Let's talk and the F3H Demon
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The American MiG17 looked cooler and was, theoretically atleast,a better interceptor, but was ultimately way too terrible to be acceptable for naval aviation. The Navy liked the concept but the idea behind a subsonic carrier interceptor that can't loiter for now than 15 minutes didn't make sense. Not to mention they were harder to land than a sober 9 with citizenship in Miami.
View attachment 6553377The entire concept around the Demon was it could carry sparrows and the radar could, theoretically again, follow the beam from US Navy ship to pick up targets, a trick we wouldn't actually develop until the F14 twenty years later.
The plane would only spend 7 years on carriers before getting displaced by the F4, which she shares a string family resemblance with. By making the intakes larger, switching to a Delta wing and twin engines, the evolution to the Phantom is one you can eyeball pretty easily.
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