is truly a beautiful system with the multiple cathode ray tubes and the head-up display from each. The F-20 pulled that system out of the F-18 and put it in the F-20. So basically, the F-20 avionics system is the same as the F-18 uses, which is a very advanced system and a very good system.

JT: Regarding the Northrop F-20 Tigershark, the present version does possess fairly short range by say, F-16A standards, will Northrop be developing a Mk2 version with new larger wing and longer legs for the later eighties?

CY: They’ve already put an additional internal fuel tank in the F-20 on the second production aeroplane, where they have somewhere around 5200 pounds of internal fuel, which gives it basically the same ferry range as an F-16A somewhere around 2200, 2300 nautical miles with external fuel tanks. The F-20 would never be able to carry the load that the F-16A does as far as the F-16A does because it’s not made to fulfil U. S. Air Force worldwide capability. But on the other hand, the way a lot of countries are looking at aircraft today, it’s not necessary to carry twelve or 3ighteen Mk82 low drag bombs. You can do the same job with two or a maximum of four when you go into this smart bomb technology, and that’s where a lot of people are beginning to look at it.

JT: What are your thoughts as a test pilot, on the forward swept wing programme as exemplified in Grumman’s X-29?

CY: In the forward swept wing aeroplane, the X-29, I really don’t see any big advantage. That’s my own personal opinion, of course, there is some benefit, probably technology, that will come out of it, but being a breakthrough like the first swept wing fighters were, versus straight wings, I don’t think we are going to see that big of a profit margin. It will be interesting to see how it comes out. But I don’t see it being a big breakthrough of any kind.

JT: Finally, on a completely different tack, you yourself are nowadays a keen microlight flyer, what do you feel is the future of this, the newest branch of international aviation?

CY: The reason ultralights, microlights, call them what you will, are becoming so popular is because our governments, meaning the U. S. Government, the Australian Government and indeed any governing body that develops rules and regulations to control flying activities, have made it very difficult for a man who likes to fly for the pure love of flying, to fly aeroplanes. As far as I’m concerned, the ultralight family is giving a pilot the capability of flying for the pure love of flying. You obviously don’t use a microlight to go from here to Perth. The thing is, you can buy a vehicle that will fly, say in the five to six thousand dollar range, operate it for somewhere around two dollars an hour and fold it up and throw it in the back of your car and go home, and not have the government regulating everything you do. The microlight industry in the United States governs itself. In the U. S. before you can assemble your microlight or ultralight to fly away, you have to take a course before the owner will sell you the vehicle. And you have to take a course to learn to fly that vehicle, and then demonstrate it. The U. S. Federal Aviation Administration have put out certain guidelines such as an ultralight will not exceed, somewhere like 265 pounds in empty weight. It won’t carry more than ten gallons of fuel, it’s got a maximum speed and a minimum speed on it and a single day VFR operation. That’s as far as they’ve gone and that’s as far as they should go. The future of ultralights, in my opinion, is something that has been demonstrated in the last two years, its just going sky-high. There must be easily in excess of fifty companies manufacturing eighty different kinds of ultralights in the United States. It’s a good way to go.

Next Issue: John Spiers interviews Don Kendall, head of the Regional Airline Association and founder of one of the most successful commuter airlines in Australia. What Don has to say about the current state of the third-level scene, where it is and where it is headed will make for informative reading for anyone involved in Aviation in Australia.