This aircraft was based off of Voughts original F-8 "Crusader", as a competitor to McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, compared to it's predecssors it was much larger and was faster going at about Mach 2, though the Crusader was built more like a gun fighter rather than a missles fighter and the Phantom having a larger payload compacity was chosen over the Crusader, 3 of the 5 Crusader III's flew for NASA and did atmosphere testing since the Crusader III was capable of flying above 95% of Earth's atmosphere, funnily enough Crusaders in NASA service often intercpeted and had mock dogfights with NAVY Phantoms and would often beat them, all Crusader III's were scrapped