While this member of the 'centuries fighter' family has the fighter designation F-105, it was primarily an attack aircraft so a designation starting with an A would have been more appropriate. Republic developed the Thunderchief initially as a replacement of the RF-84 Thunderflash reconnais­sance plane. To free up space in the nose for cameras, the air intakes were placed in the wing roots. These are very characteristic on nearly all versions: the shape is like a cutout of the extended wing leading edge at its root. The forward sweep makes that it is invisible when viewed from the side. Only the YF-105A prototypes had more conventional intakes, but these proved insufficient. Other features of the Thunderchief are the quite narrow vertical fin that is placed ahead of the exhaust, the long main landing gear legs with similar doors attached to them and low mounted horizontal stabilisers. The nose is pointed and the canopy pops out slightly above the fuselage, with a long fairing behind it.

The different versions of the F-105 can externally be distinguished by amongst others

• the number seats (and thus shape of canopy)
• the presence of a pitot tube at the point of the nose
• the shape of the air intakes
• the shape of the vertical fin

More details will follow later.