獵殺米格-17戰鬥機的最佳機種，美國海軍第一架真正超音速艦載機，最後一架以機炮為主要武器的海軍戰鬥機，F-8（F8U）“十字軍”

The F-8 fighter is the first true supersonic carrier-based aircraft of the U.S. Navy and the last naval fighter with a cannon as its main weapon. The Navy has openly solicited a new supersonic fighter. The Navy not only requires the fighter to achieve a maximum speed of Mach 1.2 at an altitude of 30,000 feet, but also requires the fighter to have a rate of climb of 25,000 feet per minute. At the same time, the Navy's Korean War experience shows that the .50 machine gun has It could not meet the air combat needs at that time, so the new generation of naval fighters must also be equipped with 20mm cannons as fixed armament. In response to the requirements of the Navy, the design team of Water Company proposed the V-383 design case to bid for this new type of fighter. The design of the general fighter is different. The V-383 adopts the design of the upper wing to reduce the length and weight of the landing gear. In addition , the most exciting part of this design is the use of variable inclination wings as the main wing design V- The main wing of the 383 can be tilted 7 degrees from the fuselage during take-off and landing. By changing the angle of attack of the main wing , the lift during take-off and landing is increased without obstructing the driver's view. The power source is provided by a Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojet engine with an afterburner. According to the Navy The requirement is to carry a 20mm cannon as the main fixed armament and to carry 32 folding tail aviation rockets and two auxiliary AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. Although the fighters used by the US Navy later still have fixed cannons, the F The -8 (V-383) is the last model that plans to use cannons as the main weapon of the fighter. In addition to bidding for new fighters, Walter also developed a tactical reconnaissance aircraft with the same fuselage and numbered it as V- Case 382 V-383 Program's main competitor is Grumman's F-11 Tiger fighter, MacDonald's F3H Demon fighter, a carrier-based version of the North American F-100 Super Sabre fighter, and an improved Super Sea Fury 1953 In May, the U.S. Navy announced that it had won the V-383 case and ordered three XF8U-1 prototypes for testing in June. The first test flight, which broke the sound barrier , the development process of the F-8 went so smoothly that the second prototype flew on the same day as the first mass-produced F8U-1 on September 30, 1955. F8U-1 on April 4, 1956 Completed first ship landing test Prototype was evaluated by U.S. Navy 3rd R&D Squadron in late 1956 with few problems found Begin to equip the USS Theodore Roosevelt in April 1956 1956 U.S. Navy wanted to show their new aircraft plans Challenging the world speed record at that time was 1320 km/h set by the F-100C of the US Air Force. The Navy believes that the F-8 is not only capable of diving Force exceeding this record is more likely to be the first aircraft to exceed the speed of 1600 km/h . However, on March 19, 1956, an F.D.2 research aircraft of the British Fairey Company broke the original world record at a speed of 1811.2 km/h. The U.S. Navy was unmoved and continued to push the program, but taking into account the preservation of the actual performance of the aircraft, the target was set to be slightly higher than 1600 km/h . The 12th mass-produced F aircraft on August 21, 1956 The -8A flew back and forth in a path of 15 kilometers at an altitude of 12,120 meters in China Lake, California, with an average airspeed of 1624.68 km/h, setting a record for the highest domestic flight speed in the United States. On June 6, 1957, two F-8As flew from California Offshore Good Man Richard (CV-31) took off from the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CVA-60) off the coast of Florida after an aerial refueling. The total flight time was 3 hours and 28 minutes President Eisenhower The two pilots were also welcomed at their destination. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the RF-8A played a very dangerous low-altitude reconnaissance mission. The mission began on October 23. The photos brought back by the low-altitude reconnaissance mission against targets in Cuba were taken twice a day. Sent back to the Pentagon for review and confirmation of the Soviet Union's establishment of intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba The RF-8A continued to monitor the withdrawal of Soviet missiles in the post-crisis period for about six weeks. A total of 160,000 important reconnaissance photos were returned. The mission pilots They were all awarded the Flying Cross in recognition of the US military's large-scale involvement in the Vietnam War. After the F-8 also participated in the battle for air supremacy over Vietnam after 1965, the F-8 was not as good as the F-4 created by the missile omnipotence theory after 1965. The fighter is so much anticipated, but the low availability rate of missiles after the actual combat made the F-4's record not good. Instead, the F-8 with good athletic performance and the general combination of cannons and missiles succeeded in hunting the MiG-17. The best type of fighter in Vietnam between 1965 and 1968 shot down a total of 19 fighters, including 16 MiG-17s and 3 MiG-21s. In Vietnam, the US lost a total of 166 F-8 series aircraft, 4 of which were air combat losses. 74 10 planes were shot down by anti-aircraft artillery, 10 planes were shot down by surface-to-air missiles, 76 planes were lost in accidents, 2 planes were destroyed by ground troops, and the Vietnam War was also the last large-scale war in which F-8 participated. The fighter F-8 was retired in 1976 and the reconnaissance RF-8 was retired in 1987.