Julian Baucom begins Martin-Baker approach. Photos by Rodney Rogers in another RF8, using Bay 2 camera.

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THE FOLLOWING HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED BY VARIOUS F-8 DRIVERS AND/OR MAINTAINERS. NO ATTEMPT HAS BEEN MADE TO EDIT, OR EVEN ORGANIZE IN A LOGICAL FASHION.

CAPT Sandweg's story about the tribulations of being Aviation Safety Officer stirred some memories. I held the job in 2 active duty units and one reserve sqd.

My introduction to west coast photo recon was VC-61 at Miramar. During my first tour, it became VFP-61. After 3 years in the Training Command, I returned to the same unit, which had become VCP-63. Before I left again, it became VFP-63. Hey, a little history lesson here.

One of my instructors in the F8 RAG, then at Moffett, was the unit's safety officer. His name was Tarpley, and he was later killed in a Crusader.

After finishing the RAG, I reported to VCP-63 to become its ASO. I was slated for Aviation Safety School at USC, and meanwhile would be assistant safety officer under then-LT Jim Ellis.

I sat around the ready room to meet the pilots, a few of whom I already knew. Only one guy was in flight gear. I chatted with him a few minutes before he departed for a training flight. I don't mention his name only because I'm uncomfortable with using someone's name in a case like this, without clearing with him first.

The XO welcomed me aboard, and gave me some unofficial time off to get my family settled. (This was a kinder, gentler age.) So I headed home, stopping at the Navy Exchange gas station, located near the gate off Highway 495, or whatever was the north-south road on the east side of Miramar--it was not a freeway then.

As I was paying for my fuel, the female attendant suddenly yelled, "Oh my God, that airplane is crashing!"

I jumped out of my car in time to see a fireball and black smoke. Then I spotted a parachute just southeast of the airport. I got back in the car, peeled out, and headed south on the highway. I turned east on a dirt road, keeping the chute in sight. It disappeared into the heavy scrub on a small hilltop as I was coming abeam.

I left the car, and charged up through the sagebrush. I reached the scene as the pilot was disengaging himself from his chute. It was the same guy I had met in the ready room less than 2 hours before.

He did a double-take when he saw me.

"Slim! How'd you get here?"

I wish I could tell you I said deadpan, "Well, I can see that my job as safety officer has been cut out for me." It would have made a better story, but I didn't think of it until driving home later.

The pilot was exonerated in the ensuing investigation. Years later, I chatted with him at a Crusader Ball. He had made RADM and was still on active duty. It's nice to know that some of the good guys got up there. If he reads this, he's welcome to refresh my fading memory, and embellish the story like any good F8 driver would.

During my tour, we had several accidents. I took over the ASO job after Jim Ellis left, but never made it to USC, as it was decided to deploy me. I was hoping to get thoroughly prepared for the deployment, but another mishap intervened. One of our F9F-8T's disappeared with 2 pilots aboard.

Prolonged searching was to no avail.We photo-mapped the entire area, hoping our P.I.'s could find what moving eyeballs could not. I made phone calls to people from all over southern Cal, including the USGS to see if there had been anything registered on the seismograph about the time of the event. I wrote up the AAR by filling in most of the blanks as "UNK," with a one or two paragraph narrative. Hey, we DID NOT HAVE ANY IDEA what had happened,so the AAR should have been a piece of cake.

"Oh, no you don't!" snapped the Senior Member of the Aircraft Accident Board. He insisted I cover everything we did to find out what happened, as well as bring out all the pro's and cons of every possible scenario we could think of.

We included everything we knew about the pilots and the plane, and everything we guessed could have occurred. Were the guys known to be flathatters (some said they were), their training and medical records--hell, for all we knew, they had flown to Mexico and sold the plane. (No, I didn't include that idea.)

It was the longest and hardest AAR I ever did, and the entire document was speculation. I worked 14-hour days trying to get it finished, even with a couple of extensions, and kept a poor yeoman overtime till he was about to go over the hill. I managed to get my day & night carquals and build-ups done somehow, but deployed knowing next to nothing about my non-flying duties.

Months later, some hikers found the F9 shadowed in a deep canyon, where the plane could have been seen from overhead only near high noon. I never read the follow-up AAR--I wanted to forget it ever happened.

There were a few laughs in the business. I went from one U-Bird to another: the UF (Hu-16 under McNamara's insistance--he couldn't get Navy designations through his wooly head.)

I really enjoyed getting water-qualled. Again, I became safety officer, possibly because no one there knew how to write an AAR. After the third Albatross got its bottom ripped out, either by a coral head, or by somebody unnecessarily landing downwind in 6-foot waves, I brought the house down at an All-Pilots Meeting. I informed them that "our water-landing accident rate is exceeded only by the water-landing accident rate for LAND planes."

My active duty tour was about over. I had intended to use my excess leave (I had 83 days coming, 23 of which were a use-it-or lose-it situation) before departing, but that was canceled so I could get an AAR done."No sweat--you can take the leave after you report to the separation center." My last official act was to lay the completed AAR on the skipper's desk the night before my departure. My poor wife was stuck with all the preparations for moving (well, that ain't ALL bad.)

At the separation center, the LCDR in temporary command there told me, "There is nothing in the regulations that says I have to give you leave. So I choose not to."

I guess that blackshoe just hated zoomies. I'll forget about it in another hundred years or so.

Flying the Crusader was the high point of my Navy days. See y'all in October.

Slim

WOW!

Just happened across your fantastic WEB Site. What a bunch of memories for this old sand crab. I arrived at NAS Miramar in December of 1962 as a techrep for Magnavox supporting the radar system installed in the F8D (APQ-83), the F8E (APQ-94) and finally the F8J (APQ-124). I was a very young and very cocky 24 year old at the time and thought I knew everything.

The first group of people I spent time with was Jack Snyder's squadron, VF-191 (Satan's kittens). What a character! He's still one of my heroes. I worked with the F8 community right up until 191 and 194 made their last cruise and like many of the squadrons I transitioned into the F14 program. At that time I left Magnavox and became a Civil Service person working for NAESU.

Even after spending over 25 years with the F14 AWG-9 system, the F8, it's people and it's weapon system continue to hold the prominent position in my heart and imagination. I especially remember air-to-air banner gunnery deployments to Yuma, El Centro and even Fallon. I made over two dozen deployments in those years, fine tuning the RADAR and MK101 computer. Much fun stuff, putting mods in the RADAR in Snyder's group (GARO). Working with Lt.. Al Lansdown in the RAG on the sidewinder range equations as displayed on the RADAR scope, Whatever happened to Al? I remember a LCdr "Snake" Morris in those days, long time before Adm Morris.

Doing IWSR's on the F8, working with the introductions of the Deviated Pursuit Computer and the SEAM box. And oh those 27C carriers! Over the years I spent time on the Bonny Dick, Tico, Oriskany and the Hen and loved them all! There's just nothing like a JP5 tainted Navy shower or someone checking the black oil void in your stateroom in the middle of the night. What a smell to wake up to.

I have tremendous respect for all the members of the F8 community and have felt a close kinship to them for all these many years. These people were very good to me. I have a stack of Letters of Appreciation's and Commendations from that era that I treat like Holy Writ.

My own career with the Navy is finally coming to an end. I left the F14 a year before she left Miramar and transitioned to the E2C. I now work at AIMD NAS North Island and commute from Poway. On my sixtieth birthday, 8/13/98, I'll be eligible to retire, and in January 1999, I intend to do just that. The Navy has been good to me but the highlight of my years with the Navy will always be the 10+ years I spent in the F8 community.

You have a wonderful site, please include me on your email newsletter list.

Lyle Stults

I have been one of the very first to fly the F8E-FN.in the French Navy. That was in december 1964 in the 12 F (Dominique LEFEVRE was CO) At this time, we had two nice fellows teaching us how to take delight with those new birds : Joe RUCHALA and Roger BROWN. Both of them were Navy pilots (Lt JG at the time), and Jo was LSO. Roger was a real good pilot, and Jo was.....a great boozer. He was a very sharp pilot too!! I had good time with him, as much in the sky than down town. Does any one of you know where Joe could be now? That would be great if I could get in touch with him. Thank you for giving me any information anyone could have. My E mail : claudeyves_marie@hotmail.com Merci pour votre aide C.Y. MARIE (O.E.1 ret.) PS: I really appreciated F8 stories. Very impressive ! Some day, we'll have to send on the web our own french stories : some are spicy!!

I read over all the F8 tales but did not see anything about Duke Hernandez' inadvertent visit to Yugoslavia. I may not have all the facts right but the basic story went like this:

TINS,--Duke took off from Rota enroute to Naples from whence he was to fly out to the FDR. He got to altitude headed east over a solid overcast. Directly his nav stuff and radio crapped out, I think the whole Douglas pack melted or something like that. He also seems to have had some pretty good tail winds. He can't talk to anyone or pick up any nav facilities but keeps going until finally he sees a hole, looks down and sees water, dives under and keeps heading east, Italy has got to be here somewhere! Soon a coastline appears and he seems to have it made. Now look around for a big airfield with long runways, "Hey there's one! Dis must be de place." Duke lands, rolls out and is met by some vehicles with guys in strange uniforms with red stars brandishing submachine guns. He has overflown Italy and landed in Yugoslavia! He is escorted to the line, parked, and taken into custody. While being questioned he is asked how fast his aircraft will go. He says, "I can't tell you that". They say, "Aw that's OK we know anyway." Eventually the diplomats get into it, all is sorted out, an R4D brings in a crew with a starting unit, repairs are made, and he is able to fly back to mother and country.

This is not a CRUSADER story but I couldn't let that 100% brag go unchallenged.

VF-121, 1956, FJ-3 FURY's. Fred Meardon was the best gunner in the squadron. We had a superb gunnery machine in the FJ-3 when everything worked, however we had many problems with the guns failing to fire. Fred launched on a gunnery hop out of El Centro and on his first run came boring in, everything looked good, and he pulled the trigger. One gun fired one (1) round then all guns jammed. The banner was flying with the lower aft corner folded up against the upper part of the banner, Fred's one bullet hit that folded part leaving two(2) holes. One bullet, two holes, that's 200% all over the world! Let's see if anybody can top this.

SWEDE Hedberg

Well, I can't resist throwing in a bird strike story after Tony Farinella broke the cherry on such things.

I was flying RF-8Gs in the Reserves at VFP-206 in the mid-80s (that's right--we flew Reserve F-8s up 'til March, '87, in fact, VFP-206 made the last ever US Navy F-8 traps and managed to bag one AFTER the last ever F-4 trap thus outlasting the Phantom as far as carrier aviation goes--but that's another story). (F-8 Trivia: Barry "Flavius" Gabler, through coniving and mendacity managed to worm his way into the Last Ever US Navy Crusader Trap despite lying and cheating and stiff competition from a determined group of squadron cutthroats.)

We were at Fallon on a CAG 20 two week ACDUTRA in July, as I recall, and it was about 150 in the shade. I was flying the last Gator hop of the day, and the boys had already staked out spots by the BOQ pool to grade the breaks (we were always trying to outdo each other "back then" much to CAG's displeasure--of course the F-8s had little competition). At any rate, I had a lot of smash at the numbers (SOP was 500 knots minimum), and just abeam the BOQ pool, I hit what the skipper later referred to as an "Elephant Bird." A lot happened real fast. From the ground they saw a lot of flames come out of both ends of the F-8 since the Elephant Bird went down the intake, went through the intake hump, through a bulkhead or two, out the side of the airplane, and took a big chunk out of the starboard UHT before landing intact sans guts on the runway. The compressor stall sounded like a sonic boom, and ignoring the flames, the general, unnofficial consensus from the pool judges was that I had hit the break at about Mach 1.2. Meanwhile, I had just seen a blur in front of me before all hell broke loose. (It was hard to see anything through that 25+ year old bullet-proof front windscreen.) I heard a real loud bang or two, the Gator shook real bad, the cockpit filled with smoke, both hydraulic systems temporarily headed toard zero, and the engine began to unwind all in about a second. Fortunately, I had a ton of speed (obviously, a good reason to hit the break fast!), so I pulled the power to idle, completed the break, and declared an emergency. Unfortunately, the tower never heard me because they kept yelling, "Buck 07, were you supersonic in the break?!" The engine had been really fodded from the intake debris, and it didn't want to do much more than turn at idle, but that was ok because I didn't need any thrust at that point--just hydraulic pressure. Well, after I landed, shut down, and looked it over, you could see all the way through the airplane from the intake to the starborad UHT, or what was left of it. It looked like a 57 mm had gone through it. The engine didn't have a whole compressor blade left that you could see, but the bullet proof J-57 kept running. Now I mentioned earlier that it was about 150 in the shade. They pulled the fortunately not mortally wounded F-8 into the hangar, and the next morning you couldn't get near it. I've never smelled such a smell. All the air freshener in Christendom wouldn't have made a dent in that stink. The poor mechs had to cover every orifice of any kind with thick plastic to keep the hangar habitable.

A footnote: As I recall, we trucked the airplane to Dallas, and Vought had it back flying in the squadron in a few months. I think it would have been back quicker, but they had to get rid of the smell first. (When we got it back, the AC still put out a stink.) Somehow we managed not to get a Class A or even a Class B out of it, and VFP-206's Accident Free Streak continued. I think it made one of the last F-8 flights to the boneyard in '87. I sure felt bad about breaking it, so I was glad we got it back.

(Footnote #2: We dodged another Class A, as I recall, when a famous F-8 pilot not assigned to our squadron (but still a great guy) apparently fell asleep on final to NAS Jax. I heard that the airplane landed so hard that it got badly "bent," and it was struck AFTER it returned to our base at NAF Washington the next day. Probably one of the few times that a struck jet managed to fly one more XC leg after what caused it to be struck happened. Only an F-8!)

"moon" Rivers

It must have been in late '74 or so, and VF-24 / VF-211 were out in El Centro for a gun det. We were VERY young JO's and the last of the "Gunfighters" (turned out to be real this time!). I remember Bug Roach was with us enthralling us with stories about near misses on the tractor, the good old days of supersonic gunnery, the fine art of pressing the banner, "I don't called it 'sucked' until the bullet hole is at least 3 feet long", etc.

Around 1900, we were in the Club for the daily debrief/film/kangaroo court, when a California Highway Patrol officer showed up at the door. Turns out some hippie had been hit by a 20mm round while camping illegaly on one of the Chocolate Mountain target ranges (North of El Centro) earlier in the day and the CHIP wanted to know if we might be responsible...

You guessed it - Quite apart from being bothered by the news, several of the guys said in unison, "So, what color did he mark?"!

(By the way - they finally gave the kill to an Air Force mission from somewhere up North.)

See you at the reunion.

SKIP NELSON "JR" / "Torch

[Concerning the time the homeless person was shot on a gunnery range}

I remember the incident. I was shooting that day and my plane was loaded with "plain" (no paint). I would like to claim the hit before anyone else does!

Two hits with one bullet is a yawner! I still say Pete Paraskos' banner with 151 hits out of 200 rounds loaded under competition rules (four runs) at FAGU is the winner! I do not believe anyone has ever done better! By the way, Pete has a photograph of him standing beside the banner in case anyone cares to argue.

Gator

108

Greeting to all:

I wasn't going to send this story-but it's just too good to keep to myself. I want everyone to know I am relating 1955 information so don't hold me to the facts.

As an Aide-de-camp to a two star, (CG, 1st MAW at K-3 AB, Korea) I was often invited to join the CG and his assistant, a one star, in his quarters following dinner for some serious drinking. On this particular night LTCol Carl's (CO, VMJ-1) name came up in the conversation. The two star described the following incident to the one star. It seems that in the Marine Corps first jet squadron, VMF-122, Flying FH-1 Phantoms, Marion had formed a flight demonstration team known as "The Phantomjets". With Marion as their leader (He was also CO, VMF-122) they would put on flight demos at various airshows around the country. At the end of the show Marion would perform a "loop to a landing". While VMJ-1 was deployed to the far east one of the LT's asked Marion was it true that he had performed this maneuver. Marion replied that he had. The LT then asked Marion if he do the same maneuver in the F2H-2P Banshee which they were flying in VMJ-1. Marion's computer went into action and within a millisecond he replied that it wouldn't work because the Banshee's flaps would automatically blow up in the final arc prior to touchdown. The LT's thanked the LTCOL and took off for avionics to find out more about this flap blow up feature. What the LT determined was that there was a circuit breaker in the forward "hellhole" which controlled this function. The LT obtained a length of cord, attached it to the circuit breaker and threaded the cord into the skipper's aircraft cockpit. He then informed the skipper of what he had done and requested him to try a "loop to a landing". The next time Marion took his aircraft up he tried the maneuver. On a low pass over the runway, he pitched up into a loop, dropped the gear and flaps, pulled the cord to disable the blow up feature of the flaps, and in the last part of pulling the nose up for landing, ripped off the flaps. The two star ended the story by stating , "Now that's what you call a couple of Lts sucking in a LTCOL.". The two LTs, whom I shall not name, are warmly invited to modify or embellish this story.

MARV

JP-4 has a propagation rate on the order of 157 mph, i.e., that is the speed it will travel a continuous stream. You recall the knife blade vent at 7 o'clock on the Crusader fuselage. It vented the fuel shroud, so when the fuel line leaked, the fuel would go overboard.

I cannot remember which stellar aviator in VMF-122 in 1961 was in the landing pattern at MCAS Beaufort, with a white stream of fluid coming out of that vent. As he slowed, and increased the angle of attack, the exhaust lit off the trail of fuel. Now he has a white trail of fluid, ending in a 10 foot fireball, following about 50 yards behind the Crusader. A little faster, and the fireball goes farther behind, and eventually goes out. As he slows, the fireball reappears, and starts gaining on the airplane. He can see the fireball following along in his mirrors. The tower also gives updates: "Yessir, the fireball is still following you". "It's gaining on you, go faster". The cable is strung across the approach end, and he lands fast enough so that the fireball is not yet up to the vent. The cable does its job, and a big ball of flame engulfs the airplane. The nearby fire trucks put out the fire in short order. No harm done, and all in all, a great show.

Bill Houseman "Gator"

May I please make a correction here? Having participated in the 1958 Naval Air Weapons Meet in El Centro with VF-111 in FJ-3M's under CDR Frank E. Miller (and won the Air to Air competition I might add), the competition rules were TWO (2) runs! We had 200 rounds (50 rounds per gun, 4 guns) I remember because one flight I failed to turn on my Master Switch on the first pass and had to fire the whole load on my next pass.

Two runs makes 151 for 200 (75.5%) hits more remarkable. The F9F-8 was an outstanding gunnery platform at 15,000 ft. In fact, there were so many holes in the banners that they couldn't count them accurately so they moved the tow up to 30,000 feet. That tore up the F9's. BTW, VF-13 came in 3rd in Cougars. I quote from the 1958 NavAirNews:

"The air-to-air day day fighter competition was a battle to the wire, with VF-13 on the final day posting the top single day's event score of 188, to come within 24 points of CDR. F. E. Miller's VF-111 winning score of 668, and to tie for second place with VMF-232, at 644 points. The Marines proved to be 21 points better in the clutch and won the second place shoot-off 79-58."

VF-111 team members were CDR. F.E. Miller, LT. Paul H. Speer, LTJG's Harry Landry, R. L. Mudgett, and Dan Macintyre.

Respectfully, Harry Landry

Gerry Johnson was our XO in the 60-61 period. He was well liked by everyone and was given a unique sendoff when he was relieved in Rota, Spain. He was flown down to Port Layautey, in one of VP-16's P2V's to catch a MATS/MAC flight back stateside. When they left they made a low pass over the field with CRUSADERS flying on either wing. The "Pissless Two-Vulgar" was nose down and straining like hell while the F-8's were cocked up and sort of staggering along. That is the last I ever saw or heard of him. Jay Arnold was our Skipper at the time, I don't see his name anywhere on your lists either by the way. When Jay left he went to Pax River.

VP-16's guys were a great bunch and we got along famously. When we lost Neil Yeomans out in the gunnery area they had one of their machines out there to help in jig time. There wasn't much anyone could do but we all appreciated their efforts.

A note of interest: While flying out of Rota one day, Terry Kryway and I tally-ho'ed two Messerschmitt 109's of the Spanish Air Force, shades of WWII! Spanish version of the 109 "GUSTAV" (Rolls Merlin engine).

Did you know that Beaver Heiss jumped out of an F-8 and landed in the middle of the Okeefenokee Swamp one night? As I recall they had quite a time finding him and getting him out. I seem to remember him animatedly describing hand of hand combat with alligators and other swamp monsters.

God the memories come surging back!

Swede Hedberg

Regarding the "Moon Rivers" last trap message, the French squadron at Landivisiau is still getting them and plan to launch all avaiable up birds at 23:30 local on December 31st 1999 to fly the Crusader into the next millenium beating the sustained flying career of all carrier aircraft ever made. So, Guys, the last trap hasn't been made yet...and I volunteer in case anybody offers it up for grabs. It may take a six-man working party to get me into the cockpit, but I'll do it.

Paul Gillcrist "Gator"

She is a ship - not a boat! There exists no other ship that can carry her. That is why 12 tug boats were necessary to guide the mighty carrier, the USS Saratoga, CVA-60, into Newport, Rhode Island on Friday, August 8, 1998, from Philadelphia Naval Yard where in 1994 it was decommissioned. The picture of the great ship going under the Claiborne Pell bridge brought a wave of nostalgia over me and refreshed many exciting memories of thrilling moments laced with intense fear and deep personal satisfaction in operating with one of America's finest operational weapons systems. I close my eyes and feel the screaming acceleration of the catapult launch and then the harshly jerking deceleration upon grabbing the wire on the arrested landing. The many hours between the two moments of intense excitement during a sortie from the carrier have faded from memory. But, certainly not the exhilarating seconds at the beginning and at the end of each launch. Many nights I relive the pure joys I experienced with Sara.

Time became boring between launches or on those days when a pilot didn't make the schedule. We would watch the PLAT television units while lounging or playing acey-deucey in the squadron ready room. We would comment how the clearing turns were practically non-existent or very shallow wing dips. I decided to liven up the TV reception on my coming launches by adding some emphasis to the catapult shot and clearing turn. On my next launch from the waist catapult, when ready for launch and after saluting the catapult officer, I raised the gear handle, and pushed the stick over against my left thigh. The screaming boom of the catapult sent me from inert to 200 knots in three seconds. At the end of the stroke the crusader snapped into a 45 degree left bank while the landing gear thumped into the wheel wells followed by the rapidly slamming gear doors. The F-8 shot out of the left side of the television screen so fast it awoke everyone, including the Admiral who was letting the Marine PFC play with the little wheel while he sleepily watched the PLAT. Surprisingly, no one could remember which plane had made the erratic clearing turn and of course no one was volunteering information. Clearing turns really got exaggerated after that demo. Couple days later, Norm, one of the first tour pilots, launched with his sidewinder for a live drone shoot. He followed the routine described above on his cat shot. We know this, because during his catapult from the waist cat and before the high- G clearing turn, the sidewinder fired. Apparently the jettison switch was inadvertently left on. The missile went smoking by the poor navy jocks launching off the bow catapults. Wow! That was an exciting day! Clearing turns became less exaggerated after that incident.

Sara loved Rum Goodies! We know this because she kept a huge juice machine going all night in the wardroom. We carried huge quantities of spirits aboard after each liberty run. The empty liquor bottles were accumulated until we had a 50 gallon garbage bag full then we would find a gold bar who was low on the pecking order and assign him the difficult and dangerous mission of launching the bottles off the fantail. Our "grunt" ordnance officer was given the job one night about midnight. He was called "Turk" because of his close cropped black hair and his handle bar mustache. Turk was briefed exactly how to make his way aft from our quarters onto the flight deck and then told exactly how to launch the bag into the Atlantic. We all went to our racks. Next morning there was hell to pay! It seems the aft elevator was down and Turk went to the edge of the elevator barrier and launched his 50 gallon bag of empty rum bottles onto the deck of the elevator as the officer of the deck was supervising movement of the ordnance and support equipment topside. The crashing, breaking bottles put a stop to operations for awhile. Next day, all CO's OIC's, CMFIC's and the Chaplain were doing rug-dances. No finger printing was done and no one admitted to the dastardly deed. The bug-juice machine was still operating the next night and the rum-goodies flowed as though nothing had happened. Sara was great!

If you can stand more of these heroism stories, I will submit them.

Semper Fidelis Mofak

HELLO MY NAME IS LARRY HIGGINS I CURRENTLY OWN AND OPERATE AN F-8. I AM LOOKING FOR PILOTS TO FLY IT TO AIRSHOWS AND FOR R&D WORK. IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE THE CHANCE TO FLY AN F-8 AGAIN PLEASE HAVE THEM CONTACT ME AT

HIGGSAVI@AOL.COM

THANK YOU LARRY HIGGINS PRESIDENT HIGGINS AVIATION INC.

Duke related his Yugoslavia experience to a few of us at an F8 NATOPS drafting meeting of East and West Coast Navy and Marines at El Toro back in 1960-61. I recall a couple of details which can be added to the earlier post.

First off, I think the plane involved was one which had been involved in a wings-folded flight and had just completed some sort of repair when Duke went to pick it up. When Duke overflew the Yugoslav airfield he recognized some F84 or F86 type aircraft on the ramp. On the rollout, however, he realized that the markings on those planes were not familiar and though somewhat panicked, hoped that he was in a country that at least once had a speaking relationship with the US. Shutting down at the end of the runway, he thought of trying to destroy his F8 but only had his .38 to do it with. He considered trying to put a few rounds into the main fuel cell but couldn't make up his mind before a jeep full of hyper-ventilating soldiers pulled up.

His arrival stirred a fair amount of local excitement but after undergoing some modest interrogation, he was treated very well and diplomatic communications begun to get him out of there. The Yugoslavs were intent on trying to refuel and start the plane without outside help. I believe that somehow a partial refueling was accomplished but the volume of air required to run the starter was a problem. Duke said they repeatedly tried connecting a number of air compressors to some sort of manifold/hose attached to the starter probe. There was a lot of smoke, noise and all sorts of hand signals which culminated in the hiss of many open air valves. The J57 RPM got to about 5-6% and that was it. Ultimately, permission was given to fly in a starting pod and a small crew to help in his repatriation.

Apologies for any mis-recollections.

Regards,

Dick Cavicke

I first heard this story from Dick Cavicke, who is on this net. Suggest you get further details from him (including the Yugo's attempt to connect up 3000 PSI air bottles in series, to try to get the probe starter to turn the engine. I also recall that that aircraft, upon return to Italy, was put through an intensive check, then the maintenance test pilot took off with the wings folded - landed shortly thereafter without incident. Just another instance of truth being stranger than fiction.

EV

Here is another F-8 tale. This was related to me years ago by T. R. Swartz who was my instructor in VF-174, I hope I have got everything right.

TR was taking off to the north at Cecil with a replacement pilot LTJG on his wing named Miller?? In the event the RP's inboard droops failed and folded back under the wing. Due to the sweep angle of the wing the innermost forward pointed ends of the droops rotated down and inboard, pierced the fuselage, and ruptured the main fuel cell on both sides. Fuel came pouring out and was immediately ignited by the burner. The F-8 was trailing two spectacular long streaks of fire until the fuel level came down even with the holes in the cell and ceased flowing. The fires then went out. TR had looked back and tried to call out a warning over the radio, however, his mirrors full of fire, LTJG Miller, with admirable sang froid, had already switched to tower frequency and turned back to make a more or less uneventful landing on the east-west runway. No further damage. Sounded like one of those "moments of stark terror" to me! Talk about Joe Cool!

I have no hairy stories to tell about myself, of course being immortal while I was young always helped!

Swede Hedberg

I believe you know Carl Jensen, he was our next door neighbor in Jacksonville, circa 1965. I don't know what sqdn he was in at the time, not VF-62, but apparently an F-8 unit (VF-13?). Anyway, he and my dad did a cross country to Maine one day, got home in time for dinner with 20 mm cans full of live lobsters. We had an incredible block party feast. I still remember chasing the neighbor girl (maybe Carl's daughter Cheryl) down the block with a huge lobster, claws champing away. I later broke Cheryl's arm wrestling in the front yard and wasn't allowed to play with the Jensen kids anymore. 

Kent Kaiser

Read your tongue in cheek comment on the F-8 taking off on a test flight with the wings folded. It was a maintenance test flight out of Naples, Italy. The test pilot was none other than Punchy Gillcrist. He was able to milk the wings down by using negative "g's" until they were nearly fully extended. He was never able to get the wing locks engaged. It did prove that you could fly a barn door with enough power.

There was another similar incident at NAS Quonset Point. A Spad drive took off with his wings folded. When he looked out and saw his problem like in the Road Runner cartoons the airplane quit flying. So much for the check list!!

Mel Cunningham

RE: TIM HUBBARD

I FIRST MET TIM IN VF-211 (56-57 ?), HE WAS A PROTEGE OF OUR CAG 21 LSO WES THEW (WITHOUT THE LANGUAGE ). AN EXTREMELY CAPABLE AVAITOR WHO COULD STRETCH THE ENVELOPE AND FLY THERE EFFECTIVELY IN THE FJ 3 AND F 8. ON A CRUISEWITH VF-24 (59- 60 ) ABOARD THE MIDWAY HE WAS TO DEMONSTRATE HIS ABILITIESBOTH AS AN LSO AND AVAITOR. HE AND I LAUNCHEDAT NIGHT DURING AN ORI. SHORTLY AFTER BEING CATTED HE CALLS ME JOININGUP AND STATES HE'S GOT AN OVER HEATING ENGINE, I GAVE HIM THE LEAD ANDLOOKED HIM OVER AS WE WERE CLIMBING OUT. HIS E G T WAS RISING AND HIS TAIL EXHAUST LOOKED LIKE A ROMAN CANDEL SPARKLER. SO WE CONTINUED TO CLIMB TO ALTITUDE AND NOTIFIED THE SHIP. THEY DIVERTED US TO BARBERS POINT RATHER THANATTEMPTING TO BRING US ABOARD. WE LANDED UNEVENTFULLY AND THE NEXT DAY DISCOVERED THE J - 57 HAD SUCCESSFULLY INJESTED 90% OF THE INTAKE DUCT COVER. ON THAT SAME CRUISE TIM LAUNCHEDON A ROUTINE CAP. MOMENTS LATER HE CALLS THE MIDWAY AND STATES 'THE STICK IS FROZEN OR LOCKED AND HECAN'T MOVE IT IN ANY DIRECTION'. AFTER MUCH DISCUSION AND CONSIDERATION OF PILOT EXPERIENC AN WX .ETC. THEY DECIDE TO TRY TO BRING HIM ABOARD . TIM GOT DOWN TO THE RIGHT FUEL WEIGHTAND MADE A DAY TYPE CCA TO A PERFECTTRAP USING ONLY POWER AND TRIM. HE DIDN'T SHUT DOWN AFTERARRESTMENT SO THE MAINT PERSONAL AND PILOT COULD VARIFY THAT THE STICK WAS NOT MOVABLE IN ANY DIRECTION. ON THAT SAME CRUISE DAVE INGALLS, JR. WAS UNABLE TO RAISE HIS WING FOR LANDING. SO ABARACADE WAS RAISED AND TIM OUR LSO NURSED HIM I N TO THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL F8 BARACADE LANDING . HIS COMBAT SKILLS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.THE LAST TIME I SAW TIM WAS IN 1970 AT THE TAILHOK IN VEGAS WHEN ADM. ZUMWALT PRESENTED US WITH OUR 2,000 HR. PLAQUES. A TERRIFIC AVAITOR, ROOM MATE AND FRIEND. HE'LL BE SORELY MISSED. I'LL NEVER EVERFORGET HIM OR THE EXCITING TIMES WE SHARED TOGETHER.

HARRY SARAJIAN

Pat Scott hit both ends of the Hancock one night. Must have been around November of 1968. We were in the Tonkin Gulf, flying double-cycle BarCaps. I was on the LSO platform behind CAG LSO (Phil Woods) who was waving. It was black-ass but relatively calm, as I recall.

Pat went a little low in the middle and then all hell broke loose. He came down hard on the ramp, and the F-8 exploded. I watched the fireball roll down the angle hoping to see a seat come out of it but didn't see anything. A minute or so later, we saw the wing float by amid several small fires on the water. All I could think of was poor Betsy and the kids.

When I got back to the ready room, Skipper said to go down to sick bay and get Pat's statement. Guess he had made it out after all.

Pat's side of the story: he saw the ball start to go down and so added a little power. The ball went further down and he was at mil. He saw the ball go red and then disappear (!), and he knew then that he was going to hit the ramp. After the ramp strike, and with the Crusader slowly rolling to the right, he saw a ball of flame in his mirrors, and started to go for the face curtain. He remembered an A-7 ramp strike, tho, where the pilot ejected himself into the island and didn't survive, so Pat went back to flying what was left of his jet. He then noted that his wingtip was dragging on the flight deck and decided he wasn't going to roll any more. This time he pulled the face curtain and ejected just as the cockpit flew off the angle. (Imagine, having a cool enough head to go to the curtain TWICE!)

The angle of the ejection aimed him over the bow. His chute opened right in front of the ship, which proceded to hit him back. He fell over the front of the bow towards the water, but his chute had billowed on deck and pulled him up into the safety net .. which is where the deck crew found him. They put him and his two broken ankles on a huffer and drove him back to the island.

Martha Raye (the entertainer) happened to be on the bridge with the Captain when this all transpired, and they both came into sick bay while I was taking Pat's statement. The Captain had a couple of nice things to say to Pat and then thanked him for giving him two thumbs up while he was being chauffered back to the island. Martha Raye laughed that big laugh of hers and said, "Those weren't his thumbs, Captain!"

Pat was killed in an automobile accident while XO of a training squadron down in Kingsville some years later. RIP, buddy.

Cole Pierce

I hadn't heard about the air bottles. What I related was direct from Duke himself, I guess the story was attenuated by then. That maintenance test pilot was Jack Barnes I think, his story was already in the "talz". Jack later took off from Cecil with a tie-down chain hanging forgotten in his right main gear well, upon dropping his gear the chain caught one of the gear struts and it hung up. A right gear up landing into the arresting gear on runway 27 scraped the right wingtip and the ventral fin same side. With some masterful metalsmithing VF-174 rebuilt the wingtip and avoided an AAR. Jack was embarrassed of course. He was a really good stick though and handled these emergencies with aplomb. I'd have flown with him any time, anywhere.

Swede Hedberg

Tim Hubbard's talent was well know by many. I servedwith Tim in VF-211 l966-67 and we flew many missions together. On the platform, there were none better. One morning at 0130, I was sitting on the cat along with an unknown VF-24 pilot as the "hot" pair. Then it happened. "launch the fighters". It was a dark night and WX was bad. The Page Boy had to bingo. I spent the rest of the night in holding. (PT boats were gone). I tanked 3 times waiting for the pre-dawn launch so I could come aboard. The WX was too bad to launch, so the ship pulled forward and said deck was being made ready for me to come down. I asked who the LSO was. Well, it was not Tim. I then said I was not coming down until Tim Hubbard was on the platform. Tim was called out of bed and told what I had said. When I heard his voice I was ready to come down. Made the standard CCA and was asked to call the ball at 3/4 mile. Ball heck, I couldn't even see the ship and said so. Tim asked me to turn on my landing light. I thought " oh no, he can't see me." As I approached the ship, Tim yelled, " hard right, then hard left, land it". That is when I saw the ship, seconds before touchdown, (was already across the ramp). So when the chips were down, Tim was the man. The Air Boss told me I had landed off center, my reply was , ."No s--t".

John Barlow

New subjects: Cliff Judkins and Tim Hubbard. Cliff was my student in Advanced Training (flying cougars) in VT-24, Chase Field , Beeville, TX in 1957 or '58. I think we were in Instrument Stage when he had his car accident that resulted in his losing his spleen. Again, if I remember correctly, he was a passenger, not the driver. He did get back to Beeville before I left, but I didn't get him as a student again. While in VT-24, we had some kind of mickey mouse alert in the middle of the night one day (the days' of LeMay). Loaded 20mm's, and starter units plugged in, radios on. Seems like we manned 4 to 8 ? planes,with those of us who lived closest to the base getting there first. When it was over (no launches), we all came back to the ready room. All of us were in our flight gear -- except Tim Hubbard. He was in shorts, shirt, and loafers! He didn't want to miss anything so just jumped in the plane before someone else beat him to it. I don't know if he's the same Tim Hubbard that you talk about in your msg, but suspect that he was.

------------------------------

I was lucky enough to be assigned as Tim's wingie my first cruise to Yankee Station. Guess they thought I was too wet behind the ears for anybody else. Hell, I was still cleaning the afterbirth out of my ears.

Dark night, scratchy radio, drizzle, pitching deck .. if you heard Tim's voice on the other end of your ball call, you knew everything was gonna be all right.

-cole pierce

In some respects few probably knew Tooter much better than I. I first met him in VF-121 (1958) where I chased him on his first Fam in F11F's. That flight resulted in a generator failure and he landed NORDO. I was a well qualified instructor with 25 hours in type. Later in 1966 he was my section leader in VF-111 and I led him on his first combat mission off Oriskany. Of course all he needed was a taste, and he was hard to hold back from almost anything. Needless to say we had many more missions together. Later, we experienced the Oriskany fire that cruise and Tooter, along with Cal Swanson, saved themselves along with maybe 12 others by descending down a few decks into a void. We thought they were all lost since they were unaccounted for well into the course of the fire.

In 1971 and 72 we were sister squadron F4B skippers in Coral Sea and competing in all areas. I remember one late night CO to CO session (over scotch) into the wee hours. He lamented not accomplishing two of his goals. (1) Being able to bring all of his pilots home and (2) getting a Mig. The next morning I was astounded to hear Tooters voice over the speakers in Strike Ops as I walked in, and in the middle of a Mig engagement. He had been on the first go that day and achieved goal #2.

There are lots of stories both on and off the beach and I probably know only about half of them. One thing is for sure - no matter what anyone thought of Tooter, he was one of the most colorful and aggressive Naval Aviators I have known, with tremendous capabilities. He will be missed from the ranks of this Crusader fraternity, but forever a part of the legend.

Bob Pearl

r_pearl@ridgenet.net

Re: Naples, F-8 wings folded-- takeoff. Time -- 1960. The Squadron -- the world famous "Red Rippers", attached to the FDR, pilot Barnes and to my knowledge the A/C was brought back to Cappodacino (sp) with wings still folded. This was the first ever for the F-8.

Jerry Dempsey

Small correction on Pat Scott. I was XO at Chase Field and Pat was XO at Kingsville NAS. Chase and Kingsville never had better relationship. Pat attended my retirement party at Chase and told a tale about one of our missions together in VF-211. On way in, there was a lot for flack, and I said jeenk. Pat said not to worry, it was above us. I then asked him, "how the hell do you think it got up there." He then joined me.

John Barlow

I too am saddened to hear that Tooter passed away. I only met him a few times and by then he was already a legend. When I was in VF-51, I first heard of a Tooter Teague/Tom Tucker story involving a downed photo F-8 and Haiphong harbor. I never got the whole story, and what I heard was 3rd or 4th hand. Maybe someone remembers the whole thing and could share it with the rest of us.

Regards

Jack Musitano (Moose1)

Tony Farinella has done a great service to our group by finding you lost guys, keeping a log of all the sea stories for new guys, and keeping a log o f all the F-8 either KIA or MIA. Now he needs a little help.

I am trying to get a history on an F8U1, N144427. this aircraft was with VMF-122 in the late 1950s. I believe it deployed to the Med with VF-11 in 1960 on the USS Roosevelt. It might have then spent a little time with VF-62. In 1963 is went to VC-8 as a tow bird. This info is will be used in conjunction with the restoration of this aircraft. Please check your logs, etc.. Thanks,

Tony Farinella

Jack Musitano asked about the Tom Tucker rescue in Haiphong Harbor. Although I was there, my memory may be a little rusty but I'll do the best I can.

Tom Tucker had a photo assignment to get BDA on a strike on oil refineries West of Haiphong Harbor. The strike had occurred a day or two earlier but no one had been able to get the BDA due to the heavy AAA. Tom had Tooter as his photo escort. As I recall they went feet dry well south of Haiphong, headed inland, reversed course and at the speed of heat bored over the target area with cameras rolling and heading for the gulf. The triple A was horrendous, Tom's aircraft was fatally hit, and he ejected only to land in the innermost part of the harbor. Tooter immediately initiated SAR as several junks from the shoreline set out to pick up Tom. Tooter activated his 20MM cannons and blasted the closest junk out of the water whereupon the remaining junks headed for shore. Toote then vectored in the rescap helo which took on heavy fire but was able to rescue Tom. If memory serves me correctly the helo sustained substantial damage, a real testimonial to those gents who risked all for us. Also to Tooter who stayed on scene throughout the rescue. I believe he was awarded the Silver Star for his heroics. Although he and Tom were already buddies, this event certainly cemented a great friendship.

Some guys are always on the scene when the action was heavy. Tooter was one of those.

Regards, Bob Pearl

Dang, we've lost a true legend.

I experienced Tooter in a different capacity, when he came aboard as the CO of USS Kitty Hawk. Tooter had a very tough act to follow in relieving Lew Chatham and he did so without missing a step.

Tooter's first "at sea" period as commanding officer was a day long jaunt off Socal with an airwing that totaled THREE aircraft. My F-14 (Tooter insisted it be a VF-51 Screaming Eagle), an S-3 and a rescue helo. We taxied about the deck working with the new yellow shirts while Tooter turned the ship and got used to it's heel characteristics and other boat driver stuff.

When the day was over I joined Tooter on the bridge to watch him sail the ship into the harbor and dock it at North Island. I saw the most amazing feat. From the Point Loma lighthouse to the pier Tooter consumed FOUR packs of cigarettes. At one point he took a draw on a stick that burnt 1/2 of the butt in one breath. He sailed into port like a journeyman, never let the channel alignment markers stray.

Tooter addressed the crew over the ships TV the first day we were together as a group to state the mission of the Kitty Hawk. As CO of VF-51 he coined the squadron's motto of "Fly. Fight, Win!" He decreed that the Hawk would "Steam, Fly, Fight, Win". He told us that our job was NOT to project power, to show the flag, to preserve the peace or any of that other "crap". "Your job is to kill Russians".

Tooter saved my potoot later during out Westpac. I intercepted a Russian TU-95 Bear who salvoed about 30 flares as I approached from the rear and I narrowly missed taking them down the intakes. I got even my dumping about 200 lbs of fuel in Ivan's face when I left. The Ruskie's filed a complaint. Tooter called me in, alone. He asked me all the formal investigative question's and at the end asked my what the hell I was trying to accomplish? "Trying to kill Russians, sir" Nothing more was made of the incident.

Tooter dispatched me on the most difficult mission of my career. Tooter was a Commie hater. When we pulled into Singapore five of us Screaming Eagles went, in trop whites, to a Russian restaurant called the Troika. We were polite and menacing at the same time. Eventually we made the acquaintance of some Soviet sailors. When Tooter found out he called us in. He did that. He told us that since we had sought comfort and solace with "the enemy" we must return to the restaurant and secure for Tooter a "copious amount of Russian cigarettes. Do not plan to set sail aboard Kitty Hawk if you fail!" We got the sticks.

In 1991 Tooter made the news in a round about way in San Diego. It seems his son, who was a student at San Diego State, shared his father's philosophies and was going around beating up Iranians and was detained for doing so. On the bridge sailing into port that first time Tooter confided that he was "on both sides of that particular issue".

Tooter, in his addresses to the crew, strongly suggested that we call him "beloved Captain". He was and we did.

Beto Nangle 

One quick one on Tooter. He and I were being night refreshed prior to going to squadrons that had lost pilots. We were t he only ones that could go "right now", but we had to get 2 night traps before. We were sitting in the ready room waiting for an overhead. I asked him if he wanted me to fly his wing out to the ship. He said NO we are leaders, not wingmen!

John Barlow

Dempsey's comments on F-8 flying with wings folded.

I recall ( and this is a long time ago) reading a short statement of the pilot in message traffic following the incident. The message did not mention the name of pilot or squadron but from memory was something like the following---" As the aircraft began to fly, I needed a lot of forward stick pressure to keep the nose of the aircraft from pitching up ( I don't remember if he had used all available trim or not) and was shocked to notice in the rear view mirrors that my wings were folded. The aircraft seemed to handle O.K." The pilot decided to make a wide sweeping turn over the bay of Naples while dumping fuel and make one attempt at landing. If that first attempt was not successful he was going to eject. As we all know, the landing was successful and with wings still folded.

If Cunningham's report is true, it may be another event of take-off with wings folded but I believe the pilot of that report can verify the story.

Sam Hubbard, 

I was fortunate enough to have been in VF-84 those early days, in fact I joined the squadron when they were changing to F-8s and still had the FJ-3s. They gave me a handbook, sat on the edge of the cockpit while I started it and sent me off. Those were the days. Cdr Bob Hoppe was the first CO, with Mick Rooney as XO, John Anthony as Ops, Dave Perault as Admin, and John Herbst as Maint. Also in the squadron were Roger Box, Bob Cowles, George Neale, Doug Clower, Don Benton and Ski Kolwokoski to name a few. As I recall the skipper's introduction to a couple of the young bachelors came as the shore patrol escorted them to his room at the BOQ, at 0200 hrs, and said they had been driving up and down the runway--in their car. Mick Rooney had some connections with Walt Disney so he worked with an artist to come up with the flames on the intake. Since VF-61 and the Jolly Rogers were being decommissioned it was proposed VF-84 assume the Jolly Roger insignia. This was done and a great tradition continued. As most of you know the early days in F8s were exciting. During 30,000 ft. gunnery at Gitmo John Anthony has a wing tip fold, as near as could be determined, and at 6gs all hell broke loose. John got out but had some sore ribs and two black eyes from negative Gs. Also,during our first carqual one of us left tire marks on the rounddown. In our first tour we made three trips to the Med. In fact we were suppose to shakedown the Independence but weren't ready so we didn't go out. Unfortunately, the big "I" threw an F-8 and an A-3 into the water as I recall. On our first trip to the Med. they unloaded VF-84 at Rota, which didn't make us too popular with the rest of the Airwing. By then Dick Jester had taken over and the Rota Blue Angles were formed and did a good airshow. Sadly John Herbst was killed doing a tuck under break and that ended the air show team. I have all three cruise books but VF-84 doesn't have a picture in the first one--I guess because we were at Rota. In any event those first three years in VF-84 and F8s were the "Greatest" and this is what I recall.

Ray Slingerland

Follow on to Sam Hubbard's comments.

CAG Donaldson was loathed to have his air group identified with the first wing's folded F-8 takeoff so he tried to suppress the story but the Chance Vought rep aboard the FDR was so proud of the feat that he informed the Company. It, somehow got Time magazine to print the story to the greater honor and whatever of the air wing and the FDR.

Jerry Dempsey

Al Burnside, Jack Finley, Devil Houston and I attended Tooter's funeral in Bossier City on 9/1/98. The service was nice and went about as well as those events ever go.

Tooter was buried in his dress blues with nine rows of ribbons, most of which were combat awards. He was one hell of a warrior.

The locals tried to get us to tell some Tooter stories; we told a few but certainly not all of them. 

Many of you know Bill Brandel for his technical expertise as well as magnificent flying skills. Bill is afraid to get online with the rest of us, because he might become an email junkie. He has sent me a note via snail mail to send out to you F-8 drivers. I have many found memories of the days when he was our XO in VF-13, but most don't have anything to do with flying. When he was new to the squadron, he and Dot invited Teddie and I over to lunch one Saturday. I was expecting a kind of formal, conservative conversation in the living room, followed by lunch, and then good bye. Instead about five minutes after we got there, we were in his very residential back yard plinking tin cans and bottles with a pellet gun.

Another time in the VF-13 ready room on the Shang, several of us were getting ready for the latest Beach Party movie when an enlisted repair man came in to fix the air conditioner. In a few minutes he started to leave saying it couldn't be fixed. Bill asked him what the problem was. The fellow tried to baffle him with BS and Bill said, "Whoa, wait just a minute." Bill was the only guy I knew who could decipher what the guys was saying, know it wasn't true, and then tell him how to fix it. Anyway here is part of his letter:

Another great topic in a few of the stories [our sea stories that had been sent to him by Mo Hayes and Charlie Dosch] -- early-wheels-up takeoff attempts/takeoffs. Couple mentions of Pete Peter's on 18L at Cecil. Recall the pilot was always asked what happened and how it could have been avoided. Pete's was one of the best. Not the exact words of course, but went something like -- "When I raised the gear, the aircraft settled back on the runway. I cut the power, and slid to a stop. The incident could have been prevented if I had been fully airborne with a positive rate of climb before raising the gear." One had to admire the candor and accuracy.

Think it was Hal Terry somewhere in that same era that had some kind of problem on takeoff and slid gear-up to a stop on 27L at Cecil.

We had an "almost" in VF-11 that must have been in late 63 or early 64 at Key West doing the Hot Pad chore. Many will recall the many practice scrambles to keep "well honed" the skill of our pilots and ground controllers. Launched one day with Gene Taylor who was fairly new in the squadron. Just turning out South after takeoff, and the tower calls to say "(Callsign), your wingman just hit the runway on takeoff." Look back expecting to see a pillar of black smoke, only to see Gene joining up as per usual.

Passed the lead to have a look at his underside. About the only thing noticeable was that the slight "kink" in the middle of the ventrals was gone; they were straight along the lower edge. Also some "scuffing" at the tail end of the inner landing gear doors. As an early supporter of the reduction in paperwork movement, Skipper let us blend out, prime, and paint the magnesium edges of the ventrals (which had produced the sparks and white smoke that alerted the tower) and fill in the missing metal on the gear doors with potting compound or Bondo or something. As we all found out, with four winders and full ammo, and a hot runway at Key West, our machines didn't leap into the air quite as briskly.

Still think Al Kluborg's actual gear-up takeoff ranks up there with the best of them. During the 66-67 VF-13 cruise in Ds on the Shang, Klu went into Naples to pick up a bird that had been in for some kind of repair at AERFER. On the test hop, [Larry's note: Klu told the ground team to watch for a fancy takeoff] when the gear came up and the plane settled back on the runway, he was moving pretty fast but still accelerating smartly. So the brave soul hung on, counting on the variable incidence wing to do its job. [Another Larry's note: there was a movie out at that time named, Grand Prix, about auto racing. Klu said while he was grinding down the runway that it was just like the guys driving those race cars in the movie. He said he was afraid to take his hand off the stick to eject because he thought the nose might drop onto the runway causing a fireball.] Got airborne OK; things were still working, so he dropped the gear; dumped some fuel, and landed. Had ground the bell fairly flat for about 45 feet of its nominal 55, and was minus a couple inches of the bottom of that big bulkhead the main struts are attached to. Can't recall how far it slid before getting airborne, but by the time tower operator re-told the story a few times--with all the sparks and white smoke--it was a great show.

Since we didn't have enough Bondo to patch this one, think it went back to Vought by barge, hoist, and truck or rail. Don't know if it became a parts bin or eventually became an "H" in another life.

See how easy it is to get sucked into this thing. Promised myself at the start that I'd confine this to two pages, but then I can't always be trusted. Got to get back to a job on my daughter's Volvo before I lose my reputation in the family. If we don't hear from you before, look forward to seeing you in Pensacola.

Bill Brandel

It was a long time ago.....but as the CAG-16 LSO, on the platform at the time I seem to remember that he also had to wring the yellow water out of those drawers. Where ever you are Ross...let me hear from you!

Chuck Tinker

The port swaged fitting connecting the number three cross-deck pendant to the arresting gear assembly on Hancock failed on me on a "normal" day landing in 1967. My F8E left the angle at a little below flying speed (estimated 90-105 knots). For reasons which I still cannot explain, I elected to stay with the airplane as it settled off the angle. I had a little pitch authority and fed in a little nose-up attitude but decided not to try the after-burner (it had failed to light on me once too often). As the plane entered ground effect the settling stopped and a large "rooster tail" was created by the tailpipe nearly touching the water. Holding this attitude (and my breath) we proceeded upwind for several miles during which there didn't seem to be any acceleration. I was tapping a little rudder every few seconds as one or the other wing started to drop. I didn't even dare raise the gear for fear that the momentary added drag of gear doors in transition would put me in the water. I am convinced that I was on the ragged edge of flying and not flying. Witnesses on Hancock watched me nearly disappear over the horizon before the airplane began slowly to accelerate and climb. Meanwhile back on Hancock, the loose end of the cross-deck pendant whipped across the starboard side of the flight deck inflicting significant damage to several airplanes parked just across the foul line. Fortunately everyone within its reach was hunkered down behind yellow gear (as they are supposed to be) and nobody was injured. I had visions in the cockpit of people being cut in half as has happened in the past. Which brings me to the bottom line, with all due respect to the Marines on Oriskany on that 1965 cruise. 1) the F8 will not fly at 50 knots. 2) there is no real way to know what its flying speed was anyway.

Having said that, more power to Capt. Chaimson for keeping his cool and his flight suit dry! F8s forever!

Battleaxe (Paul Gillcrist)

Re: Tooter

I really have enjoyed reading the tributes to a guy who is and will be the fighter pilots fighter pilot. I was happy to get together with him during that special program in Fall of 69 but have wondered why there hasn't been any mention of it. Is it still secret?

John McSherry

I flew the F8 in Flight Test, Patuxent, 56-58. Lynn Helms had project first, then me, and then Tim Keene, who was killed flying the test F8, right after I left Flight Test. Then flew in VMF334 and VMF 45l in the 58 to 60 time frame. Accepted all the airplanes for our squadron from Red Dog/Jim Stockdale maint, and from l42 at Miramar, and ferried them up to crusader college, for our 5 cadre were checking out, at Moffitt. As I recall Tom Hayward and Billy Phillips both there then. Red Dogs planes had been run hard and put away wet, so took many flights to accept. Wore my test pilot instructor out (Jim Stockdale), but still friends. Had wonderful times in the two years of testing, and then 2 years in squadrons. Went on to China Lake, and overseas and managed to fly F8 with both VMF 323 and a flight with VMFA 333, at Beaufort. The hundreds of hours spent developing tactics, doing timed circles for gunnery, and checking out tactics pilots like Moe Wright, made it a great tour. The race to the contrail level from t/o , against a F4D, at El Toro, was a blast. F8 won!!!, even though the T/W better on the F4D. We cheated!! References to insure getting roster are Tom Hayward,Billy Phillips, Cal Swanson, and many others if needed. I sent on a note about my friend, Marion Carl, and his flight at the war college, but never saw it. How are stories entered. Cheers, and

All the best, Hal Vincent 

ONE HELLUVA WEB-SITE !!

I served with VF-194 aboard the USS Bon Homme Richard (1963-1966)as an ATR2 under the command(s) of Capt."Billy" Phillips and Cmdr R.S. Chew in the 1st Concord Squadron.Served my entire Naval career in VF-194. I am now 59 yrs of age and I have contacted a couple of my old squadron mates...went to see my best buddy in Alabama of whom I have'nt seen in 32 yrs! It was GREAT!(He was an ADJ3 in VF-194)

I certainly respect ALL of you Naval fliers...although you guys were hard on the Avionics gear..I did PLENTY of work on the ASQ17 integrated communications pkg. and TACAN..

You men did one HELLUVA job over there and I would just like give my thanks for the Honor of serving with you brave men...God Bless...

JHall8

After a bad night of night flying off of Puerto Rico my roommate and I decided to kill the bottle that we had for those emergencies. Now that the bottle was empty it was time to write a letter, put it in an envelope with a stamp, and place it in the bottle with a dollar and toss it overboard.

Two weeks later when we landed at Cecil the wife said "I got your letter" Of course my reply was "What letter?" She said the one you tossed overboard. When we got home she presented me with an envelope. The return address was embossed on the rear. The Yacht Stromvogial Ny Ny. The letter inside had the following message.

Dear Mrs. Dosch,

We were cruising the Bahamas and stopped at a small island that had a tavern. A local beachcomber came in with your husband's bottle with the enclosed letter. The condensations in the bottle caused the envelope to fall apart. The crew and I read you husband's letter. We have taken a vote and we feel that he needs the two enclosed items.

At the bottom of the letter was taped two aspirins.

My letter read.

We are off the coast of Puerto Rico and I am drunk as a skunk. It looked like a 3 year old had written the letter.

CHARLES K. DOSCH 

Great minds must run in similar bottles. About 1968 Eric Wolfe, H.P. Lillebo, & I had drained our Mateus, wrote letters to wives/trueloves, stuffed in bottles with some lira & a note in pidgin Italian, & threw overboard while passing thru the Straits of Messina. Eventually my truelove got the letter -- still has it around here someplace, she says -- and I got a letter from an old Italian lady. Her son had found my bottle, got so excited that he opened the letter. Brought it to Gramma who could read English. She read it, resealed, sent it on its' way, then wrote to me explaining what she did. She apologized for being so snoopy, then gave a mailhug for being so romantic. It worked, she married me (truelove, not the old lady) & still shares wine with me.

Fireball Johnson

Greetings:

Purpose of this msg is to inform all of Ed Kowalczy's widow Patty's Email address. You will recall that Ed was my assistant in maintenance for years in 235. He was a great guy, fine Marine officer, and superior pilot. Patty had planned to attend Oct F8 reunion in P'cola before it got rained out. She will try to attend May-June(?) reunion in 1999. I wrote her about the contacts I had made with all of you. Her Email is:PanatelaK@aol.com. You will further recall that Ed's callsign was Panatela and he smoked those Panatela cigars.

MARV

PS: Ed was Martin-Baker (F8E) qualified, overwater, overland, day and night, non-combat, and combat. (SC,FL,Lant, and Tonkin Gulf).When I think of Ed I remember he was always in brand new flight gear. I had the pleasure of leading him on his first combat mission.

If I'm not mistaken, the original "Fightertown USA" sign was designed and produced by the late Buzz Jewel of VF-124 and later VF-194. It was originally on the hanger of VF-124, the west coast rag, when they still taught F-8s.

Royal Cherry 

RAG tales -- VF-174, 1965. I had been on a G-route, wound up at Sanford with some sort of equipment failure. My chase instructor headed back for Cecil, and I spent a couple days in the same flight suit and skivvies while the airplane got fixed. By the time I got back to Cecil, I was dirty, hot, tired, grumpy, and still had lots of gas. Seemed logical to use burner rather than dumps, so spent the last several miles at break altitude making much noise and Mach. Seemed like a good idea to stay in burner until the break, that would impress somebody (this was not too long after Beaver Hise had pulled the wing off in the break). Last time I looked was about 3 miles out, IAS was 620. CAG noticed.

Unbeknownst to me, earlier in the same day my 3 RAG classmates had attracted CAG's notice too. Bill McWilliams had noticed some excitement by the guard shack as he took off to the north, so he "stayed low" to look, then lit the burner to climb out. The gate guards were annoyed; the Marines guarding the special weapons facility just across the road thought the end had come. CAG gets a couple calls. [Bill McWilliams was a legend in the making until the Oriskany fire]. Tom Wilburn had to make a field arrestment with a utility failure, and I don't recall exactly what the deal was, but he wound up using the wrong set of gear so CAG gets another call. Dick Nelson lands shortly thereafter, and while watching the excitement by Tom's airplane, absentmindedly engages nose gear steering a little prematurely. Had a little rudder in, scoots off the side of the runway. CAG didn't need a call to hear about this one, he can look out his window and see it. Shortly thereafter CAG's window gets rattled by some numbnuts with too much fuel and not enough brains. CAG is pissed now. Cap'n Jack (Christenson) was an imposing man about 40 feet tall, bald, with a scowl that would remove nonskid and barnacles. Readyroom legend had it that he would spin the F8 to calm his nerves. And he was about to have us for lunch.

But CAG was also a stickler for protocol, so he delegated. I think it was John Nichols who got this one delegated to him. We were called together to receive the delegated message. Each in turn hung his head as the finger was pointed, the error of his way was pointed out, and then the judgement was pronounced. I'll never forget that. He said, "Look. We admire a tiger attitude here. We promote it. But geez, use your heads. CAG said to chew your asses. Consider them chewed. Now get out of here."

Would you have heard that in any other RAG, then or now?

RAG tales -- VF-174, 1965. We were briefed for a nite FCLP hop earlier in the day. Then as soon as the IP's had secured for the day, we consulted with the line crew. Full fuel loads, please. The order for short loads for FCLP is in error. Also launch is a half hour earlier than it says.

Prior to launch, we -- Dick Nelson, Tom Wilburn, Bill McWilliams, and myself -- had our own brief. 20,000' 20 west, button whatever, no fair turning off any lights, hard deck is 10, bingo to the FCLP field at 3500#. Al Fancher was listening in, but his status as senior student (LCdr) forced him to make a show of not being involved with something so heinous. However, since he had a full bag too, he would have to launch early to be down to bounce wt. by Charlie time.

Soon there are many lights in the black nite sky, many burners visible ---- gee LOTS of burners visible. Al had decided to enter the fray. So had R.B. Cannon, photo beanie in training wi/VFP-62, who somehow had become aware of the plan. At some point I had a victim selected [low], was accellerating downhill out of a sort of half-Cuban, about 400 on the dial. McWilliams also had a victim selected [high] and was starting uphill at around 600. I caught just a glimpse of Bill as we passed each other, canopy to canopy, so close that I could see his helmet in the light from my burner. That was the first he saw of me too. We both deselected, rolled wings level, called out of the fight, and went chugga-chugga-chugga over to Whitehouse. We didn't do nite hassles after that.

RAG tales -- VF-174, 1965. We had finished CQ in the F8, were to be shot off to return to Cecil - go to Norfolk for the nite, home tomorrow. We four had gone thru the whole syllabus together, and this was going to be our triumphant return to Cecil as real F8 drivers.

Things got off to an inauspicious start. My fuel gage indicated no wing fuel. Maintenance people poked around, climbed up to check the visual indicator (ping pong ball in a little window on top of the wing). Ping pong ball is visible, they said, you got a full load. So I agree to 28000 on the weight board at the cat. Now I only have a few cat shots under my belt, very few at nite, but I knew this one was really a hard shot. Once my eyeballs caged and I knew I was climbing, I called for an end speed check. "Roger, 175 kts". Gage was right after all, the wing won't take fuel as it turns out.

So the next day, fearless leader Tom Wilburn says that we can still go together, if I don't waste any gas. The plan becomes for me, the boot of the group, to lead almost to Cecil so I don't waste gas cobbing the throttle around trying to fly wing. Then Tom will take the lead, and we will break out of a diamond (for FRP's, we could fly a pretty tight diamond). Boot gets the slot, 'cause he has no wing fuel and everybody else is going to be dumping so we will look like the Blues. Tom will kiss off Dick (left wing), then he (Tom) will go, then slot will go, then Bill on the right wing will look over, see 3 airplanes, and he will go. We forgot to consider other a/c in the pattern.

We get to the break, Tom kisses off Dick, then Tom breaks, Bill sees 3 airplanes (someone was on downwind already!) and breaks. I saw his wing drop & just yanked the nose up, Bill went under me, & I wound up doing some sort of whifferdill to downwind. We got down in one piece, but our dreams of instant recruitment by the Blues were down the tubes.

Fireball Johnson

Charlie Cronkrite and I were standing beside the Da Nang Air Base perimeter road. We were in front of the MAG-11 compound where Group headquarters was located and where all assigned personnel were billeted, and where we caught the cattlecar to the flight lines and squadron hangars several days each week. It was nearly 8 AM. We had flown night missions a few hours before and weren’t rushing to our jobs. Charlie was in F-8 squadron VMF(AW)232 while I was maintenance in F-8 squadron VMF(AW)235.

Charlie and I were good friends. We had a mutual admiration and toleration kind of respect for each other. I thrived on his unshakable optimism and contagious good humor. Charlie was an accomplished fighter pilot. We enjoyed each others company. In addition, we both had a compulsive disregard for danger. Charlie had been my roommate on deployments when we were fighter pilots in VMF(AW)-451 operating out of MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina in 1963 and 1964. Charlie was so upbeat, he could raise anyone’s spirits in ten seconds. My difficulty was that I seldom knew whether Charlie was pulling my leg, jerking my chain, or being serious. And I didn’t care!

Charlie called attention to the dump trucks carrying full loads of dirt and gravel in both directions. He wanted to put up a stop sign and then tell all dump truck drivers going north to turn and go dump some place in the south and tell all dump truck drivers going south to turn around and go dump their loads up north. The dust was bad enough, but the dump trucks filled the air with more dirt and debris. I complained to Charlie about how sick I was of the smell of the burning mixture of JP-4 and shit from our Group 12 holer. Charlie laughed and said, “It’s better than no crapper at all!” I wasn’t so sure.

Charlie pointed to two Vietnamese across the road who were perched atop a four foot high concrete retaining wall that remained from French army quarters blown away many years before. A girl of about 14 years was perched on one end of the wall while a younger boy was squatting on the opposite end. They were defecating. Charlie marveled about how the young girl had pure white feces while the young boy appeared to be defecating a dark brown excrement. I easily lost interest in his description of the morning ritual that we witnessed at least twice every week. Charlie invariably expounded on the pure excrement of the girl and how she must be a saint or at least a vestal virgin. The youngsters finished their routine and left our view as the cattlecar arrived in a cloud of dust. We climbed aboard and bounced nonstop on the mile long trip to the hangars.

Charlie turned towards the 232 hangar after we debarked from the cattlecar. I grabbed his arm and said, “Charlie, do you have any missions tonight?” Charlie said, “No. Why do you ask?” I said, “Let’s go over to the Air Farce Club tonight and teach them how to drink!” Charlie was exuberant. “Hell yes, I’ll go! You got transportation?” I said, “Yes. I’ll ask Norm Marshall, Jellander, Cunningham and anyone else who wants a steak dinner.”

Charlie, Norm, Bean, J.I., and I loaded into a jeep about 7 PM and drove around the Air Base to the Air Force area. We wore utility uniforms because General Lew Walt had forbidden Marines to enter any civilian or military clubs and banned any consumption of alcoholic beverages. Since our flight suits could identify us as Marine pilots, we played it safe. Utilities were normally worn by the Navy pilots and crewmen who diverted to Da Nang from Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf.

We arrived at the double wide air-conditioned trailer Officers Club to find a crowd of Ranch Hand pilots there. The Ranch Hands flew the C-123 transports loaded with Agent Orange defoliant. It was a hazardous job because of the low altitudes flown and the intense enemy ground fire encountered. They were a cocky bunch. Mostly because General Ky flew with them. They wore purple scarves and purple berets. When we entered the bar, one Ranch Hands table had at least 200 beer cans stacked in a pyramid that reached the ceiling. We couldn’t resist the opportunity. Charlie shouted, “Kill those cans!” I yelled, “Aye, aye, sir!” and did a swan dive into the stack of beer cans. Not only did the stack of beer cans collapse, but the table gave way under my weight. About eight Air Force pilots who had been sitting around the table jumped to their feet and starting grabbing Marines. We were in the middle of a huge donnybrook when the OD and Air Police arrived. The Club Manager had all the Ranch Hands banished from the club for thirty days and then he apologized to us for the Ranch Hands drunken behavior. J.I. Cunningham heard One Air Force Captain complaining, “We just got off our last banishment today!” What a great night that was! The steaks were delicious and we had the whole club to ourselves. Another bonus was that the club had a flush toilet.

The following day, all of us flew combat missions. Everything was going great until Charlie’s F-8 flamed out north of Da Nang. He tried to get back to Da Nang. The runway would be tough to make but the glide to home base would put him close to the SAR birds. It became obvious about three miles from the runway that the crippled crusader was not going to make the airfield. Charlie ejected east of Red Beach in Da Nang Bay. His ejection was perfect and his parachute opened normally. However, once in the water Charlie had big problems. The survival vest was overloaded with emergency radios, escape and evasion gear, and his weapon. The Mae West then inflated too low under the survival vest. This resulted in Charlie having to battle to remain upright in the water. He soon was overcome and drowned before the rescue chopper arrived on the scene. Charlie had notified the Air Base tower and the Group operations upon experiencing the flameout. He had reported his position and his intentions sufficiently early. In fact, Norm was in an F-8 near the runway and heard Charlie’s May-Day. He took off, circled overhead the ejection and observed Charlie splash down. The rescue chopper did not arrive in time to rescue Charlie. An inexcusable SNAFU!

The Air Group was in shock at the news. A hell-of-a Marine was gone! Norm and I drank a fifth of scotch and shed many tears that night in my hootch. Lew Walt’s ban on alcohol consumption be damned! We really loved Charlie. He was a lovable teddy bear with a wide smile who kept everyone laughing at his funny jokes and clever jibes. We rationalized that it was “good news--bad news”. The bad news--Charlie was gone. The good news--Charlie was not going to be a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton for the rest of his life. It took us several weeks to get over the loss of Charlie. Then again, I guess we really haven’t gotten over it.

Mofak

Fireball's recent comments about Jack Christiansen prompted me to relate a few events about him. First of all, Fireball is right!..Jack is 40 feet tall, bald, barrel chested and fond of saying he would "have your Ass" if you didn't do your duty.

I first met the "Skipper" in early 1961 as I reported to VF 32 from the VF 174 RAG. The Squadron had just returned from a Med cruise. The first thing Jack wanted to know about me was whether I could fight the airplane. I mentioned that I had completed tactics in the RAG and he turned to the schedules officer and said..."Put me and this boy on the schedule for tomorrow".

The next day was an eye opener. Not only did I lose three straight fights very quickly but I also had the opportunity to observe Jack demo a spin. Needless to say I was impressed with this man.

We got D models almost right away. Soon afterward I was on a radar intercept hop with Jack. He was making the intercept on me from 5000 feet below and using the new autopilot. I watched his airplane as it turned below me and began to pitch up, then began erratic maneuvering. Jack thought he was experiencing flight control problems until he realized the autopilot was still on while he was trying to hand fly it.

That Spring our Air Group flew to Pax River to participate in an Armed Forces Day celebration fly over to show our muscle to some visiting Russians. The weather was terrible and the fly over was scratched. As we departed Pax for Cecil Jack briefed formation takeoffs of flights of four. The Wx was about 200 feet with tops about 20,000. We rolled in flights of four and cleaned up underneath the wx for the climb. As we leveled out at about 40,000 feet we lit the burners and Jack led us to JAX supersonic in diamond formations. The flight to Cecil did not take long!

I was #4 in a flight out over the Atlantic east of JAX as the Saratoga was returning to Mayport from the yard at Norfolk. Flight Leader "Pinky Paige" led us in a single file supersonic fly by at flight deck level as we returned to Cecil. Saratoga Captain Roger Mehle about had a fit and of course complained. Jack was waiting for us when we landed and told us that Captain Mehle wanted us chewed out. So he instructed us not to do that again and ended saying "You have just been chewed out".

Jack liked to lead a flight into the break in a finger tip formation with his wingman on the inside of the break and at 500 feet and 500 + knots (This was before the 250 Knots restriction below 10,000 feet). He would break his wingman on the numbers. For the wingman this was no easy task and if you did not keep the pattern in tight he would "..have your ass!"

Besides Jack our best dogfighter was Dwight Timm. At Happy Hour one afternoon a challenge was issued by another squadron that "Our skipper can beat your Skipper and our best man can beat yours". I have forgotten the squadron number and believe the other skipper was "Z" Loftin. Their best man was an Air Force exchange pilot who had been a tactics instructor with the Force. Perhaps someone reading this can identify the other squadron and pilots. ROE were written, agreed to and signed by the parties involved. I believe Jesse Taylor was selected to be the umpire and he would call each fight. The skippers were to fight first. Each fight would start on a defined radial and DME southwest of Cecil Tacan at 40,000 feet. The loser of each fight would return to Cecil on the wing of the winner.

The morning of the fights there was a lot of excitement at Cecil Field as the F8's took off together. Even though the players could not be seen from the ground we were all watching for contrails or anything that would give us a clue as to what was happening and who was winning. The fights did not take long and before we knew it both Jack and Dwight were leading the losers into the break at Cecil. That gave VF 32 bragging rights for a long time and no one would challenge us when we said "Our Skipper can whip your Skipper".

I was on the LSO platform when Jack was night qualling prior to becoming CAG. He had been at a desk job for a while. But he flew the glide slope as if it were on rails. The man could fly an airplane. Jack was one of the best and I am privileged to have served with him.

Hall Martin 

I don`t know the two fellas in the above story, however, I do remember the 12 hole crapper that Mofak spoke about. I was at DaNang when it was built. It was a real piece of engineering. It was erected(excavated?)by MABS (Marine Air Base Squadron). The CO was a Col. Pearcy. It was therefore called the Pearcy Memorial Crapper. The 12 holer was enclosed, with a roof( all weather) and totally screened, the idea was to keep out those big black flies. The reality was it kept the flies in, not out.The way it worked was, wait until you couldn`t hold it any longer, pre-breathe, run for the crapper, do the deed, and then get out before another breath was required( if you were lucky) It was about at this point that I decided that a career with the airlines might be a better deal than continued service in the USMC...hell, I wasn`t a real Marine anyway, just an old NavCad.

Cliff Judkins 

Delta six Charlie. Sabu Day!

The D6C was the 2,000 pound general purpose bomb with a chemical fuze. The Marine Corps used the big bombs for interdiction/road cuts on the Ho Chi Minh trail and the many routes that split off into “I Corps” from the major north south highway between North Vietnam and Cambodia. The chemical fuzes were designed to activate upon impact. The chemical would detonate the huge bomb between 40 minutes and eight hours after the fuze was activated. This munition had the purpose of discouraging overnight communist road repair on the Ho Chi Minh trail. Of all the targets on the Ho Chi Minh trail, the Brasserie was the most desireable. That was because the Pussy was nearby. And we loved to hit the Pussy. Unfortunately, the only target we were allowed to hit was the Brasserie road complex. Never the Pussy!

VMF(AW)235 Crusader aircraft carried one 2,000 pound bomb on each wing station. The drawback of the chemical fuze was that the jolt of the powerful thrust increase of the J-57 afterburner ignition was capable of activating the chemical fuze, which could detonate the bomb before impacting the target. This was not just a theory. I was orbiting a flight of two F-8 ’s overhead the Brasserie on the Ho Chi Minh trail waiting to drop our load of four D6C’s Norm was leading the section on the road system at the Brasserie and called off on his bomb run. I watched his bomb flight for contact with the road but noticed the bomb detonate in a fireball about 1500 ft above the target. Since the bomb was dropped about 4800 ft., luckily there was safe separation between the F-8 and the explosion. It was a cause for great concern by all pilots scheduled to drop the D6C bombs. Norm never complained about anything. He was more than a “can-do” pilot. Norm was a “Will-do” fighter pilot. Noone ever said, “I’ll skip the Delta sixes today!”

A particularly hairy situation occurred when the squadron operations office received notification that an F-8 was inbound with a hung D6C. We knew that the fuze could have been activated and we were time limited in getting that bomb safely disposed of with minimal danger to friendlies. An F-8 was parked at the end of the duty runway with all checks performed and ready for the bomb to be loaded on the right wing station. Finding a pilot willing to risk his neck to fly the standby Crusader out to the Tonkin Gulf and jettison the 2000 lb bomb was not easy. It was an unwelcome decision to assign a pilot to fly the potentially deadly mission. “Sabu” Sabia quickly volunteered for the flight. He strapped in and performed all checks for takeoff. Minutes later the F-8 with the hung bomb landed and taxied up beside Sabu’s plane. The ordnance crew downloaded the D6C and attached it to the right wing of Sabu’s crusader. Within seconds Sabu was rolling down the runway and headed for the jettison area. We all breathed a sigh of relief as he crossed the beach east of Da Nang. A few minutes later, Sabu called that the bomb was jettisoned safely into the Tonkin Gulf. Nowhere near Yankee Station! Sabu was met by most of the squadron and treated like the hero that he was. We carried fewer Delta Sixes after that day. Our skipper, Ed Rogal must have said something to the Air Wing powers.

Mofak

I've read discussions on guys losing part of their wing, etc. but I think Skip Umstead while he was in VF-53 probably is a contender.  He was escorting a photo bird, Ed Miller I think, into a place named Vinh Son.  We never heard that this town had anything of value in it but we always drew medium to heavy AAA and SAMs around there.  Rumor was that it was a AAA gunnery school the Russians ran for their VN buddies.  Anyway this particular day Skip and Ed were running into Vinh Son from the East at the speed of heat and level about 10,000 ft.  A heavy AAA, 90/100 mm site opened up while they were about 5 miles out of town.  First burst took Skip's right wing off at the fold, leaving just shards of stuff dangling.  He went through some 184 (estimated by Skip) uncommanded rolls at various rates until he slowed sub-sonic, throttled back and got it leveled out around 300 kts.  Got himself turned back west and headed out to feet wet whining a bit about having to hold rudder, stick and everything to keep it level.  After he coasted out, he slowed it down and raised the wing to see if he could land the thing back at the boat.  Got it down close to a donut and decided he'd give it a try.  Bonnie Dick Boss didn't think much of his trying to land the part wing Crusader on his flight deck.  Actually, in his view the Crusader was a daily hazard even with a normal wing.  We tried to convince him that it would be okay but when he found out it was Skip's right wing which was damaged he got pictures of the F-8 rolling into his tower and spilling his coffee.  The nearby Enterprise had a Boss with larger cajones and offered his "Big Deck".  Skip took that offer, made a straight-in holding a fast donut, flew the ball right to touchdown as F-8 pilots always did, taxied 50 ft up to the one wire and arrested without further ado.
Could be some sort of record I think. 

Bob Heisner 

I was the wingman on an active scrabble out of Yokota. Wx 300 over and solid to angels 40. Section T.O. As soon as we broke ground my leader launched 2 S.W.  An Airforce type was holding short at the up wind end and  saw 2 sidewinders coming his way.  I ran into him from time to time at American Airlines and he would point  his finger at me a say"you shot at me" 

In regard to the F9 probe incident. A student misjudged his position in a rolling fight pulled up into me and took  my probe off with his horizontal
stabilizer. The C.O. asked for an explanation. I said I ran out of ammo so I bayoneted him.  I gave the student an above average in tactics and emergence procedures.
Semper Fi
Bad-1

There are about 3 experiences that I have been wanting to share- one of which probably is a first-  the first guy to live through a "cold cat shot".  Just to be sure I had not embelished the event over the years, I retold it to some of my squadron mates ( VF-24 --1959-60) over breakfast at our last reunion in Pensacola.  I was surprised by two things-  1) that they would even want to hear it and 2) I had left out two important points ( that I had heard the ships screws as the ship ( USS Midway) went by me while I was sinking with the airplane---  and that the squadron mate I had kicked out of the seat 5 minutes early was not on my flight but was on ready alert.  He said that later after I came into the ready room soaking wet, I went up to him and said "Harry, I'll never take your airplane again"!!!   who knows maybe I wasn't the first guy to live through a cold cat  shot water landing-- in any case it will be fun to hear from the other guys who I know had similar experiences ( especially on USS Hancock).  I've used the story while teaching at the Navy Postgraduate School of Aviation Safety to underscore the importance of having down cold your emergency procedures where there is not time to refer to your natops pocket guide.
Looking forward to our France experience.

Hank Smith

VF-13 was a short lived squadron with only six skippers in its history. Two of the skippers had cold cat shots in their careers:  Jim Foster on his
first flyoff as skipper and Bill Brandel before he came to 13.  I think having one third of its skippers with cold cat experience is a record for
VF-13. 

Larry Durbin

In 1963 after it was announced that the French Navy would buy 40 Crusaders, four pilots were sent to the Rag at Cecil Field,  Two pilots, Yve Goupil and Robert Philippe, were experienced and two were junior officers.     Jean-Pierre Robillard was one of the junior pilots.  I became friends with Jean-Pierre and witnessed his ejection in the break at Cecil.       He was in a flight of six returning from a gunnery flight.  When he broke, as the wing came up, the roll stab had kicked off and the airplane went divergent.   Unique about the incident was that  ComFairJax was just completing a formal Admat inspection at Cecil and the admiral was preparing to board a helicopter in front of the tower  for the short trip to Jax.  The helicopter pilot, alerted by the tower, left the group on the ramp and proceeded to pick up Jean-Pierre, in what had to be one of the swiftest rescues in Naval Aviation history.
A very pumped French Navy pilot, more than a little confused looking out at the sea of white uniforms,  was deposited in front of the Admiral who
immediately asked  "What happened son?"  And the reply was "The airplane went like zees and then like zees, and I said to myself (as he reached over his
head), my family is waiting!"         Jean-Pierre and his wife Christine have a family of five.  He attained Flag rank in the French Navy, and is currently a vice-president  with Dassault Aviation. He plans  to be in Landivisiau for the festivities.

Tom Domville

[Under the heading of no one is perfect] 
We know all about the plane and also the launching system which was designed by a customer of ours in Scotland . The steam catapult system was designed by Brown Brothers Engineering ( Edinburgh).  Did you know that the French Navy forgot to backfill one of the catapult cylinders with water and the ram fired right through the front of the vessel during sea trials. The ram is made up from 16" diam steel rod approx 20 feet long and was bent at 45
degrees after busting through the bulkhead.It was returned for repair.

Andy
---
The U.S. Navy also forgot to backfill a steam cat on Independence during the accident plagued shakedown of that ship in 1959.  Yes it came right out the
bow.  

Dick Gralow.

I started in the 1950's with F9F 2's and 5's and finished up as Skipper in RA5C Vigilantes.  But, and it is a very important but, I never had so much pleasure and  fun in any other aircraft than the Crusader.  VF 174 RAG and VFP-62 cruises in 1961 through 1963 were filled with a great experience for
me....Great aviators to learn from and a truly fantastic aircraft to fly.  Despite a bump or two along the way [that resulted, by the way, in the total
destruction of two of my F-8's that did not deserve such a fate] I can only say that when flying the Crusader my heart soared almost as far as the
aircraft. What a pleasure!!

The Newb [Newby Kelt]

Remember in 59/60 the early Martin Baker seat in F8U-1 was supposed to be critical to pilots "seated dimension". Aviation physiologists came around
and measured VMF-235 readyroom rats for seat of chair to top of head. I was one of two in the unit who was "illegal"...everyone kept their mouth shut
and I never heard more about it. Later my head was too big to fit in pressure suit dome!  Now in that phase where one shrinks in the vertical mode, I wonder if anyone without CRS can recall what that seated dimension was in inches?

Buck Peck 

It was either 39.5 or 40.0 inches seating height, I can't remember which, but I think it was the 39.5.  I was also a half-inch too tall in the seat, but that didn't stop anyone that I knew of from flying the Crusader.  Later, when they put the rocket seats in the airplane, us 40-inch butt-to-crown guys had helmets scraping (scratching) the canopies, with the seat full lowered.  So, someone invented the "bunny tail", a soft felt cover for the visor knob, allegedly to save the plexiglas.  Worked okay, but inverted flying caused a "crink" in the neck, because the straps were never tight enough.

"Sam" Marinshaw

In reference to the pilot who was "illegal"  because of measurements.  My husband Tom Thomas was "illegal" the whole time he was in the Navy because
he was too tall.  He had to bend his knees  in order to pass  his first physi;cal, and fortunately for him they never measured his height again.  I can't remember whether it was a Captain or Admiral who pinned his wings on him in Pensacola, but he said he was eyeball to eyeball with this officer and was tempted to asked "Did you bend your knees also?" 

Dot Thomas

Reading the stories on max headroom and running the seat down all the way....I had that height problem, and after a while picked up the following habit: Sit down in the seat, put right hand on the 'seat down' switch (usually no power on the airplane) and as soon as external power was plugged in, the seat would move all the way to the bottom of the rail. Saves a lot of time.......maybe 5 seconds. Of course, all without strapping in legs or torso harness, and with canopy open. There were a couple of sand blowers in VF-194 at the time, and I seemed to man up behind them with the seat full up.  One night in 1971 on Oriskany, I manned an a/c behind the island for a 30 min alert turn-up, under tilly. Did my hand on the switch thing waiting for power. Power on, the seat starts moving down...there is an explosion, smoke. Frightened hand involuntarily moves off the switch...jamming elbow somewhere against the back of the cockpit and hurting the heck out of the elbow from the rapid movement. Climbed out, down to Ready 5 for coffee. Turns out the seat had recently been mis-rigged and the secondary firing cable was off the pulley underneath the seat. When the seat started down the rail, it had the same effect as starting to pull the secondary handle....it was the small charge that fired the power retractors that went off and caused the 'bang' and the smoke....the seat guys said that a little further down the rail the rocket would have fired.

Contemplating being fired out without being strapped in, open canopy, under the tilly arm, all sounded like too many odds to overcome. The line in the
Clint Eastwood movie, where Harry sez: "Do you feel lucky, punk.....well do you?"  I felt awfully lucky about that night.

'A votre santé'
Don Priest

[ed. note -- earlier discussion re: max height restriction -- there was also a minimum height restriction. Here's a story from that end of the spectrum]
On my second cruise (with Fireball & Hotdog) I went to the plane and the seat was all the way down and wouldn't go up.  I wanted to down the plane and told Chief Hinkle I couldn't see over the dash.  He told me once the plane was under its own power the seat would work.  I stayed with the plane and went ahead with the start-no help.  By then I hated to down the plane so I sat on my knee board, sideways, for the cat shot.  I did not want to do that for the landing so I locked my knees against the rudder pedals and forced myself as high as possible up in the seat to see over the dash.  Everything went well and went I hit the deck I slammed down in the seat. Ned Hogan was waving and said it looked like there was no pilot in the cockpit as the plane went by him.

Larry Durbin

On  seeing that old BuNo 144445, I just knew in my bones that I had flown it.  I got out my log books, and, sure enough, I got my first night carquals on December 7, 1959. It shows 2 cat shots, 2 carrier landings from CVA 62 Independence, with final landing at Cecil Field   It's just like finding an old friend.

 Since I'm a little older than most of you guys, my first aircraft love was the old F4U Corsair. I got 738 hours in it from advanced flight training through VF-41
and VF-173. We were one of the last operating squadrons to fly the Corsair, but it flew in the reserves for a few more years. I wonder if anyone ever thought of 
having a Last Flight of the Corsair party. That was in January 1953, and the VF-173 got the first F9F-6 Cougars to replace the Corsairs.   In those days there was no RAG squadron. You just got a pilot's handbook, a maintenance book, and told them to get qualified. I remember that it took our maintenance crews all day to get the tail off the first one in order to  do an acceptance check. We lost 2 pilots and five planes before we had them six months. None of the pilots had ever flown a jet before, but somehow we managed to get one flight in a T-33. I thnk this was the reason the idea of a RAG was born. VF-174 in the same air group 17 wasn't ready for deployment six months later, and they were kept back from our round the world cruise to Korea aboard Wasp, CV-18. We got there just after the truce, but managed to get through the cruise in pretty good shape.

 My Crusader  experience started in !957 at VX-3 in Atlantic City. After  two years there I went as XO of VF-32 at Cecil and aboard Saratoga for  a couple
of Med cruises. Then  I became the skipper of the "World Famous" Red Rippers, VF-11, which at the time was just at the other end of the hangar  from 32. 
   After that I got buried deep in the Pentagon as a project monitor for fighter weapon systems. But  I really enjoyed my 1289 hours in all versions of the F-8.
The F8A, B, C, D, and E. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I had no combat in this or any other aircraft, so I guess I am a garden variety aviator with  
no DFCs or Air Medals. My hat is off to all you guys who did. Reading some of your stories really curled my hair. I sure served with some great guys, and I will
always remember them.
   I am handicapped by  a spinal disorder and am unable to travel. I would have loved to attend the LFC in France, but my son, Bruce, who is an aviation enthusiast 
and lives in England went. He loved it and was accepted by the group. I. loved the recent comments by Nowac on LFC. Very moving.
  All from here.

Zee Loftin sends.

During my last days of Advanced Jet Training in the F-11, I was on a 1v1 ACM flight against another student.  He was one of the shortest pilots I knew but 
he flew well and height never was an issue.  As those who flew the F-11 will recall, it had a manual handle for seat  height -- I think it was borrowed from a VW emergency brake system.  Our fight degenerated to a horizontal scissors with neither gaining advantage and neither with enough imagination to do anything but reverse and pull.  Suddenly, his aircraft rolled wings level, without comment.  I naturally closed from the 6:00 position and joined on his left side.  I was startled to 
see that the canopy was still on the aircraft and there was no one in the cockpit.  To my amazement, as I watched a head began to rise as if on an elevator and eventually I could again see the head and shoulders of my worthy opponent.  Turns out that his seat was not latched and at 4.0 Gs he suddenly went to the basement floor.  I still chuckle when recalling his return to the cockpit.

Tom Elser

Reading all of the stories about the seat heights reminded me of one about how interconnected things could be in the F8.  When I was in VF-111 with Hotdog, we had a bird that had an intermittent nose gear steering switch.  Maintenance went crazy for about a month trying to find the problem to no avail.  One night, when reviewing the logs on the problem, one of the chief's noticed that the problem only occurred after Hotdog or I flew the bird. It turned out that whenever we flew, we ran the seat to the bottom of the adjustment which was just enough to pull the nose gear steering cannon plug apart slightly, stopping the operation.  Lengtenhing the wire solved the problem.  It didn't solve the problem of leaving helmet paint on the canopy whenever I was upside down, however.  

Wes Clarke

[Larry Nowak passed this following the Last Flight of the Crusader celebration in France]
I wanted to take a few minutes to try to share with you one of the most wonderful experiences of my life.  Judging by the post-event email traffic, I am not alone in feeling this way.

First, the guys.  Terrific guys.  Both French and American, Navy and Marine.  Guys with everything from 300 to 3,000 hours in the F-8.  Some who just flew it, most who deeply loved it - with a passion perhaps surpassing any other love in our lives.  I saw guys that I haven't seen, literally, in 35 years.  We immediately bonded, and the real wives watched over us like indulgent mothers.  The trophy wives, of whom there were several, didn't have a clue.  But they sure looked good....  We talked flying the F-8 in every way, and against every type of aircraft. We heard stories from the guys there that would curl your hair, and ones that would make you laugh out loud.  One of the guys had ejected TWICE, within two months, and was absolutely hilarious.  Talked about the time that the wing came off his bird, he didn't know it, and was zealously going through all the spin recovery techniques, including blowing the wing, until someone advised him that he HAD NO WING.  Another (French) guy had a cold cat, stayed in the airplane while the carrier passed overhead, hearing the thrumm of the screws as they passed by the plane, before ejecting - and lived.  Talk about balls and SA!  And they were all "our kind of guys".  Guys who had lived and flown on the edge, could laugh at themselves, and left the highpoint of their lives in that cockpit. 

The planes themselves were stunningly beautiful.  Sitting in the cockpit was like returning to the womb.  The hands and feet just moved, without conscious thought, to the right places.  Think a procedure, and the right switches were under your fingers.  And the wonderful sound of the J-57.  No other sound like it.  Just idling, it set my blood racing.  And when they banged the burners, if it wasn't better than sex, it was damned close.

The French pilots from the last active squadron were wonderful.  Just like we were at their ages.  And they flew the plane beautifully and illegally. The airshow passes were often at less than 100 feet, and more than 500 knots, all right over us.  Oil cooler doors open, hard lights on the burners passing over our heads.  The noise too powerful to be heard, only felt.  Glorious.

As we watched them, we laughed, and we cried.  We turned to each other and shared the joy and the longing.  We were watching the final moments of our youth, and a special time in the annals of flying, as they passed into history.  For many it was incredibly bittersweet.  For moments we were 23 again, not 55 or 65, or even 75.  And then, at the end, that youth was forever gone.  Replacing it was a knowledge that what we had done was good, and special, and a privilege beyond description.  And we were all, regardless of service or country, bound together by this shared bond.  The highlights were uncountable, but some of the greatest occurred at the final formal banquet at the Chateau Friday night.  Antoine, the CO of the last true fighter squadron, made a beautiful and moving speech about the love of the airplane and the special nature and bond of those who flew it.  And his speech opened and closed with a wonderful and powerful recording of the
J-57 spooling up to MRT and then crashing into burner. it sent chills down the spine, and made the hair on the back of the neck stand up.  At many times during his speech he had to stop speaking to regain his composure. Yves, French F-8 pilot #1, and a retired French Admiral, spontaneously climbed up onto a chair on the stage, and in highly accented English said: When I went to VF 174 to learn the F-8, they taught me one most important thing:  When you are out of F-8's, You are out of Fighters!"  The place went crazy, as you might expect.

I hope this doesn't all sound either too maudlin or too melodramatic.  I would not have missed it for the world.  It was filled with memories that I will carry to the grave, and resurrected others that never should have faded. 

I wish that you guys had been there with me.  That would have made it perfect.

Happy New Year!

Larry

Gear up... wing down... nose to the sun... ain't this FUN??!!

We lower the gear and the fuselage to land--how about you?

Got any spare hydraulic fluid?

A wing down in time saves nine...ty thousand dollars.

Smile if you're an F-8 driver!  :=)))

Honk your horn if you love F-8's...
Hang your head if you don't.

Crusaders and Tigers were great fun.  Unfortunately our death rate was excessive so the Navy made it a policy to have 2 engines in every fighter thereafter.  The Crusader was like a hot rod.  I've been to 60,000 feet and over 1,000 mph.  Later versions had turbine blades that could be run hotter and they went considerably faster.  Modern day fighters are deadly because of their electronics and guided missiles; as a result they are heavy and dogfight capability is not now a goal.  In
that sense, the Crusader, or maybe the Fury even, were the end of an era.  I enjoyed the F9F-8 Cougar from the Grumman Iron Works, a reliable plane
with many virtues.

Here are a couple of Crusader stories:
In 1957 the radar community in California worried that they might not do well directing fighters to intercept soviet backfires flying in from Kamchatka loaded with nuclear bombs.  We had no bomber that could simulate the Backfires, and out best high altitude/speed plane was our Crusader.  My squadron had the only 4 Crusaders on the  west coast, and I was the junior among their pilots.  We were directed to do a boring mission, flying around following radar control at 50,000' while the radars vectored us to intercept a formation of B-52s.  This task fell to me since it sounded boring and not very glorious.  It was indeed boring except for the climactic few seconds of the intercept.  I would be descending at about 1,000 mph when in the distance 3 or 4 tiny spots would quickly grow to be 3 or 4 B-52s.  Then, whiz, and I passed by them at a relative speed of about 1,500 mph (about 40 degrees off head-on).  Then I was released from control and returned to Moffett.  This was done 3 or 4 times and then I heard it was discontinued because my shock wave was fracturing the main spar in the rudders of the B-52s.  This was 1957.   About 40 years later, reading a hobbyist booklet about B-52s, I realized the vertical fin of the B-52 was made much wider and shorter in 1958!
From this combination of clues I infer that the rudder redesign was attributable to my shock waves.

Here's another one:  My squadron had 5 trained test pilots, each of whom had an early full-pressure suit.  (One was Jim Lovell, later a famed astronaut.) This was before NASA put men in space, but we were preparing for high altitude flight.  The USAF lace-up high pressure suit was limited to about 60-70,000'.  On occasion one of our equipped men would put on his suit and go up to 60,000, roughly the limit for the Crusader.  For his safety, I flew on his wing up to 50,000 and was supposed to stay down there while he went on up.  Of course I stayed on his wing to 60,000' and it is a good thing because his suit malfunctioned, inflated tight, and he could just barely bend his arms enough to fly.  We were near Moffett so I called Mayday and took the lead, diving at about 45 degrees.  Immediately the canopies frosted solid but we had powerful front heaters and could melt enough to see forward. We landed hot, me on his wing.  He blew both tires, I blew one.   We managed to stop on the runway and were immediately surrounded by fire trucks with their foam sprayers ready.  I had landed because I thought I
might have to extricate him, but the firemen were there in force and got him out.  He was funny.  He was so relieved to be alive that he was all grins and laughter.   We scared hell out of golfers on a course that was just under the final, but nobody got hurt.  That was only the second time I've ever called Mayday.  Everyone was cooperative.

Tom Croft

In 1961/2 VF-62 flying F8U-2NEs was configured to fly in full pressure suits and we did so for a while. We even had a full pressure suit briefing space facility assigned adjacent to the hangar.

Battleaxe

I am so sorry to read of Ben Walker's passing. I served in VF-62 with him when he was the jr.ensign in the squadron, (VF-62). He was as I recall him one of the most amiable nice people I ever had the pleasure of dealing with in my life. If only more Ben Walkers were in the world today it would be a much better place for us all. Among other things I also recall of Ben Walker was our ill-fated flight to Guantanamo Bay in the early 60's where he, as the Dick Oliver's, (died as a Blue
Angel), wingman was the only one to survive a horrendous flight through thunderstorms around Andros Island without incident. The skipper, John Brozo, (now
deceased), ejected and was rescued the following day, seriously injured. His wingman, Tom Malloy, ejected and was never found. Oliver was the section leader of the division. I lead the second division with Ron Knott on my wing and John Nichols as my section leader. We made it with less trouble, but only by topping the t-storms near 50K. Paul talks about this incident in one of his books, I believe "Feet Wet."

I think Ben was also involved in a rather bizarre ejection episode on the Shangri-La during a landing accident some time after I left the squadron.  The LSO, to my recolllection was John Nichols at the time and probably can shed more light on the incident. 

Again, very sad to hear the news.     

Al Wattay

I was the LSO in training in VF-62 at the time and a contemporary of Ben's. His ramp strike was one of most amazing  things that I saw in my time in the service. Ben hit the ramp between the F 8's nose gear and main gear. A huge explosion occurred and we all hit the net. 

We ran up the flight deck when we saw Ben's chute billowed in the crotch of the angle and the forward flight deck. As they pulled him up his eyes were as 
big as saucers and he asked if he was dead. He wasn't.  In fact, he was the luckiest Gator driver I ever knew. As soon as he ejected (about the four wire) the remains of the bird disintegrated in a ball of fire and pieces of Crusader. The forward instrument panel was found in the port forward gun tub the next morning. Ben's chute snatched him horizontal to the flight deck and then he swung down and hit the catwalk ramp with a tremendous force. Everyone thought that this had probably killed him. It didn't. Ben suffered a bruised butt and that was all. He had hit the catwalk rail with his seat pan and it had cushioned the blow. When we all thought about this, we realized, as did Ben, that he had ejected at the only millisecond he could and survive. Had he punched out earlier he would have landed on the flight deck with almost certainly fatal results. Had he waited a millisecond later he would have been blown into the sea by the explosion that occurred 
almost simultaneously with his ejection. 

I discussed this with him several times over an adult beverage or two and it was clear to both of us that he had been spared an almost certain death. I felt then and I wonder now, what mission God had preordained for Ben in life. It was very clear that it wasn't his night to die that black night off the Shang. Whatever his mission was, I hope that he had a great time fulfilling it. He was a fine man and a good friend. 

Jim Brady

I was the AMO/XO of the 333rd heavier than air, variable wing, light O club destruction battalion, 1967-1970. We retired the last F8 in second MAW,Buno 
147018, in mid summer of 1968 but it wasn't the last F8 to fly in Shamrock  Delta November colors, however. We were flying our newly acquired F4-J lead 
noses  fat dumb and happy, single seat, because the personnel weenies at HQMC ever asleep at the switch had failed to assign any NFO's. Since very few of 
us had ever seen one or knew what they looked like , I guess it really didn't  matter one way or the other. We deployed to MCAS Yuma for air-to-ground (ugh) 
training. Lo and behold a very colorful and super Marine descended into our midst in his F8-K from MARTD Andrews, the incomprable Great Ramundo, Lt Col 
Ray "Notso" Bright and I saw him before he saw me after parking on our line. He got out of the cockpit and made his way to our upstairs ready room. I immediately grabbed Slim Cohenhour our great Maintenance Material O and told him to drag the Crusader into an empty adjacent hangar and to paint it "right", in our old F8 colors. Notso was tending to local affairs (in San Luis I think) for a couple of days which worked out perfectly, time wise, for us. When he got ready to depart he must have walked our line a half dozen times looking for his plane before he discovered it among the F4's. I thought that he'd be hot thinking about returning to his guys at Andrews but he was elated! He told me he was going to spend a week showcasing that bird before he took it back. What a guy! 

Ken Langford,Merlin 

In the summer of 1965 the USS Shangboat was in fleet anchorage with the USS  Saramaru in a charming cove on the Southwest coast of Sardinia. It was an 
exceptionally beautiful day and evening but the days events had been, shall we say, less than stimulating. We had some meetings with our fellow F 8 pukes 
over in VF-32 concerning, I know not what. However, one could not help but notice that those, less than worthy, VF-32 kinda guys had a really nice,   large (about 8 ft long) model of an F 8 hanging from the roof of there, otherwise tastelessly decorated, readiness room. 

Upon reporting the existence and location of the, now coveted, Big mutha model, to the appropriate authorities back on the Shangboat, namely, Skipper 
Phil Craven, XO Hal Terry, Operations obermeister, Paul Gillcrist and several of my contemporary stick and throttle jockeys, it was determined that it was 
"We illustrious Seagoing Boomerangs" that should have the possession of such a lovely manifestation of the model maker's art hanging in "our" readiness 
room. 

I, along with two accomplices..Lt. (Not guts, no glory) Freddie Compton and Lt. (Master Bull Sheister) Bill Worley were assigned the glorious task of 
liberating the beautiful Crusader Model from those, how shall I put it, less than deserving troopers over on the Saramaru.

At about 23:30 hours on the night in question, I made arrangements with the chief in charge of the Quarter Deck to commandeer and otherwise confiscate an 
80 ft liberty boat from said Quarter Deck for a "Classified Mission" to the Saramaru. We arrived at the Sara at just about midnight. It was darker than the inside of a black cow and the Enswine on the midshitter watch on the Sara's Quarter deck was most confused as to what three strange Aviation Types were doing on his ship at this mysterious hour. I informed the young officer and gentleman that we had been sent by the COMNAVAIRLANT his own self to pick up a new secret missile for the mighty Crusader Fighter from our good friends in VF-32. It seems they had transported this new highly deadly and most secret device all the way from CONUS so that we could complete the test and eval on the beast. Under no circumstances was he (the Ensign) to mention the visit or anything that he saw related to the visit..... He bought it, hook, line and sidewinder.  

We immediately repaired to the aforesaid, poorly decorated, readiness room of the less than worthy pukes from VF-32. We found the room totally empty with 
no one on watch or giving much of a crap. God... such unwatchfulness was hard evidence that these folks didn't deserve such a fine piece of art in their 
ready room. Bill Worley grabbed some sheets from the nearest stateroom while Freddie Compton and I removed the model from it's hanging wires and other 
various attachments.  We quickly covered the model as best we could and hauled butt for the Quarter Deck where our liberty boat was standing by to 
transport the lovely prize to the waiting arms, so to speak, of the Boomers on the Shang. We brushed past the still confused Enswine on the Quarter Deck, 
again warning him that any breach of secrecy concerning this new weapon (now located under a couple of bed sheets) would be a Courts Martial offense.  
Upon reaching the liberty boat, we instructed our coxswain to make all haste and otherwise bug the hell out and make tracks back to the Shang. 

Oh, how we reveled in our acquisition for the next day. We displayed it for all to see. Even our Red Tailed brethren, newly initiated into the brotherhood of Gator drivers in VF-13.  Everyone thought the new addition to our Ready Room #1 was bitchin and we even tried to launch it as evidenced by the photo in the Shang's 65 Cruise book. 

The VF-32 pukes did not take kindly to our pilferage of this, their most cherished memento of their cruise aboard the Lilliputian carrier where these baby F 8's lived. There CO called our CO some really nasty names and swore vengence and all that shit, but we were unmoved for the most part. They then determined that they would have to create a hostage situation in order to create leverage for negotiations for the return of their beloved "Baby Sader."  

Leave it to Lt Tom Domville to allow hisself to fall into enemy hands. Those dirty guys threatened to keep him unless we returned the ill gotten booty.  Most of argued with the Skipper to "let them suckers keep him."  But the Skipper, who along with me was headed for the BuPers foxhole in Arlington, VA, said that the guys at our next duty station wouldn't understand us trading Domville for the damn model. 

We, therefore, reluctantly returned the model and retrieved Domville. I still say it was a bad deal! 

Jim Brady

 It was indeed, John Herbst, a Lt. at the time in VF-84. I am reasonably certain that Ski Caine was flying with him when the accident occurred. In reality, VF-84 had already, to my best recollection performed previously in the Paris Air show the year before, or were preparing to go there to perform as a side assignment representing one of the newest and most advanced fighters of the times, the magnificent " Crusader."  These guys were not fooling around. It was a legitimate practice, and many civilians based in Rota, including a very close associate of my own Father from the  Wasington Naval Gun Factory were afforded the opportunity to view the practice show. The pilots and all the members of the "Jolly Roger" squadron were very well liked and admired in Rota by everyone that knew them. They were great PR for both the Navy and the U.S. Even though I was not there, I know through the info I received from both my Father's friend, a Mr. Frank Shade and members of the squadron as well, that this was a very sad and tragic event for everyone, including myself. First of all, I was originally supposed to go to VF-84 out of the RAG, and my orders were changed. But I had gotten to know most of the squadron quite well as I had the orders to go there before I was detached from my assignment in Norfolk to go thru the F8 RAG. I made a point of going over to Oceana and got to know virtually everyone in the squadron. John Herbst, George Neal, and Ski Caine were all ushers in my wedding in Portsmouth, Va. in August 1959. Several others from the squadron attended. Of the ushers I mentioned, only Ski Caine survives as George Neale later lost his life as a member of the Blue Angels while staying with a crippled airplane too long to avoid crashing into a populated area. Ski may be able to correct me if any details I have tried to recall are incorrect. 

Al Wattay

I was in VF 84 at the time of the accident and was watching our demo team practice when Herbst busted his a--.  In fact I was on the accident board.  
As an observer I  thought he rolled to the inverted position and pulled straight into the ground.  That was not the case.  John was rolling all the time as revealed by some home movies that one of the observers/audience took.

A little background. -- Our F8 squadron was off loaded to Rota Spain and additional attack aircraft were loaded on the INDEPENDENCE to give the Navy a 
stronger SIOP presence in the Med.  We had a great time flying ACM and gunnery.  Our skipper, Cdr Dick Jester, decided to put together a demo team 
consisting of a diamond and a section/solos.  The demo routine concluded with a  section led by Herbst making a tuckunder break to a landing.  On the day of the accident they came into the break at 1000 ft. as they had done several times before and John apparently put in backstick as he rolled instead of keeping his nose above the horizon.  As his nose went below the horizon when inverted he pulled to recover and the result was about a 70 degree nose low attitude at impact.  The aircraft left a very small hole in the dirt a couple of hundred yards north of the runway. 

Don't be too critical of technique when you read this or take John to task or specifics because 40 years later there may be some slop in my figures. One thing that I remember quite clearly was our course rules briefing when we arrived at Rota.  Rota was mainly a VQ and a VP base up to that time.  The Base Ops guy said that there were no restrictions on altitute nor airspeed in the break or in the pattern.  We were to keep our breaks and manuevers we did to the North of the runway just in case something unfortunate happened.  He explained that the VQ aircraft were very expensive and mostly one of a kind that would be very difficult to replace.  As it turned out that all had a very sound rationle.  If the Herbst break had been to the south of the runway we would have wiped out the VQ ramp and a lot of aircraft.

Roger Box

Ski Kaine writes...
It's time to give a few updates/corrections to the crash of Lt John Herbst at Rota Spain on October 7, 1960.  Skipper Dick Jester put the demo team together with the blessing of Admiral George Anderson (Sixth Fleet) to show off the Navy Crusader to our hosts in Spain and to keep the Air Force from upstaging the Navy.  The AF had a European Demo team flying F100 lead sleds painted the same as the Stateside Thunderbirds.  

We did a show similar to the Blue Angels. Our team consisted of Skipper Jester, aka Tiger One, I was #2 on the right wing, George Neal, #3 on the left and Ed Houseworth was the slot.  John Herbst was lead solo and Don Benton was opposing solo.

We never did the Paris Airshow and if there were plans for us to do so, I don't remember hearing about it.  We did do shows near Madrid, Barcelona, over the Sixth Fleet Flagship, USS Springfield, over the USS Independence near Italy, and a few other long forgotten places.

Back to John Herbst.  We'd just finished a show for the Spaniards and Americans at Rota.  The diamond did a tuck under break out of left echelon with a left downwind and were landing to the west.  I was turning off the 180 while watching the solos heading west to make their break near midfield.  Don Benton was leading and was inverted with John Herbst right side up to his right (north).  The brief was that John would call the break and begin a tuck under break, rolling to his right for 270 degrees.  Don was to count 2 potatoes from the "break call" and roll 90 degrees right and pull.  (Use your hands guys..it's easier than describing it). They'd then proceed downwind in close trail.  Here's what we on the accident board determined.  Don Benton or John Herbst was having some intermittent radio probs.  So, John was not sure that Don heard the "break call"...so he waited.  Sure enough 2 potatoes later Don "broke" and John was late.  John started his tuck under with the stick all the way to the right and all the way back.  (Confirmed by movie camera film). 

It's not easy for me to type this.  The memory is ingrained of that F8 rolling right with the nose coming down hard and fast.  None of us heard an "oh shit" call cause it happened too quick.  The fireball is so vivid whenever I close my eyes and think of it.  Maybe that's why I haven't written sooner.  John Herbst was one helluva guy and a good friend.  Someday I'll tell you how he torpedoed the BOQ at Oceana in his commuter car after Happy Hour one Friday.
skikaine@aol.com
PS And speaking of course rules at Rota, I'll always remember the Staion Ops guy giving us the welcome briefing with the large chart of NAS Rota nailed to 
the bulkhead behind him.  The top of the chart was "South".  Funny as hell to see a squadron full of fighter pilots trying to roll inverted in their chairs to get the "real picture".

179.

I remember the AAR photo of John's F 8 taken at the instant of nose cone impact with the runway. The damnedest accident photo I ever saw. He was practicing some Blue Angel stuff with VF-84 and rolled about 90 degrees short and pulled. The word was that all he said at the last second was the ever popular " OH SHIT".  I don't know if that is true but that is what I heard. I am sure that John was a fine man. I did not know him nor would I ever intend to demean him in any way. We all knew that but for the grace of God we would be were John is. I know I did some things that should have gotten me very dead. Amazing how the Lord looks out for idiots and drunks.  I was the former. 

Jim Brady

I'm trying to locate Cmdr Dick Bellinger, F-8 type.  Just before he got his Mig in '66, I picked him up in my helicopter off Danang after he had punched out.  I have been collecting a series of aircraft info cards for my grandson and saw his picture on one of them.  So I'm just curious if he is still around and remembers that H-43 pickup.  I'd like just to hear his impressions of the incident and what occurred that resulted in his bail out.  
 
Just a little history about me.  After I returned to the States, I checked out in F-4s, then went to TPS at PAX, test flew with the AF and NASA, then flew several missions in the Space Shuttle.  All of that was fun, but I got my greatest satisfaction flying rescue SAR in Nam...

I had one other experience with F-8s while at DaNang.  Very soon after I arrived, Jul 66, I was getting a local area check out.  A flight of 4 Marine F-8s taxied on the active.  As I remember, 1 and 2 rolled, followed by 3 and 4.  Either 1 aborted (I thought) and 3 tried to take off over him, or 3 had a problem and momentarily got airborne, but quickly settled in just south of the perimeter road.  I headed down the runway in my H-43 with hopes of saving the pilot.  I came to a hover, lowered the fire suppression bottle, let my firemen out, and began preparations to suppress and rescue.  Just then the 2000 pounder cooked off and I watch the engine rise quickly from the crash site and then fall rapidly back...just outside my rotor blades!  Scared shitless.  What I missed was that the pilot had punched and landed on the perimeter road and was picked up by the AF base commander who just happened to be driving by.  While I was watching the damn J-57 fly, the pilot was at the club celebrating.  That was my baptism.
 
Never flew with Curt.  As a matter of fact I never flew with any Navy (Nope, that wrong, a Navy Oceanographer, Mario Runco).  I flew with two Marines, Bob Overmyer and Norm Thagard, and lots of AF type.  I was the pilot in Challenger, April 85, commander of Discovery, Nov 89, and commander of Atlantis, Nov 91.
 
I see Buzz, Gene, and Al periodically,  Buzz more than the others.  All have agents and if you are interested, I can put you in touch.
 
VR, Fred Gregory

This is not meant to detract from the fine record of ejections because so many men were dedicated to maintaining a perfect ejection system.  I would like to add one thing to your statistics, in 1962 I tried to eject by pulling the face curtain and nothing happened.  The canopy did not leave the aircraft and I did not have time to pull the interrupter as the plane was rolling inverted off the carrier deck.  I had the good fortune to recover the plane and was able to land aboard.  Since I did
not actually eject, it would not be counted in the ejection statistics. The cause was that the cap on the canopy ejector cartridge was not fully screwed down.  In spite of this, I still have unshakable faith in the work performed by such dedicated personnel.  Thanks guys. 

George Clare

    [in response to an inquiry about an RF8 still flying in 1991, based on a pic dated '91 -- a/c had a long nose probe]  

The only RF8 I ever saw that looked like the description you provided was an X-version from PAX that was testing a photo system that transmitted the photo data directly back to a base location.  Time frame, I don't really remember, except that all concerned at VFP-63 thought at that time that it do away with the requirement for photo beanies to RTB.  The system had lots of bugs.  Sounds like someone found it in some closet, and all in one piece.
Flips Burleigh

This is one of two RF-8G's being used as chase for the X-31 project.  All of the test pilots who flew these a/c fell in love with them.  For more info, contact Ed Schnieder at NASA Dryden.  Both a/c are in museums now, one at Edwards and the other at El Toro or Miramar.  

Best wishes to all, Hoss [Pearson].

One short F8 story...after reading story about test hop on a 'queen'....did that a few times at Dallas...one drill weekend late Sun. pm the Navy Maintenance Off. called the rr...asked it we had a maint. test pilot avail...wasn't their drill weekend and needed a bird out of C, new engine and all, for the next day.. I volunteered (usual mistake)...Got everything going and taxied out...everything normal..couple of Marine F8's landed and were clearing the runway to taxi back...rolled down the runway, everything normal...got the gear started up and reached for the wing handle and all hell broke loose...explosion right under my seat...severe vibrations..pulled up, got out of burner and reached for the curtain...engine settled down to moderate chugging and most of vibration gone, so I delayed the ejection...called mayday and hit the fuel dumps...A4 coming into break joined up on me...engine still chugging but flying ok...A4 guy verified all ok on the exterior...made a wide circle around Grand Prairie and landed without further incident...Guys taxiing back said fire shot out both intake and exhaust 50' long just as I lifted off...post flt.revealed severly bent blades and scorched intake area..

The Navy had a DIR run on the engine at Norfolk...turns out the very same thing happened at Cecil...the 'dogpecker' had broken off and was sucked  thru the engine...it had been rebuilt and shipped to Dallas as a replacement engine...I guess over the years the J57 proved to be one tough engine..we did not have a single engine failure during my tour.

Billy Cason

NASA F-8's There has been a few reported sightings of "strange" F-8's in NASA drag. As I remember NASA had two birds being readied a few years apart for special tests that were especially suited for the Gator because the wing came off so easily - no not in flight, as we know is possible, but it can also be easily removed on the ground for special modifications as envisioned by a source with unlimited financial resources - NASA. The first bird was modified to be a novel approach to "fly - by - wire" in the late 70's or very early 80's (remember this is 7 years after the F-16 flew in competition against the F-17 (forerunner of the F-18) at Edwards). I don't remember what NASA's take was on what they could contribute to fly by wire, but they did fly it for some time. It also had a supercritical wing and a slightly larger "wing hump" behind the "Buick hood". The wing was obviously "different" - more sveldt (if that's not slander on the real Gator's characteristics), slightly twisted, and maybe with a little progressive rake - kind of like what you would imagine a wax wing would deform to on a very hot and fast flight. Apparently it worked pretty well. The nose probe was for standard instrumentation (but made it look like a VERY fast lawn dart).

The second F-8 was brought aboard NASA to verify the "X-wing" aircraft concept. NASA thought they could mount a semi-conventional straight wing on our proud bird and make it fly slower at the "perpindicular wing position" and then rotate the wings (as a single unit) to some sweep position where it would enjoy all of the benefits of a highly-swept wing fighter (ie go fast). Thus one side went forward while the opposite side went aft. I left flight test for the airlines about the time they began this project and never heard any results. However, I still wonder about the roll rates into the advanced wing vs the retracted wing. NASA may have used the same bird for both proof of concept verifications since a novel stability and control system would have been required for both but could have all been accomplished in the wing.

Now that I've gotten a few old brain cells to kick back "on-line", I also remember something about NASA taking possession of the last 2 seater F-8 but don't know if they ever flew it. That was probably some misguided attempt in produce an "in-vitro" RIO like the Phantom guys had. Fortunately, that never happened because then we would have had to invite those cloned RIOs to our Crusader reunions and everything would have become very awkward and eventually we would have become as embarrassed as our "Phantom phrends" and wouldn't have any more reunions. Just like the Phantom guys have never had a reunion because they would have to invite their RIO's (and everyone knows the RIO is the ancestor of the male flight attendant.

Pete Phelps 

This short note was prompted by the several recent references to some side applications of the F8, and in particular, the Fly-by-wire machine, NASA tail number 802. A lifelong friend and much admired Marine aviator and GD Engineering test pilot Phil Oestricher, F4DPilot@aol.com flew that bird years ago as part of the workup for the F-16 flight control system. He has several writeups on the experience, and would probably be happy to forward same to interested individuals. Know I found his remarks very interesting, and many more of our gang may also. You are probably well versed on the DFTW, and this small attachment doesn't add much. Have a couple better actual pictures, but just hung this on for kicks.

My nine year association with the Crusader was what one could call "atypical." In retrospect, seems like I missed out on a lot of the fun and games. But somehow ended up flying at least a few of every version (except the one-off "Two-sader") and three NFs of Pax River's collection. Then, although only "doing time" in three squadrons, got to fly with five other squadrons on Compexes and ORIs, and seemed to collect a batch of stories (accounts?) of all sorts of mishaps. The resonses to my recollection of seeing the film of the Herbst tuck-under break crunch at Rota confirmed my suspicions that there are a lot of us all over the place who have clear memories, notes, clippings, log book entires, and what-all to recap many of the Crusader's wild rides. (I have a couple more in mind, but will pass them along at a later date. 

Billy Cason 

I HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE ON APRIL 12 1962 TO FLY IN F8UIT (143710 ) WITH KONRAD WHILE INSTRUCTING AT VT-21 AT KINGSVILLE. APPARENTLY THEY WERE CONSIDERING POSSIBLY USING THE F8 IN THE ADVANCED TRAINING. I HAD THE PLEASURE OF FLYING ENTIRE HOP FROM THE REAR SEAT AS AN INSTRUCTOR WOULD. THE VISIBILTY WAS GREAT FROM THE BACK SEAT. YOU LOOKED OVER THE FRONT SEAT BY ABOUT 6 INCHES. IT ENABLED YOU TO FLY THE BALL DOWN TO TOUCHDOWN FROM THE BACK. THIS WAS QUITE A CONTRAST FROM THE COUGAR. THEY SHOULD HAVE USED THE TWO SADER IN THE RAG. IT WOULD HAVE HELPED A LOT. ..AT LEAST I HAD A CHANCE TO MEET KONRAD......

HARRY SARAJIAN

As an aside , the TF8A was one of our a/c at TPS when I was there 65-68. Flew it many many times. The canopy was much larger and longer and thus a destabilizing factor. We didn't push it too much toward the stall spin envelope since it was the only one of its kind in captivity and the pilot would be remembered forever as the guy that lost the only TF8A!  There is more info out already on this so don't bother putting it on the web. By the way, Phil Ostricher was a student of mine at TPS and I believe he was the outstanding student.

George Atcheson

Beaver- Death Angel

Here is another "No Shit" story! Beaver While sorting through old shit and randomly selecting items for disposal, a discolored envelope caught my eye. "Free" was written in long hand just above the postmark which read, "Naval Hospital St. Albans, Jamaica, N.Y. Oct 31, 1967." The Ward A-4 letter was from Captain Bob Beavis USMC, a 1967 DaNang Death Angel F-8 pilot. Beaver launched with me many times and always flew the mission in a fearless fighter pilot fashion. Being a bachelor, Beaver took planes and chances other pilots might have declined. He was fun to have around. Beaver was the only member of the military I knew of who had a civilian sweetheart fly into DaNang during peak war action. The cute blonde, bespectacled Librarian for Naha AB, Okinawa stole a ride into Vietnam in a C-130. The NIS, suspecting a spy, and Colonel Art Schmagle the MAG-11 CO met Beaver when he debarked from his F-8 after a combat sortie. They demanded he get the sweet misguided young thing out of DaNang immediately. Of course, no planes were available for a couple of days so the Librarian stayed in Beaver's hootch and gave him some housekeeping tips for several days. And maybe some sex-ed classes. You can see that Beaver did have some good luck. My heart was heavy in late August when I learned Beaver had taken some life threatening rounds. Especially since he was emergency medivac-ed out of Country. We were told by the Quacks that "even if Beaver survived, his flying days were over." After learning of Beaver's whereabouts, I sent him a note saying Charlie was much fonder of him now that he was absent, and that the rest of us envied his shortened Vietnam tour and the stateside ass he was getting. Here is the letter Beaver sent back: 

Major MOFAK,

30 October 1967 
Thanks for the cheery note. Had my last operation last week and now am on final for recovery. Should be about three to four more weeks here at the hospital and then a few weeks convalescent leave. After that it will be back to full duty and a flying status again. I am a very lucky guy!

Spoke with the “Iggle” a few weeks back and it looks like I will be going to Beaufort if he can swing it. Heard Norm Marshall will be going Air Force Exchange out at Luke AFB . Sounds like a good tour.

The cruise book came in a few weeks ago and turned out fairly well. It should serve as a refresher for the good things that are worth remembering from over there. Wish we could get the original guys that flew in country back together again. That surely would have to have been my best squadron.

Bought myself a 66 Corvette Convertible to run around in once I get out of here. Figured I owed myself something I guess, anyhow I love it-doesn’t handle quite as well as the F8 but is a lot of fun to drive.

My gear is still somewhere between Camp Carroll and St Albans so am beginning to become concerned. Next Friday is the 10th of Nov and the Birthday Ball, fortunately I have my Blues at home and will be able to make my presence known. Haven’t missed one yet.

Have been trying to follow the war as closely as possible but what news we do receive is very depressing. I felt badly that I didn’t get a chance to finish out my tour and inflict a little more damage on those bastards but the way it looks I will get another chance next year.

Take care of yourself Major. Again I am fine. See you on button ONE.

Beaver

We were elated that Beaver's pilot days were not over. In fact, they were just beginning. Beaver entered the Reserves upon separation from active duty. He got back to Class 1 and continued to fly the latest tactical jets until retiring from the Reserves as a Bird Colonel. Thanks Beaver, for your great contribution to our Corps, our Country, and to the free world.

Semper Fi Mofak 

Of course this is a very small world. Norm Marshall worked in the division 14 shop at Dong Ha when I got there in July 67 with MASS-2 and as a tentmate and hoochmate taught me a lot about surviving, drinking, sandbagging, etc. Art Schmagle was later the division 14 forward and drove me completly nuts on numerous occasions.

Jim Cathcart (relation to MOFAK only spiritual)

There was another "Twosader". It was loaded onto Saratoga in early1963(?) and taken to Europe where it was to perform demonstration flights. Saratoga launched it near the Canary Islands. Fox Turner and Corky Lenox were the crew.

Hall Martin

Pete Phelps was right on his recollection of dates for the supercritical wing F-8. I was doing my masters thesis on longitudinal control and was being shown around Edwards by Tom McMurtry (one fine gentleman, onetime Prez of the Test Pilot Society), and he took me by the hangar where the 'new' F-8 was sitting. Looked mighty fine, v. pristine. That would have been late 1976 or early 1977.

Cole Pierce 

Speaking of R&D F-8s, I once was told that a Gator was actually rigged to perform an automatic carrier landing. As the story went, the range to the ship was provided by locking onto a corner reflector, which was coupled to the radar altimeter, autopilot, and APC to fly the glideslope. It wasn't made clear how lineup was accomplished. Anybody know anything about this? Or was my leg being pulled? 

Bull Durham.

I spent 20 months as an exchange pilot with VMF 323 and VMF 312 at El Toro in 1962 and 1964 and I can truthfully say it was the most enjoyable time of my 26 years of flying fighters. I flew a number of fighters for the USAF but for pure fun of flying none could come close to the F8. As I recall I had right at 500 hours in it when I returned to the AF and flew the F106 again for another 4 years at Langley AFB.

I flew with some great pilots throughout my career but I don't remember any having reputations any better than Tooter Teague, Fred Winton, Ed Southwick and Hal Vincent. I was not in a squadron with either of these guys but met them down at Yuma and at El Toro. The last time I talked to Fred he was being transferred to a minesweeper of all things. I thought that was a terrible waste of talent....but then I guess the Navy had their reasons. I don't know what happened to these guys but I heard that Ed Southwick was a POW for a while. Sorry to hear that. I hope they all had good careers and are doing well now.

I would love to hear from any of the guys I served with during that short but enjoyable part of my life.

Cheers,

Jim Westberry [Ole' Blue] 

I was on the USS Midway in the summer of 63 and there was an F-8 with "LOOK MA NO HANDS" painted on the side. It was doing ACLS landings to a trap. Someone told me it was the first to do it. Many years later after flying the F-8 I wondered at the large xxxx that pilot must have had. 

Skip Leonard

I flew the Twosader at Cecil in Aug.of 60.I worked for Chance Vought for 25 years as the head of flight safety.  I investigated the accident when Ken Fox and the Filipino student flamed out and punched out south of Ft. Worth. I'm here to tell you that there weren't two Twosaders. If Corky and Fox flew one off the boat it had to be the same bird. My respects to my ol' buddy Hall Martin 

Fang Liberato

Just to set the record straight: PJ was marketing and they had the responsibility for the pin, not engineering (I was Chief project engineer on the Crusader at that time). You must all know that the marketeers take all credit for what goes well and points blame for all that is f---d up. After a while everyone accepts the shortcomings of the marketeers. I did long ago. So I like PJ even if he is--was-- a lying, thieving, cheating marketeer. Someday he may even outgrow it. 

Bob Smith  [ Hall, that was the same bird the one and only!]

I remember this well. I was in VF-24 in 1963, and we all made it a point to watch the PAX River F8 make traps. The pilot was of Oriental descent and obviously of large cajones because he made numerous traps with his hands crossed on top of his head.

 Dick Larsen
[webmaster note: the pilot was Bob Chew]

Who's on first (getting close to the last?)

"Easy" Ed Shiver's correction about VF 154, not VF 211, being the first F 8 squadron on the West coast sent me to my archives for confirming evidence. I referred to copies of "The Vought Vanguard" ("VV"), "The Moffett News" ("MN") & various civilian rags of the time including "The San Jose Mercury News" ("SJM") & "The San Francisco Examiner" ("SFE"). Bear with me & maybe we can set some of these early records straight and get them into the Squadron Page or Gatortalz for future reference. The 10/4/57 issue of VV has a cover story about VF 32 (an east coast squadron at the time) flying to Gitmo for gunnery (an omen of things to come!) It cites 32 as "the first F 8 squadron formed". The 7/26/57 VV Has a picture of then VF 154 Skipper, dear old Francis Xavier ("Mad Monk") Timmes (RIP) climbing out of his F 8 after his trip to Dallas from Moffett. It identifies VF154 as "the second F 8 squadron formed". 

Dave Winiker says the thing he remembers most about the arrival of the F 8 at VF154 is an event I'll deem the Immaculate Reception. John Glenn arrives in a sparkling new F8U-1 (he was later aboard HANCOCK for carqual observation ). And, as scruffy old Dwink stands there stupefied, Gleaming Major Glenn fresh from "Project Bullet" doffs his pristine medium starch flight suit to display the razor creased dress khakis he's wearing underneath. But, to Dwink's dismay, there's no Smokey the Bare campaign hat, just a heavy starch piss-cutter. (OK you experts out there-what is the derivation of that salty name for the beloved "fore & aft" cap?) 

The MN of 8/16/57 carries an interesting story about VF154's preparation for the "maiden deployment" of the F 8. It reports that the squadron has amassed 700 hours in type & further that "The pilot of the Crusader is one of the most thoroughly checked out pilots in the Navy today." Note the use of the singular. I don't know which 154 pilot they were talking about but it sure didn't include any of the JOs - the squadron had missed the prior deployment & as a result, up to about senior Lt., carrier experience consisted exclusively of 6 traps in the SNJ. But, we were lucky-as it turned out only 3 of the 10 or 12 A/C we lost, 2 of the 6 fatalities we suffered & a couple of DORs occurred during carquals. A piece of cake! But I digress. The 11/18/58 SJM reports that the VF154 carquals that commence that day will be "The first operational use from an aircraft carrier of the Chance Vought F8U-1 Crusader." The following year the SFE of 6/4/58 reports on VF 211's first F 8 carquals then going on aboard MIDWAY. 

Re. The VF 154 name, "Flexible Fliers," No offense to his personalized plates but Easy Ed probably will recall that FX Timmes tried mightily to inflict that dopey designation on the squadron, even going so far as to issue red ball caps with the nauseous nomenclature embroidered on them. Of course, we all sneered at & never ever used the hated handle, except maybe when FXT was present in polite company (which was in pretty short supply). Actually, the caps weren't too shabby though & they were free-so we might even have worn them a couple of times. I have a photo of Bob Baldwin wearing one that makes Zippy the Pinhead look good. According to my recollection assisted by the MN stories of 12/6/57 & an earlier undated clipping the official VF 154 squadron name was the "Grand Slammers" due of course to the 1000 MPH business. Also in the news at the time was the story of the new VF154 patch. It was a zinger if I do say so myself. I got the idea when I was looking for skin shots in Vogue & ran across some photos of British tomb rubbings. The MN says I got a $10 prize for the winning design. I shipped it to cartoonist Milton Caniff of "Steve Canyon" & "Terry & The Pirates" fame, he sent back the polished up final version & the rest is history. The image is a Crusader in chain mail & black tunic holding sword and shield with crossing divisions of F8s in the con of the distant sky behind. Hell, he looked almost as good as old Glamorous Glenn. The patch was originally embroidered in metallic silver on black background. Eventually, the confusion about the squadron name, the strong image on the patch & the retirement of F 8 use by the squadron gave rise to 154's current name the "Black Knights." But look at that cross on his chest-that ain't "any old knight Baby" it's an honest to god CRUSADER! 

Come to think of it, maybe it would be neat if the Crusader Association had a classy adaptation of this historic Crusader patch as its own emblem. If there's any interest I'll see what I can come up with-it would make one helluva T shirt! I guess everyone knows that VF154 is now permanently forward deployed, is home based at Atsugi & as I understand it, has been first to arrive at every party out there from Desert Storm through Kosovo. I think I read some time ago that they had something like 8 years & 80,000 hours without a major accident--is that possible? My, how things have progressed. I'm sure proud they wear that patch. Thanks for hanging in there, putting this together was a sentimental as well as factual journey-particularly since next Sunday, 5 March 2000 is the 42nd anniversary of my near demise as a result of the Crusader's first barricade engagement-but that's another "C" story.

CRASH MIOTTEL

In 1997, when Director of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Vice Admiral Don Engen, USN (ret) published a book titled "Wings and Warriors". The book is about Engen's life and his Navy career. Very interesting reading as he was involved in the introduction of jets in the Navy and so many other programs that improved flying from aircraft carriers. He was in Flight Test under Bob Elder in 1958 and a member of the Navy's NPE team.

I will quote a paragraph from pages 209 and 210 from Chapter 10, The Mach 2.4 Barrier, with inserts from nearby paragraphs:

"In August (1958) both McDonnell and the Vought Division of LTV readied their two airplanes, the F4H-1 Phantom II and F8U-3 Crusader III, for first flight. [McDonnell pilot Bob Little made the first flight in the F4H-1. Vought pilot John Conrad made the first flight in the F*U-3]. The NPE would follow in September, and we set about to define the two teams that would compose the evaluation. Larry Flint and I named Lieutenant Dick Gordon as the F4H-1 project officer and Lieutenant Bill Lawrence as the F8U-3 project officer. From NASA Dryden Neil Armstrong was named to fly the F4H, and from NASA Ames Bob Ennis was named to fly the F8U. Both were former naval aviators. From Carrier Suitability Lieutenant Commander Bill Nichols would fly the F4H, and Lieutenant Commander A. C. O'neil would fly the F8U. Captain Bob Elder would lead the joint team, and with Larry Flint and me, we would fly both airplanes to provide comparative qualitative analyses."

In mid-September the team arrived at Edwards AFB and began the NPE. For the Navy, Capt. Bob Elder flew the F4H-1 first and Engen flew it second. Larry Flint flew the F8U-3 first and Engen second (page 211).

In 1962, I recall seeing an F8U-3 on display at one of the gates to NAS Norfolk. I don't know if it is still there.

As you may know, Don was killed last July (99) in a glider crash.

Sam Hubbard

I really enjoyed the email on who was the first F8 squadron on the West coast. During this time Jeff McVey's squadron (VF-91) was playing a nice and easy 3rd base. I was in his squadron and was one of those that got there with only 6 SNJ traps. He called me into his office and told me of the discovery and that all of us had to go back to the Training Command to get jet traps. But, I had just returned from the ship and had logged 20 F8 traps and could not see how a few traps in an F9F would do me any good. He agreed and said he would see that I would not have to go back. Therefore, I finished my career with 6 SNJ traps and all of the rest were in F8's. 

John Barlow

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