Introduction

The USAF’s front line fighters during the Korean War were the F-86 Sabre, F-84 Thunderjet, P-82 Twin Mustang and F-80 Shooting Star – yet all but the F-86 were eclipsed when Soviet MiG-15s appeared over the battlefield.

Even as the conflict on the Korean peninsula died down, the danger of the ongoing cold war turning into a hot war continued to grow and the USAF understood that bold new fighter designs would be needed if it was to remain the most powerful air force in the world. Meanwhile, American designers had developed a better understanding of aerodynamics, new and more powerful engine designs were in the works and aviation technology was advancing in leaps and bounds. An entirely new generation of fighters was about to be born, all of which would be given three-digit designations: the Century Series fighters.

Although most were designed with a single purpose in mind, and prioritising speed and payload over stealth and manoeuvrability, as time passed the Century Series fighters would evolve to fulfil a wealth of different roles, some never even considered when they were designed.

Furthermore, technology continued to advance and evolve – as did the perceived threat from the East. Missile capability took priority over cannon; drop tanks and in-flight refuelling probes came to be more important than blistering acceleration; and fire control systems added new abilities at the expense of complexity and cost.

The Century Series fighters became an important stepping stone in postwar military aircraft design – spanning the period between the simple short-living designs of the late 1940s/early 1950s and the incredibly durable ‘legacy’ designs of the 1970s.

The central unifying characteristic of the Century Series fighters was the ability to fly faster than the speed of sound in level flight. Other than that, the aircraft can be divided into two groups: The fighter-bombers (F-100, F-101A and F-105) and the interceptors (F-101B, F-102, F-104, F-106). During the first flight of the first of the Century Series fighter, the F-100 Super Sabre, it was already evident that fighter design had entered a new era. The F-100 prototype broke the sound barrier straight away and many of the subsequent century series fighters went on to set both speed and altitude records.

It was, however, in front line service the Century Series fighters made a name for themselves – even if the type of warfare they encountered was very different from the theoretical combat scenarios they had been designed for. The F-100 became the close air support aircraft of choice in the Vietnam War. The F-101 Voodoo, originally designed as a long-range bomber escort, ended as both an interceptor and a photo reconnaissance aircraft. The F-105 Thunderchief began as a nuclear penetration fighter-bomber but ended up as a conventional bomber and a Wild Weasel aircraft. The F-104 became a frontline fighter in many of the world’s air forces, where it assumed roles ranging from interceptor to ground attack aircraft. The two ‘Deadly Deltas’, the F-102 and F-106, remained Interceptors throughout their service. Arguably, the F-106 was the finest interceptor ever conceived.

The Century Series fighters had their heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, with the Vietnam War demonstrating that multirole aircraft were the future of military aircraft design. The aircraft that would replace the Century Series fighters were the Teen Series fighters, which would become the mainstay of the USAF as well as many other air forces around the world. These aircraft – the F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-18 – were being developed as technological advancement was entering a slower phase of maturity. The limits of what could be readily achieved had been reached and refinement with reliability was the name of the game.

Yet Teen Series fighters would never have been possible without the valuable lessons learned from the mighty Century Series fighters and their remarkable history in both development and in combat.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been drawing aircraft, the goal has always been to create illustrations that were as authentic and as realistic as possible. Over the years I’ve been experimenting with a wide variety of different media ranging from colour pencils to airbrushes. I’ve settled on 3D computer graphics, and take great pride in creating each aircraft profile from the ground up.

My main focus when illustrating an aircraft is not only to represent its colours and markings, but also to tell its story in peeling paint, wear and tear, bleached patches, reflections, dirt and grime. My hope is that a front li ne USAF F-100 with many CAS missions under its belt looks very different from a we ll-maintained Belgian F-104 despite both being painted using the same colours . The same goes for the drone aircraft which show signs of severe neglect when compared to the sleek and clean aircraft that were used in the ADC squad rons.

Working on this Century Series Fighters book proved a great challenge, but also immensely rewarding knowing that this book may remind you, the reader, of these amazing looking aircraft and the people who maintained and flew them.

This book is dedicated to Ib Kyhl

Thanks: Scott Brown, Wit Raymond, Rock Roszak, The Scanmasters, Steven O´Hara and Dan Sharp