Gator Tales -
Page 8 - 701 - 800
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.
701
My only encounter with the 104 was non tactical but somewhat funny.
Went down to Maxwell for Armed forces display. Plane captain was from
outside Montgomery so I got him a pass if he would stand by the plane.
We pumped the nose up with the tail about 2 inches off the gound and
only loaded the mains with fuel. When people would notice the tail they
would ask the cpl how in the world we landed that plane. He would reply
" Marine Pilots".
A major was flying the 104 and we signed out at the same time. I was to
follow his fly by. Beautiful bird, all shiny. Against the gray colors
of the F8 and 235s red noses. He took off and I was to follow a
Caribou, who was to make a short field take off. He did so and I
followed with a banner take off. Got to altitude and lined up for
flyby. 104 came up "starfighter one, for high speed pass'' I'm hitting
burner, I have a fire, I'm landing!!!!!!
so I made a super high speed run. After landing, I saw the major again
and asked if he was staying the night. Hell no, catching a commercial
flight home. But still a beautiful plane.
Ron Foreman
702
I was on a maintenance test flight out of Beaufort in early 62 (VMF333)
flying north and observed an A/C flying south about 30 degrees off. I
turned into him, he turned into me and as one always did over Beaufort
we started with a head to head pass. That's when I realized it was a
104. I made my turn, could see him starting his turn and never saw him
again.
It turned out he was on his way to NBC for a static display and the
next day I asked the 104 Pilot what happened.
I don't know if he was kidding or not but he said, "I was somewhere
over Georgia ripping into that turn."
Tom Fraser
703
Youthly Puresome finishes off this scholarly discussion with the
expected professorial tone:
--------------------
The whole deal started over your basic, fighter pilot insult.
The normally placid Bernie Bumfrabb, TAR operations officer of the Big
Red Fighter Squadron, was perched on a barstool, swilling martinis and
munching bowls of peanuts that a resigned bartender regularly refilled.
Possibly, it was the olives that sent him over the edge.
Bernie was a stranger in a strange land. His rumpled green
flight
suit, stained red turtleneck ordinance jersey that proudly signaled his
squadron's colors, and scuffed, brown flight boots were subtly
different from the pressed blue suits, ascots, and shiny black footwear
around him in the officer's club at Luke Aerial Force Base. Bernie
hadn't set out to spend Friday afternoon happiness hours (or "beer
call" as it was known among the locals) in such an upscale watering
hole, but weird day noises in his F8H Crusader had caused him to set
down short of his fog-shrouded NAS Miramar goal. Besides, he
had
done an exchange tour with the zoomies, spoke idiomatic air force, and
he was actually considering getting a telescoping pointer for briefings.
So Bernie found himself stuck at the end of a bar, surrounded by an
impressive mound of peanut hulls, cigar smoke, and blue suiters singing
a tender ballad about Mary Ann Burns being the girl for them. The
expected babes from nearby Sun City had not shown up,
depriving
bachelor Bernie of the opportunity to "go ugly early" or reflect that
he could drink 'em pretty but he couldn't drink 'em skinny.
Lacking any possibility of spiritual communion with double
coyote
woman, his hands started twitching in an irresistible urge to show
someone how his right hand could shoot the watch off his hopelessly
outmaneuvered left wrist, which represented the vast grape communities
of every aircraft type of every service.
When a stranger went idle, speedbrakes, and neatly rendezvoused with
the barstool beside him, Bernie was ready. Coolly appraising the
newcomer through hooded eyes, he noted that his stoolmate had on a
robin hood green flight suit and epaulets with two and a half
stripes. Clearly a major. Clearly not from these
parts. The stage was set for a close encounter of
the third
kind.
If you ain't a Crusader pilot, you ain't shit!" Bernie ventured as the
stranger raised his mug of cold beer.
“Frabb off! Eh?" Responded the major, turning into the
attack,
maple leaf shoulder patch flashing in the dim bar light.
Clearly,
his tactical situation demanded disregarding options (b) "excuse me,
but you have mistaken me for someone who gives a shit!" And (c) "let us
define your terms."
Thus did the two greatest fighter pilots of the two greatest squadrons
of the two greatest nations in the world pass each other head-on going
machedy-mach in the lip department, Guns charged, gunsights on, and
gyros uncaged. After much verbal yanking and
banking, it
degenerated into a slow-speed "my skipper can drink more stingers than
your skipper" and “I know you are, but what am I?" Standoff
that
stopped just short of actual fisticuffs.
Major Dooright, of her Majesties 417th go-fast squadron of the Royal
Canadian Air Force finally flang down the gauntlet traditional in such
manners. The squids were invited to appear at twenty thousand
feet above the frozen wastelands of CAFB Cold Lake, where
needle-nosed, bottle-rocket CF-104 Starfighters would do battle with
55-foot long, swept-wing, supersonic Crusaders. Asses would be kicked
and names taken for score, God, queen, honor, country, bragging rights,
and possible publication. Since both LCDR Bumfrabb and Major
Dooright were the operations officers of their squadrons, it was a
piece of pie to arrange. Pounds of paperwork passed
up and
down chains of command, accumulating endorsements and momentum until
figurative presidents and prime ministers shook manly hands.
IT was a boondoggle of exotic possibilities, and Puresome wouldn't have
missed it for the world.
Blastoff day turned out to be beautiful, October Victor Foxtrot Romero
weather all the way to O Canada. This suited Puresome
fine.
He had been paired with Virgil Viper, who had never quite reconciled
himself to the fact that his napkin number was some decimal points less
than Puresome's, and he had to fly wing, which was almost beneath his
ex-Blue Angel solo pilot dignity. Fortunately, Puresome
didn't
take his lofty seniority too seriously and forgave the Viper his
occasional "you want me to do whut?" outbursts because he was a good
stick and a pal. Seniority could only be slyly acknowledged
for
flyoff and good deal purposes and was entirely a different thing from
the more important pecking orders of salt-vs-FNG, or ace-of-base vs
plumber.
It was so pretty that the section decided to do some leisurely
sight-seeing and poke along below positive control airspace, stopping
at Buckley ANG Base, whose transient line services were legendary;
stopping again at a desolate USAF Buff base just south of the
US-Canadian border, whose transient troops were lonely enough to
welcome anything that wasn't an aluminum overcast. It would
then
be a short hop on up to CAFB Cold lake, Alberta, and the
section
might make the odd strafing attack on the moose and red-coated mounties
known to populate the cold, dark woods. Puresome knew they were
tempting things to go bump in the day within their
Ling-Temco-Vought thunder machines, but he laughed in the face of
danger and did not care a fig.
Thirty miles out from the Maple Leaf air patch, Puresome rang up the
tower for permission to Approach. Having been briefed that the RCAF
might be tolerant about such things, he axed for a low-altitude,
high-speed pass. "Bring it on, Yank!" was the
response. It
had to be a major good omen.
So Puresome arced around until the tacan needle was more or less
aligned with the runway heading and eased the nose over. The
Viper was in his best blue parade position, threatening to
nerf
Youthly's Crusader as they accelerated through warp and started to
whoostle. Ralph lead had the duty runway in sight and eased
the
section down to a hundred feet, going like stink.
"Alpha Fox triple sticks over the numbers for break!"
“Roger, Alpha Fox, you are cleared to pitch!"
Puresome and Viper rolled right and up as one aircraft, and two took
separation as Lead honked on the "G's" and zoomed. Puresome
finally got the airplane slow enough to throw out the gear and raise
the wing in the lower stratosphere, and, in true Aerial Force style,
stuck the nose down and swooped through the ninety and down final
approach at the speed of heat. Fortunately, the Cold Lake
runways
were set up for the CF-104 and were long and presently hot-and-dusty,
and there was no LSO, so Puresome held the nose off and greased the
Crusader on like your basic airliner.
Dropping his mask in his lap, Puresome combed out his mustache to its
fierce Portales Gonsleenger extremes and popped the canopy
open.
He spotted the advance party maintenance troops waiting for them; the
plane captains had their hands up in the air indicating their parking
spots. As he and Ralph Two came to a stop and got chocked,
Puresome noticed that there was a welcoming committee
awaiting.
No sooner than he had chopped the engine, a green-suiter walked over
and handed up a cold can of beer!
"Ay! Yi! Yi! Yi! Major omen numero two-o!" thought
Puresome
as he swilled the can, manfully crumpled the aluminum container, and
dropped it back down. It seemed an entirely appropriate
welcome.
Whether things went downhill or uphill from there depended entirely on
how one felt about the sanctity of the liver or the impending visit of
the little man with the ice pick. The efficient Canadians had
everything well set up, and there was more beer to help Puresome see to
the troops and the aircraft. Satisfied that all was well for
the
arrival for the rest of the Detachment aircraft and that his present
duties as Alvin Administration had been discharged, it was off to the
Officer's Quarters for a bit of a wash and possible combat nap, because
their hosts had a welcome aboard moose roast set up for the evening.
Puresome was to learn that the evening's activities were the first of a
series of tactical maneuvers designed to render the Yanks useless in
simulated aerial combat by way of alcohol poisoning. Although their
hosts seemed politer and certainly a bit quieter than the rowdies of
the Big Red Fighter Squadron, Youthly was to learn that it was a major
deception, and the RCAF carried on in the proud traditions of the Royal
Air Force, whose idea of good fun at mess nights was to destroy pianos.
Certainly Puresome, Tank, Gross Tank, Small Tank, and the rest of the
detachment were proud of their swilling abilities, and perhaps they
underestimated their opponents. But they didn't realize that
in
the frozen Northland that what the Canucks had to do was (a) fly
airplanes (b) go to beer call (c) entertain, and they were Real Good at
all three activities. That and the fact that Canadian brew
was a
bit stouter than the Colorado Rocky Mountain stream water that was
Puresome's normal brew, and that the charming squadron wive's kept
filling their flagons with some dangerous, white rocket fuel they had
become accustomed to in deployments to Germany. In Moose
Roasts,
as in aerial combat, complacency is a dangerous thing.
As intended, early morning found Puresome in considerable
pain.
Getting scraped and painted for the early morning launch was an ordeal,
and getting his pisscutter over the numerous ice-pick handles
protruding from various parts of his head was vexing. It was
real
easy to skip kippers and deviled kidneys for breakfast.
Puresome's hop was with no less than the Canadian Skipper, who must
have noticed with satisfaction that the green hue of the Yank's face
almost matched his flight suit. Luckily, it was a simple,
exploratory F-8 versus CF-104 capability flight with canned
setups. With no complicated air traffic control procedures to
follow, the two aircraft would take off, join up, steam
directly
into the operating area, and get on with the program. "No
tricky
stuff," Youthly thought as he sucked down black coffee.
"The aircraft should be ready straight-away, so let's get cracking,
eh!" finished up the briefing.
"Rightie-O!" Puresome responded in his best imitation of
Flight
Lt. Bently-Smythe off to have a go at the Hun. He hoped that
the
combination of caffeine and one hundred percent oxygen in the aircraft
would give him the will to live, get airborne, and kick some
ass.
Now, if he could only talk the Cherry Picker crash crane to hook on to
his torso harness D-ring and gently lift him up and into his Crusader's
cockpit.
It was filthy work, but it had to be done, and Puresome was feeling
better as he joined the CF-104 after takeoff and they climbed to twenty
thousand feet. The first setup was for the F-8 to split and
gain
a good deal of separation from the 104, then turn in, lock up the
Starfighter up on radar and call out ranges as the Crusader closed
in. When the Canadian thought he could force an overshoot, he
would turn in to the F-8 and the fight would be on.
Puresome lit burner as he turned in and locked up the CF-104, dutifully
calling off ranges as he bored. Finally, the Starfighter's
wing
went up as he turned into the F-8, hoping to cause an
overshoot.
It didn't happen. Puresome didn't have to high yo-yo, low-yo,
or
do anything other than level hard turn straight on to the CF-104's six
o'clock and call "Fox two!"
Puresome could almost see the giant question mark appear above the
Skipper's canopy.
The exercise proved that the F-8 turned just a whole lot better than
the Starfighter. Puresome wasn't used to being able to easily
out-turn dissimilar aircraft and thought this was pretty neat. Of
course, the CF-104 was designed to be a bottle-rocket,
go-fast
interceptor, and the Canadians used it as a high-speed, low-level
strike fighter. As early fights showed, the Starfighter could
not
escape the Crusader by zooming to the moon and half-flapping a turn
over the top, because the F-8 would just cut across the top of the arc
and catch the 104 on the way down. In the usual ACM speed
regimes, the 104 didn't have a speed advantage. Puresome and
a
Starfighter were returning to base after a hop, started out side by
side at three hundred knots, went into burner simultaneously, and they
ran out together to mach 1.2.
But the learning curve went up quickly, and the Canadians took
advantage of their low frontal cross section to point straight at the
Crusaders and go invisible. They would try to blow by at the
speed of heat, disappear, and come back into the fight from an
unexpected direction. They took advantage of their knowledge
of
the operating area to be as sneaky as possible. Puresome's
task
was to never let a 104 get head-on, and, if he lost sight, get up into
the contrail layer so a bad guy would leave a track.
It was good fun, and everyone learned something. Puresome
really
admired the Canadians, who, he thought, did things right.
There
seemed to be a career track for chaps that wanted to be Generals and a
career track for chaps that just wanted to be pilots. The
just-pilot sorts got to stay operational and fly airplanes and avoid
the office-pinkie necessities of the Fast Track types. They
were
very experienced, professional, and good at their jobs. The
fact
that they max'ed out at Major was entirely satisfactory.
Puresome, who was a professional Lieutenant at heart, knew that there
were lots of folks around the U.S. Navy that never wanted to drive a
boat for a living and would love to have a similar arrangement.
Puresome also admired the Canuck sense of style. Squadron
traditions were in place that dated from the First World War, in
contrast with the bottom line management style of the Yanks that saw
squadrons RIF'd on a regular basis. A sweaty fighter pilot
could
go to the reefer and get a cold Labatt's to help the debrief after his
last hop of the afternoon. The Big Red Fighter Squadron
picked up
a whole new vocabulary from their hosts, and "Frabb Off!" and "Tango
Uniform!" became industry favorites. Puresome never wanted to
say
"Tighten it up, chaps, we're going in!" but he admired the understated
cool of it.
But the highlight of the deployment was a low-level simulated strike
mission flown in the back seat of a two-seater CF-104! His
Canadian host did most of the driving, and Puresome was amazed at how
stable the airplane was at 550 knots down in the weeds. When
Puresome was invited to drive some, he was amazed that every time he
wonked on the stick, the airplane went into buffet. The
landing
opened up a whole new arena of whoostling, with the airplane's boundary
layer control moaning like a dinosaur irretrievably stuck in a tar pit.
So hops were flown, gourmet meals scarfed, grouse gunned, and the wily
pike snagged. The troops stole a "Moose Crossing" traffic
sign to
take back to Navy Dallas. The Canadians introduced the more
foolhardy of their visitors into a game of hockey, though Puresome was
smart enough to avoid games where sticks were used. Some
actual
bonding went on, and Buds-for-life were made, even though the "Crud"
game in the Officer's Club on the last night of the deployment
degenerated into "Blocking Crud" and, finally, into "Sock'em in the
mouth."
When Tank showed up on fly-home morning still snorked to the
gills, Puresome was not too dismayed to find that he was to
fly
as his wingman for a section takeoff to a low flyby under a
two-hundred foot overcast. It seemed to add a certain tone to
the
event, and Tank could always pass the lead and address his flight glove
later.
Jack Woodul
704
Some responses elicited by the F-104 stuff:
Al Nease leads off:
Just as a matter of note, I was jumped by two AF F-102's or F-106's
(the Delta Dagger or the Delta Dart) on a deployment to Key West in
'65. I know that the "Delta" aircraft are not the topic of
the
previous email, but my experience as a nugget flying the F-8 against
the delta winged AF birds was: I could out run and out climb
them, but they could sure as hell out turn me. We
pretty
much ended the "hassle" in a draw: I just simply out ran
them.
Besides, two against one is not a fair fight, so end it the best way
that you can.
705
I certainly concur with the incognito "friend" of the sent "blurb" as
to F8 vs F104. I did have a somewhat unique
experience
inasmuch as I have quite a few hours and engagements in both types
against each other. After F100 duty in the UK I checked out
in
the "zipper" at George AFB and enjoyed the many hassels with F8s in
southern Cal and "stovepipe" over Death Valley as well as AF F4s {no
gun}. The F4s were fairly easy compared to F8s. I
learned
quickly not to turn with either one as I could disengage almost at will.
Range was no big deal in the F104. In 1966 over route pack 6
& 5a the first strike package to bingo were the F4s soon
followed
by the F105s heading to the tankers. The 104s RTBed at .9mach pulling
about 2900PPH. After instructing in the German F104 program
at
Luke, I joined Delta Airlines and transfered my commission to the Navy
Reserve in Atlanta where I flew the F8. To my mind-the best
gunfighter of that era. I did hassel against the
F104 at
Luke and an impromto fight or three over southern Ca. and always won
probably because of the inexperience of the other guy.
Remember that the F8 was designed as a gunfighter and the F104 was
designed as a point to point interceptor but in good hands turned out
to be very good in a fight where low visability and eye-watering speed
was a terrific advantage.
I have a feeling that I knew the writers "friend" but after 43
years------?
Joe Coughlin
706
Hate to tell you, but Charlie Peck's F-86H from PRANG had no
AB.
It was just a SH machine. I beat up more than a few F8's in
F-86E,F and especially H's. Shot one down from El Toro in
1960
when he spit the burner section out during an encounter with the green
tails of the Van Nuys ANG. Covered him on the nylon
decent,called
for rescue and contacted him the next day in the hospital. He
broke his leg on landing in a plowed field somewhere east of El
Toro. We had a good laugh. Easiest kill I ever had!
(only
one I ever had)
I also had an "encounter" with Tom Schoen out of Gitmo in an F8, me in
an F-86H in 1961. Unfortunately, I had an armament compartment full of
NAPA WINE and two drop tanks. (California cross
country) I
believe Tom was on alert at Gitmo, but don't know the
squadron.
We later met at New Orleans in the Reserve, flying A4A's.
Great
guy and a hell of an A4 and F8 driver.
When our reserve sqdn. got the F8, it was the H model. Great
airplane. We had 40+ pilots in the four sqds. that were
reduced
to two detachments of 6 pilots each with 10 aircraft.
Sometimes,
we even let the full timers fly them. Rape, pillage and
plunder.
(Bombs, Rockets, 20MM) Those were the days.
The problem was the radar. We couldn't seem to get it in
working
order. Finally, a tech rep from Dallas showed up and
magically,
we had 4 out of 5 a/c come up with radar. We all qual'd in
the
intercept phase with no problems.
Keep the stories coming, I hope to see you at Charlie Peck's
celebration of life on June 19.
Pat McGirl
707
I flew the Crusader for a short period of time in the Reserve Squadron
VF-34W2 at Willow Grove. There is a story some may find interesting
regarding our group and some active duty F-4 jocks from
Miramar.
We encountered them while on a two week training period at Yuma.
Long story short - we encountered them at Yuma and they returned to
Miramar. I do not know if a formal challenge was issued by
them
or us (probably us) but they jumped us on the way to a straffing target
and when it was over there was an F-8 on the tail of each of the
Phantoms. They tucked tail and went home in
humiliation. It
was really a humiliation because one of our guys was a former Stoof
pilot transitioned to jets and lucky enough to get the F-8 in the
Reserve.
I do not remember all of the guys involved but one of them was Norm
Gandia - was there ever a smoother stick?
Bob Paschall
708
I flew the F104 and lots of time and lots of ACM in the F8..
A
few points, that so far noone has mentioned.. The F104 has a stick
limiter and if you pull to hard and thus to high of a angle of attack
you thus could block out the hi tail,----- you could pitch up
to
destruction. A 35#pull that pulls the stick out of your hand
as
you approach this limit.. Also just over mach 2 a red light comes on
and says "slow down" as the air coming into the inlet guide vanes is
causing distortion...A major point that has been missed is the very
limited range of the F104. A mach run, in the clean airplane,
means you then turn immediately for home.. that is reason so many lost
in Germany in the bad wx.. no legs/no reserve...Last for info the
YF8U-3, during the eval against the YF4B at EDW in 1959 as I recall,
showed that the F8 thrust req vs thrust avail curves actually started
to diverge above about 1.5----- then the faster you went the
faster you went...!!! However the same problem on
overheat
past Mach 2,on the inlet guide vanes, and LTV tried a soaker
hose
arrangement around the inlet to cool the blades but just above that
speed the windshield started to melt.. The F8U1 we Marines
and
Navy flew had more range, better flying qualities, and better turning
capability than the F104.. No wonder we could beat them...
[anonymous]
709
I was Maintenance Officer on the Midway det (Det Alpha) then. The pilot
in question during that incident was Willie Wilson. Ray and I had gone
on the first strike ever on the Vinh Airfield that morning.
We
lost the skipper of VF-111 doing flak suppression. When there was a
re-strike, it was Willie's turn in the barrel. We told him not to fly
down the runway - use the pan camera. Well, Willie decides to fly down
the full length of the runway - wings level - at 500 feet - at around
650 knots. They hit him with everything but the kitchen sink - probably
because they could not get it high enough. When I talked to his escort
later on, he swears he could see through the engine section. Darn thing
kept on flying. When asked what his fuel state was, says zero -
probably had most of his instruments damaged. engine apparently was
rumbling a lot - but still kept running - losing oil pressure. Found a
whale tanker and plugged him in. ran 2,500 pounds through him. Of
course most of it ran out through all the holes. Finally the bird says
that's it - sort of blew up - plugged into the tanker. Texaco took a
dim view of this. Of course the engine finally did quit, and he was on
fire from the cockpit aft. Finally ejected. We think alll the fuel
running out through the holes ran down the side of the RF8 and hit some
hot wires. Willie cost us two of our three birds that first line
period. He gets hit a second time ten days later, but manages to get
the debris to Danang. Gets hit by a 23 mm, shatters the port wing main
spar, and blows the top and bottom of the wing off. Don't know why the
wing stayed on.
Scott Ruby
710
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE SPRING 1998 ISSUE
OF "THE HOOK" MAGAZINE AND IS REPRODUCED WITH THE PERMISSION MAJOR
MARTIN ZIJLSRTA, ROYAL NETHERLANDS AIR FORCE AND "THE HOOK" MAGAZINE.
When USS Shangri-La (CVS-38) left its pier at Naval Station Mayport
Fla., on the morning of 5 March 1970, a remarkable WestPac deployment
had begun. Not only was it the final cruise for the veteran carrier,
but it was also the last for Fighter Squadron VF-111 in the venerable
F-8 Crusader. For Sundowners CO, CDR Charles Dimon it was to be his
fifth Vietnam combat deployment, whereas others were on their first.
For VF-111, it was to be the seventh visit to the stormy waters off
Vietnam. The squadron had deployed in Midway (CVA-41) with CVW-2 in
1965, Oriskany (CVA-34) with CVW-16 in 1966 and again in 1967-'68 and
Ticonderoga (CVA-14) with CVW-16 in 1969. A special VF- 111 Detachment
1 made two deployments in Intrepid (CVA-11) as pant of CVW-l0.
On this seventh deployment, the Sundowners were part of Carrier Air
Wing Eight, an East Coast air wing made up of VF-111 and VF-162 (F-8H),
VA-172 and VA-12 (A-4C), and VA-152 (A-4E). Detachments included
VAW-121 (E-IB), VFP-63 (RF-8G), VAR-b (KA-3B) and HC-2 (UH-2C).
To Vietnam the Long Way Around
VF-111 was aboard with only four aircraft, seven pilots and 97 enlisted
men when Shangri-La sailed. The remainder of the unit, eight aircraft,
10 officers and 82 enlisted men, remained behind at NAS Miramar for 22
days before flying to NAS Cubi Point under the leadership of the XO,
CDR Bill Rennie. CDR "Stinger" Dimon was among those that sailed in
Shangri-La with all pilots scheduled to leave the squadron during the
cruise. CVW-8 flew many training sorties on their way to Southeast
Asia, but not all were without incident.
On 9 March, a VF-162 Crusader crashed into the sea northeast of French
Guiana and its pilot, LTJG F.C. Green III, was lost. Five days later,
life took a more pleasant turn in the form of a port call at Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. CDR Dimon remembers it as fun.
"The night we departed, I came back to the ship on the so called 'last
boat.' When I came aboard, I suggested they run another boat, as there
were still quite a few people on the beach, and the ship's XO was
asleep in his cabin. The logistics to get them from Rio to Cubi Point,
our next stop, would have been a nightmare. Although the XO did not
like my suggestion very much when he found out, and really chewed on me
the next day, I felt I was right, since no one was left behind."
After rounding Cape Horn, Shang set course for the Philippines and
anchored at Subic Bay on 5 April 1970, the point where both elements of
the Sandowners would join. Chuck Dimon remembers:
"Before leaving Miramar, the squadron managed to 'procure' a pickup
truck and a Falcon sedan for official and unofficial transportation. We
were also fortunate enough to acquire a whaleboat from Navy surplus
before leaving California, probably making the Sundowners the only
fighter squadron in the world with its 'own' navy. Both the vehicles
and the boat were shipped to the Philippines courtesy of Samuel Gompers
(AD-37). I flew in early that day to meet Bill Rennie and the other
guys. Bill had it ready to go girls for show even we went out drinking
beer and having a grand old time to meet Shang coming into the harbor.
CAPT Herbert R. Poorman, the CO of the carrier, came up on the 5MC and
told me that I would never fly in early again he was just kidding of
course, as he was a nice guy."
On an other occasion, CDR Dimon had to report to CAPT Poorman's offices
again. "Our boat developed engine problems, so Bill Rennie or one of
the chiefs sent it to the Subic shipyard for an engine overhaul and
upkeep. About a month later, CAPT Poorman called me in and asked me
about $2,700 billed to the ship for the work done. I smiled and said,
'Hey boss, we just gave you a new motor whaleboat.' They kept it and
used it during the rest of the cruise."
In the War Zone
After three days in Subic, Shangri-La returned to sea on 8 April 1970
and continued toward Yankee Station. At 0500 on 11 April, flight
quarters were sounded for the first combat sorties, and Dimon was
chosen to lead the first one.
"It was another Shang disaster," Dimon recalls. "Her call was AllStar
but we would always check in with 'Allstate.' Though this was my fifth
Vietnam cruise, our CAG had only been to 'Nam as air boss - he'd never
flown while there. So he picked me."
The weather was lousy-fog to deck - and CDR Dimon and his wingman LT
George Melnyk were launched for a weather recce.
"I went up into the Gulf and looked around. It was a definite no-go,
and I recommended not to launch. We started returning to the ship when
we heard other aircraft checking in. Things like, 'No targets, dump
ordnance.' The ship requested I make an approach to see how the weather
was, but it was all below minimums, and since we had no ACLS, we had to
bingo to Da Nang. The other aircraft-I think they came from
Constellation had the same problem, and they also had to go for Da
Nang. The weather at Da Nang was also IFR, so everyone had to make an
approach, which meant that there were a lot of low fuel state aircraft
in the air. One A-3 had a hell of a time and flamed out when finally
clearing the taxiway."
The landing of Dimon and his wingman at Da Nang also was not without
incident.
"Melnyk had no radio, so he relied upon me. I got him down at Da
Nang-on our approach I broke out of the goo at about 300 feet, saw I
was lined up slightly off the center, gave him the power signal with a
head nod, eased over the center line, then head-nodded back on power.
"As I touched down, I noticed he passed me and took off again-no radio
and no way to get back on deck. So I put on power again, took off and
joined him. I took the lead again and got the controllers to sneak us
in and landed with the low fuel lights-my, oh my-great. That was my
first combat leg from Shang, a remarkable one!"
During the first line period, Shangri-La operated on a flight schedule
that began at noon and lasted until midnight. After a week, this was
changed to midnight to noon. Whatever the timetable, more than half the
flying was at night and often under adverse weather conditions. During
this period, 11 April until 2 May 1970, the air wing flew recce
missions over Laos and North Vietnam, giving the Sundowner pilots many
escort missions. However, the vast majority were BarCAP missions, which
proved the trend of the entire cruise.
No-Radio Night Recovery
Flying 12-hour schedules makes night flying a routine, although not a
pleasant one. LT Ken Mattson assigned to the CO as Stinger Two- was one
of the four new pilots assigned to the Sundowners before the start of
the cruise, and he had his share of experiences.
"One day I was to be wingman to John L. Black Jack' Finley on a
midnight or 0200 BarCAP flight. I launched after him, and immediately
after the cat shot, my radio quit working. I turned on the
anti-collision light and joined up with my leader climbing to 16,000
feet, our squadron safe altitude. I hooked up my PRC radio to my
earphone, turned to the emergency radio frequency and talked to Black
Jack. He confirmed that my hook was down then told me to recover in 15
minutes. He proceeded north with the spare pilot that had been
launched, leaving me alone to make it back to the boat. I dumped fuel
and went to afterburner to get down below max trap weight. I then
headed to the initial point [IP] five miles behind the ship at 1,200
feet and started my CCA. I can hear them, but can't answer.
"My first pass didn't work-I can't remember if the deck was fouled or
if I wasn't looking good to the LSO. I returned to the IP to do it all
over again, and again I did not get aboard. I remember being frustrated
because I was now getting low on fuel and would have to divert to Da
Nang soon. It was a clear night, and I wasn't going to let the boat get
me in trouble. After the second pass, rather than clean up the gear and
cruise back out to the IP, I disconnected my PRC radio from my headset
and climbed to 400 feet, the daytime pattern altitude, and came around
to do what I did best-get aboard the boat."
As "Rocket 3," Mattson was the junior pilot, which meant that he was
automatically assigned as CDR Dimon's wingman. During the cruise,
Mattson made 120 traps, 22 of them at night, and logged a total of 260
hours. He remembers that the average ready room briefing started one
hour before the scheduled takeoff time, and that every trip was
followed by a 30-minute debrief, depending on the time the LSO needed
to make the rounds of other ready rooms.
Ramp strike
The air wing lost two A-4s and a VF-162 F-8 in the first line period,
and two of the three pilots involved survived their mishap. The line
period was followed by eight days of R&R at Cubi Point, a place
to
become a familiar sight for the Sundowners. Shangri-La returned to sea
bound for Yankee Station, where for VF-111 the second line period
operations were essentially unchanged. There was an increase in the
number of Blue Tree missions, giving the sundowners more escort
missions over North Vietnam. One of the highlights of this period was
the 600th F-8 trap of CDR Dimon on 23 May. Upon recovery, he was met by
CAPT Poorman at the aircraft and later cut a giant cake together with
XO Rennie.
Following these festivities, the dangers of carrier aviation became
clear again when CAG hit the ramp on an approach on 28 May. CDR Dimon
remembers both the accident and the circumstances that led to it.
“CAG did not fly very much. He had not had a night trap for,
I
think, more than three months. CAPT Poorman wanted him to fly more, so
CAG came to me. We set him up with a pinky [early night trap], not
forcing him to get back aboard the ship in the pitch black. On
preflight, however, he downed the aircraft because of a problem with
fuel gauge fluctuation.
"I saw him the next day or even that night and told him that we would
set him up again. He instead wanted to go to VF-162 and they set him up
with a late go. I got a call in my room when he had crashed-he struck
the ramp on recovery-but was happy to hear that he was OK. Re was very
lucky to walk away."
The next morning, however, CAG walked into the Sundowners' ready room
without his wings. "We got to the comer and he told me that I was to be
the new CAG until his replacement arrived," Dimon continued.
“So
I acted as CAG until CDR Ed McKellar arrived to relieve me”.
Only days later CDR Dimon was witness to another mishap that seemed
increasingly typical for Shangri-La during its final cruise.
"The ship already had problems from the moment it left Mayport,' he
recalls. For starters, the Tacan was inoperable for the first three or
so months. In fact, young pilots such as Ken Mattson considered the
ship to be more of a threat to them than the war or the weather. On 30
May, while moored in Subic Bay after the second line period, CDR Dimon
asked CAPT Poorman whether he would like to fly with him.
"He said 'hell, yes' and we took off to observe the mining of a target
near Cubi. I let him lead for a while and just hung on. The moment we
were overhead the mining, we were told to come back to Cubi ASAP as the
ship had a problem. Away we went.
It appeared a firemain in the refrigeration area of the ship had
ruptured and flooded the spaces, causing extensive damage to the
refrigeration units. CDR Dimon remembers the flight as a short hop for
the skipper and an interesting one for him: The mining results had been
poor and the attack squadrons flunked ORI!
Trouble Again
After almost two weeks, Shangri-La and CVW-8 set to sea again for the
third line period after two days of carquals in the Philippine
operating area. In June, Chuck Dimon was relieved by CDR Ed McKeller as
CAG, leaving Dimon to remove one of the two hats he had been wearing.
The third line period was essentially the same kind of flying, and was
to remain so for the remainder of the cruise. With no MiGs showing up,
the pilots of VF-111 and VF-162 flew lots of BarCAP and recce escort
trips.
Ken Mattson, who started as a WestPac rookie, became more experienced
with every mission, and was soon assigned to fly escort for VFP-63
photo forays.
"I remember one trip into Laos," Mattson recalls. "We'd normally fly
high cover behind the photo bird to protect his six. During this
mission, the photo guy had me come down low and took my picture against
a waterfall in Laos. I had a grand time shooting my guns and so on.
"However, when the skipper saw the resulting photo, I was in deep
trouble."
The third line period proved to be a bad time for the air wings' safety
record. During the first two line periods, CVW-8 already had lost or
damaged two F-8Hs, one E-1B and three A-4s. During the third period,
which started on 14 June and ended on 2 July, two more Skyhawks and an
E-l suffered mishaps, which luckily did not result in all cases in the
loss of aircraft or human life.
On 2 July bad luck struck Shang again when the carrier suffered a
sheared shaft coupling on the No. 1 shaft. After a transit to Subic Bay
to remove the screw, the carrier proceeded to Japan for an extended
dry-dock stay at Yokosuka. The same day Shangri-La left Subic Bay for
Japan, CDR Rennie relieved CDR Dimon, who had orders for Naval War
College. CDR Harlan Pearl arrived as the new Sundowners' XO.
A Good Deal Times Two
Leaving Japan on 23 July, CVA-38 set course for Yankee Station again,
and the daily schedule returned to the routine of many weeks before.
People may have thought that Shang was haunted, because only days
later, bad luck struck again. In the afternoon of 29 July, a fire was
reported in the starboard steering engine unit. Although it was
extinguished quickly, the ship had to be steered by engines alone for
more than three hours.
On 5 August, the operating periods changed from noon to midnight.
Squadron operations were generally the same as before, although the
weather over the beach had deteriorated, leaving the pilots almost
without any other missions than normal BarCAPs.
In early September, LTJG Randy Anderson, having just finished RAG, had
orders to report to the Sundowners and travelled to Southeast Asia
together with LTJG Richard F. Burns, who was assigned to the
Sundowner's sister squadron, VF-162.
'We flew from Travis AFB to Clark AB and then took a Hercules to Da
Nang. As we deplaned and walked across the ramp, there was an air
strike dropping napalm right off the end of the duty runway.
"I remember turning to Dick saying 'Welcome to the big leagues.' From
Da Nang we took the COD to Shangri-La
." During September, October and November, Anderson flew mostly BarCAP
missions, feet wet, between the ships of the 7th Fleet and the coast of
North Vietnam. "
Occasionally we did escort missions along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos
and into the passes that lead into North Vietnam from Laos. My first
photo-escort was one to remember. As this was my first trip into North
Vietnam and I had only been out of the U.S. for 30 days, I was somewhat
apprehensive.
"I was escorting a RF-8G, call sign Corktip, flown by-if I am correct-
C.A. Simpson. We had to make photos of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos
and through the Ban Kari Pass into North Vietnam. My job was to fly a
tight combat spread formation about 3 or 4,000 feet abeam Corktip. From
that position I could warn him of hostile aircraft or AAA, leaving him
to concentrate on his cameras. Now that I think of it, I was checking
his six, but mine was unprotected....."
Anderson remembers it as an overcast and rainy day, forcing them fly
below the cloud layers as he went into the Ban Kari Pass.
"The clouds came almost down to the walls of the pass on both sides as
we flew through it and rather further into North Vietnam than I thought
we were supposed to. I felt relieved when the run was over and we
regressed back into Laos. Only then did I hear C.A. say, 'Whoops, I
forgot to turn the cameras on, we'll have to do it all over.' I was
very green, but knew it was a good military principle not to do the
same thing twice. But we did it, including the incursion into North
Vietnam. To this day, I think C.A. did it over on purpose just to see
if I'd go back with him."
R&R in Hong Kong
The fourth line period was followed by some rest and relaxation in Cubi
Point again. For most of the Sundowners, the naval base and its
surroundings became quite familiar, since one or two aircraft were at
Cubi most of the time for corrosion control and flight checks, and one,
as Ken Mattson recalls, was always a hangar queen. Only a few days into
the fifth line period, CAPT Poonnan was relieved as CO of Shang by CAPT
Hoyt P. Maulden.
Apart from an A-4 crashing into the sea after a faulty cat shot, this
line period and the next, the fourth and fifth, were uneventful.
Another highlight, however, was the port visit to Hong Kong, BCC. After
one week of R&R, the crew was at sea again for Yankee Station
for
the sixth and final line period.
Until that moment, most of the squadrons of the air wing had
encountered their share of mishaps. However, the Sundowners had not
been involved in anything major. On Halloween 1970, the CO, CDR Bill
Rennie, personally ended this record. Upon return, his Crusader skidded
to a stop in the wires due to a collapsed nose gear, an accident not
unknown to F-8 pilots. Luckily, it was only a minor mishap, and was
ruled a simple material failure.
At 1800 on 6 November, the final line period ended and Shangri-La
anchored at Subic Bay. During the cruise, VF-111 had been on Yankee
Station for 124 days, had flown 109 combat sorties and 1,191 support
sorties.
The officers and men of VF-111 left the carrier and transPac'd back to
Miramar rather than sailing all the way back to Florida. The transPac
via Guam, Wake and Hawaii was supported by maintenance crews on two
C-118s and one C-121 The remainder of the unit returned home on a DC-8
and a C-141. Although there was some delay due to logistical problems,
the trip back home marked the first time an aviation squadron's entire
assets were flown from WestPac to the U.S. West Coast. The Sundowners
set foot again on NAS Miramar on 23 November, thus ending a remarkable
cruise.
And on 14 December, three days before Shangri-La returned to NavSta
Mayport from its final cruise, the first pilots of VF-111 were busy
again and began transition to the F-4B Phantom II.
Acknowledgments: The author wishes to thank former Sundowners Chuck
Dimon, "Red" Best, Ken Mattson and Randy Anderson for their assistance.
Also a big "thank you" to the other Sundowners involved and Henk van
der Lugt of the Sundowner Association.
Martin Zijlstra, a 41-year-old major in the Royal Netherlands Air
Force, currently serves as editor of its official monthly, the Flying
Dutchman magazine. In his spare time, he specializes in researching the
history of Carrier Air Wing Eight. For his next project he would like
to get in touch with any aircrew that sailed with USS Nimitz (CVN-68)
on its Mediterranean/Indian Ocean cruise of 1979-1980.
711
in about 1965 our skipper, Stolly Stollenwerck- not known for being
wild and crazy, and a few other VF-13ers were sitting in the O'club in
Sigonella when the departing P-3 squadron took off for the US from
their three week deployment. Each lumbering old P-3 flew over
the
O'club at about 1,500 feet and headed home. Stolly stood up
and
pointed at three of us: Dick Schaffert, John Baehr, and I.
"Come
with me!" was all he said. He told us to get our flight gear
and
report to the flight line. We took off and joined up on
Stolly. "Form a diamond." We did. None of
us had any
idea what the hell was going on. We went lower and
lower. I
was in the slot. All of a sudden, straight ahead, was the
O'club/BOQ. We were doing about 500 kts. Brown
Bear,
Schaffert, said something over the radio to the skipper about being low
or fast or something. Stolly only replied, "Hang in
there!"
We did. We climbed to get over the two story O'club/BOQ.
In a very few minutes we got a call from the tower asking the flight
leader to report to the duty officer. Turns out that the base
commander was a former VF-13 skipper named "Blood" Donor.
Stolly
got off with a warning. We heard that the maids remembered WWII and
were jumping under the beds or in the closets.
Larry Durbin
712
A further confirmation of Tom Corboy's recollection. Tom
Hudner
and I were both bingoed to San Clemente from a series of somewhat
unsuccessful night carrier quals aboard the Bonnie Dick. He
made
it to the refueling pits before me and, as I was taxiing out on the
return flight to Miramar, I watched his Crusader heading down the
runway with wing tip lights high in the air.
Vince Furey
713
In reply to Tom Corboy. Tom Hudner was our X.O. in VF-141
2NE's,
circa, '63/'64. He did in fact takeoff with his wings folded
from
a San Clemente night bounce period. He did zero G it and
unfolded
the wings...however only one came down. He zero G'd it again
and
folded them again. He then zero G'd it again and unfolded
them....they spread this time...but he couldn't lock them. He
landed NKX. Don't remember how much damage was done, but he
was
relieved as X.O. not long afterward.
Larry (Hook) Miller
714
Flying out of Danang with VMF(AW)-235 on CAS missions, we carried a
four-pack pod of Zunis on our sidewinder rails. The problem
was
that we could not use them unless it was an "extreme
emergency".
The Marines and, I suppose, the Navy simply did not have enough Zunis
on hand. They were extremely effective in the CAS role - when
we
could get them. The guns were the real "go-getters" in
CAS.
The F-8 name: Last of the Gunfighters; applied as well to the CAS
mission as it did to the air combat mission. It didn't take
long
to expend those 800 rounds; but, when done right, they were they were
real killers. As some gunship guy from the Iraq war said:
"The
guns will put their dicks in the dirt."
Al Nease
715
In 58/59 we had some F-8s with rocket pack in 323. We fired them at
ground target at old Eltoro Bomb Range.
We deployed the pack using the ground loading switch so the pack didn't
automatically retract after firing. We didnt want a dud or hang fire
retracted under fuel cell.
After firing we checked each other to make sure pack was empty them
retracted using ground switch.
Tom Rochford
716
This reminds me of a story an old C.O. told me of bringing a case of
rum from Gitmo in an F9-5. Remember how the nose would "pull out" and
you could put your clothes in there for X-countrys? Seems this intrepid
aviator landed in Florida...Holmstead. The Air Force plane
captain...they called them "crew chiefs"...told the pilot that it
seemed the nose of his A/C was leaking rum! He paid him off to get rid
of the broken glass...still had half left. We kidded him about a hard
landing...he insisted it was inferior glass!
Hook {Miller}
717
We got the F8U-1's in early '58 in VF-91 at NAS Alameda and promptly
went to NAAS Fallon to check out all the weapon systems. While there we
practiced both 20 and 40 thousand foot gunnery with 20MM and 2.75
rockets. We found out very early that the rocket pack wasn't worth a
damn as one of our guys (I think it was Fritz Biedenweig) had one
rocket hang up and started burning under the forward fuselage. He
quickly recycled and fired again. Fortunately everything worked and
nothing exploded. That's when the Skipper said "Screw that" and we
disabled all the rocket packs and never used them again. Then we got
the F8U-2's.
Chuck Blaker
718
Night carrier accident rate:
I heard a rumor in the mid sixties that in general the night carrier
landing accident rate was three times the day carrier rate which was
three times the day field rate. If true, night carrier landings were
nearly an order of magnitude more dangerous than day field landings, a
statistic rarely calculated for the Air Force. I have no citation for
these ratios other than my razor sharp memory, however.
Pete Michael
719
Re Jack Carson's request for info on the crash off the cat. at PAX
(July 07 mail), I can name the pilot. At the time, I was
going
through TPS, Class 25, from November 59 to June 60. If memory
serves (sometimes it doesn't), we were in class that day when we heard
the horn blow and saw the smoke. Helluva crash, like Carson
says. After hitting the ambulance and the helo, the airplane
went
through a parking lot, barely missing Base Ops, and came to rest on the
slight hillside across the street. The pilot was Captain Maury Parsons,
USMC, and I heard that the cat shot was with an assymetric ordnance
loading or something like that. Maury lost control and
ejected
but was still in the seat when it hit the runway - his legs folded back
and the seat pulped them, but the docs saved them, sort of. I
saw
him a year or two later at a TPS reunion and he could get around with a
cane or two. Sorry, but I can't help with the date.
The
Canberra that the helo was launched for was piloted by FAA pilots - for
a short while the FAA toyed with using the Canberra for nav facilities
inspection, checking accuracy at ILS and VOR sites.
Jim Patton
720
The name of the pilot in the crusader crash at Pax is Maury
Parsons. He did not lose both legs but had severe injuries to
both and lost about six inches in height. A flight surgeon
stayed
with him on the runway for a couple of hours to stabilze him and do
whatever to his injuries. Maury had over a year of
rehabilitation
and had a difficult time with morphine addiction. He was a
great
pilot and a terrific guy. He made a recovery and began flying
again in private and commercial a/c. He also was the roommate
of
Bob Mathias at Stanford. We did a cruise on the Hancock
together
in 57 in Banshees.
Jerry Mitchell
721
I was on AirLant staff when the F-18 was being introduced to the
fleet. The Pentagon fellas came down to tell the Admiral what
he
was getting. "It carries almost as many bombs as the A-7 and
doesn't burn any more gas in the landing pattern than the F-4."
Talk about damning with faint praise.
Cole Pierce
722
My recollection of Dick Lineberry's death was a very sad story. I'm not
positive of all the details, but I think he had to bingo into Danang
one night. The next day when he manned up to fly back to the ship, and
he forgot to strap into his seat. No plane captain, classic
interruption of normal procedures type of accident. He did a low
transition, and settled back onto the runway, catching fire, and
ejecting without being attached to his chute.
I could be wrong on some of this, but that is my recollection. A really
great guy and a very sad day.
Track/Half Track/Wide Track/Bubba
Chip Meyers
723
Richard (Dick( Lineberry, callsign Linus, and I shared a room aboard
the USS Oriskany until his death. We were in fighter squadron VF-194
flying the F-8 Crusader in combat over North and South Viet Nam.
If you knew him, you know that he was a great guy.
LT Richard Lineberry died while launching from Da Nang airfield. His
Crusader crashed during the take-off roll.
Regards,
Bill Wright
724
[Than Hoa Bridge (was: Tonkin Gulf Humor)]
Bob Flynn, Pow China, and I put five 2000#ers on it [Than Hoa Bridge]
in July '66 with radar scope photography. Five triple A sites, They had
a small rope bridge along the shore That they used then for
transporting supplies.
Pat (Stoney) Burke
725
I also got checked out in the Intruder. Two flights in an A-6E with a
NATOPS certified IP in the right seat, then safe for solo. It was to be
a true solo, nobody in the right seat, as there were no essential
(peacetime) functions there that couldn't be managed from the left
seat, if one had long arms.
I showed up at Maintenance to sign for my airplane, but the airplane
was down. The guy behind the desk said, does it have to be an A-6E? We
have an old KA-6A available, it's yours if you want it. I said yes.
They gave me a well-thumbed pocket checklist and sent me on my way. The
first thing I noticed was that it had four huge drop tanks, and a few
thumps showed they were all full of JP. Man, this mother must be heavy.
Indeed it was heavy. On the runway I released the toe-brakes, and
straight away thought I must have left the parking brake set. Nope,
it's in. The Ugly started rolling, but not enthusiastically. Remember,
most all my prior takeoffs had had a simple criterion: if the burner
lights, I'm going flying. But (forgetting the lessons of flying Cougars
in Beeville in July) I figured any airplane can get it up in 12,000
feet of runway.
Barely. The words that played through my mind were "Great Jumpin'
Jehosephat!" as Grandpaw Pettibones took me to the woodshed. But I
cheated him of a great column as I clipped the grass on the approach
end of 24 and got air......borne! from 06.
Across the Chesapeake to the Eastern Shore, aka R-4006. I was
immediately jumped by an F-8. An F-8H with a J57-P420 piloted by, if my
memory serves, Bob Greathouse. I gnawed on the edge of buffet for five
or so minutes, craning my neck to see how bad it was, when Bob said,
sorry, I'm bingo. Not so fast says I. I got out the well-thumbed
checklist and figured out how to set up the hose and drogue for
in-flight refueling. A few minutes later he was topped off.
We took a half mile lateral separation, said Fight's On, and went at it
again. I was lighter, he was heavier, and I didn't have to hurt my neck
so much to see him.
We repeated this four or five times. I got lighter and lighter and, as
Bill Catlett said, was surprised by the energy and G available. Bob
sounded distinctly dispirited (or just thirsty) after almost an hour at
6+ G, hoarse after saying Guns Guns Guns so much, and we finally went
back to Pax, with the Gator in the lead. Debrief was conducted under
the motherly eye of JoAnne at the BOQ bar.
So that's my A-6 experience. My log book shows under ten hours total
time in the Ugly, a large part of that looking over my shoulder at
Bob's grinning face.
Bull Durham
726
For those of us that suffer from CRS, your Ugly story brings back
memory of an ugly story about being out of control in the F-8.
Seems back in the mid-60's, I had a nugget wingman, Don McKillip, who
couldn't understand the rolling, vertical scissor. Every time I put him
in the [vertical], down or up, he would get thrown out in front.
On one occasion, we were in the middle of the maneuver and I was
talking him through the technique of not allowing your nose to fall
thru. We must have been at about 20K, without about 600 feet of canopy
separation rolling in the buffet.
At that time, I am on top and he is about to shoot out in front. I
quietly say "just watch how I hold the nose up and reduce the forward
vector". With that said, I slam the stick forward and Aw..S..t, the
nose slices off to the left with a snap roll to the right.
Having been schooled by Ski and TR, I maintain my cool, center up all
the controls,and try to find the turn and bank gauge while floundering
around in the cockpit with the stick in my crotch.. Sure enough, YAWING
LEFT and ROLLING RIGHT, with the AOA pegged off the bottom.
Not been here before. Could this be the beginning of an inverted spin?
I then think about winding my clock to prevent making a bad situation
worse and conclude that this negative G s..t ain't that comfortable and
I am damned sure not gaining in altitude.
Focussing on the AOA gauge, while continuing to yaw left and roll
right, I smoothly reach down into my crotch and gingerly pull the pole
[sic] back (and the AOA) into the positive region. Happiness was a snap
roll in the opposite direction, nose pitch straight down into the wind,
and BALL in the center.
My thoughts during a recovery that took 10-15 thousand feet, were "YDS"
and what a great airplane that recovers on it's own despite ham fisted
drivers. Thanks, Duke, Ski and TR.
Cat
Bill Catlett
727
When I was Cat Officer on the Enterprise from 68-70, we were launching
A-6's off the waist. On one particular launch, there was a momentary
interuption in the launch cycle, with an A-6 on cat 3. He apparently
set his parking brake. when the launch was re-started, he had forgotten
to release the break. Fired the cat, and there was this great cloud of
black smoke down the track. Also, two long black streaks down the deck.
Did not even slow him down. A cat is basically stupid. All it cares
about is how much do you weigh, and how fast do you need to go when the
cat releases you. We checked the end speed at the end of the launch,
and he was within 1 knot of the desired speed. Landed with square
tires, and blew both of them on impact.
Scott Ruby
728
I have to tell this one on myself. Scott Ruby reminded me with his
story of the A-6 Cat-shot. A dumb-shit. I was Flight Deck Officer on
Hancock, circa 1969...We were recoverying about a minute from launch.
The Air Boss is "screaming"..."Get that deck clear!..plane in the
groove!" I'm on the foul line near the Island...a tug driver is over
the line...I am screaming at him to get clear. I'll never forget him
looking me in the eye...he of course doesn't have a headset in this
conversation...he is trying to tell me that if he speeds up he will run
over my starboard foot! After I smack him on his helmet and tell him to
get hell out of there...he drives over my starboard foot! Luckily, I
had on my steel-toed boots and the only thing broken was my starboard
little toe! They had to cut off the boot. Morrey told me later that he
was trying to tell me to move out of they way. LCDR's don't listen
sometimes.
Larry Hook Miller
729
Thanh Hoa Bridge
In 1972 I was stationed at Cubi, reading out RF-8 and RA-5C photo
missions over NVN. I remember running one Viggie mission, a road recce
east of Thanh Hoa, that would've been routine except it accidentally
photographed the strike that knocked down the bridge span. The RA-5C
had an excellent panoramic camera that got horizon-to-horizon coverage
across the plane's track. Heading north the Viggie got a shot of the
bridge off to the west, being plastered with whatever smart ordnance
they dropped on it. Lotta smoke and dust, the kind of pic that VA
squadron PAO's like but not much good for BDA. Couple minutes down the
road the Viggie turned left and now the bridge was on the starboard
side. The smoke had cleared, showing the span had been dropped into the
river. Being an old VFP-63 alum I have to give credit to Skip Leonard
for the best bridge photos I ever saw. Skip flew the bridge on a day
when the NVN air defense must not have had the A-Team on duty, caught
the AAA guys totally by surprise. One of his pics showed a AAA site
with the crew frozen in mid-stride running to the gun pits. Skip was
long gone before they had a chance to lock and load.
Jerry Nolan
730
Ref. dropping Thanh Hoa Bridge: The deed was first done by the 8th TFW
in April 72 (post Robin Olds by 5 years) with follow-up strikes by the
AF and Navy. There's a mythology about the bridge, with figures as high
as 200 airplanes lost trying to destroy it. Years ago I spent waaaay
too much time going thru the CNA database (unsearchable, BTW) and found
11 aircraft shot down that (apparently) were targeted against the
bridge, including flak suppressors. Of course, other a/c were lost in
that area but the available info indicated they were attacking other
targets: logistics, supply dumps, and the fabled "dirt storage areas."
Barrett Tillman
731
Here's some excerpts from an article I wrote for Flight Journal
magazine a few years ago.
While writing I researched the various existing histories about the
bridge and found some interesting stuff.
"The French built this concrete and steel truss bridge during their
92-year stay in Indochina. In 1945, nine years before the French
departed, Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh cleverly destroyed it by
slamming two explosive-laden locomotives together, head-on, in the
middle of it. The French left in 1954 following their defeat at Dien
Bien Phu. In 1957, the North Vietnamese rebuilt the bridge so that it
was stronger than ever. This rugged, resilient two-span structure,
which the Vietnamese called the “Dragon’s
Jaw,” was
only two football fields long and three narrow lanes wide. Between 1965
and 1972, when the Americans replaced the French as the problem for
North Vietnam, they had added eight concrete piers near the approaches
to limit the potential for major damage by U.S. Navy and Air Force
bombs."
"More than four years later, on May 17, 1972, USAF F-4Ds at last wiped
out one span with 2,000-pound Paveway TV-guided bombs. The North
Vietnamese repaired it quickly, so Navy A-4s nailed it again on October
6 that year, using 2,000-pound Walleye TV-guided missiles. Nonetheless,
the bridge stood from April 1965 through May 1972 and withstood more
than 850 Navy and USAF sorties before the end of the war. In all, U.S.
air power lost 104 aircraft trying to drop the Thanh Hoa
Bridge—a
startling 12 percent loss rate."
The USAF even tried dropping the bridge using C-130s in Operation
Carolina Moon.
"The time was September 1965. U.S. Air Force and Navy planes had been
bombing selected targets in North Vietnam for almost six months. Most
of the worthwhile targets had been destroyed - except for two bridges,
one of which spanned the Song Ma River at a place known to the
Vietnamese as "The Dragon's Jaw," a bridge the Americans knew as The
Thanh Hoa Bridge. In the USAF Weapons Laboratory at Eglin AFB, Florida
a new concept to mass-focus the power of explosives had been developed.
The new weapon was seen as ideal for attacks on targets such as the
Thanh Hoa Bridge. But, there was a problem - the only airplanes in the
Air Force inventory that could deliver the weapons were transports.
In early 1966 two C-130 crews from the Tactical Air Command Wing at
Sewart AFB, Tennessee, newly desginated as the 64th Troop Carrier Wing,
were picked to go to Eglin to train to deliver the new weapons.
Majors Richard Remers and Thomas Case led their crews through a
training program to develop a delivery system for the 5,000 pound
pancake-shaped weapons.
Since the Thanh Hoa Bridge was one of the most heavily defended targets
in all of North Vietnam, an upstream delivery of the floating weapons
into the river was considered to be the best option to allow the crews
to survive. On May 15, 1966 the two crews left the United States for Da
Nang. Ten weapons were carried aboard the two C-130Es, along with the
necessary maintenance and weapons specialists. The team arrived at Da
Nang on May 22. After a week of preparation, the mission was set for
the night of May 30. Major Remers crew was chosen for the first
mission, with Major Case to back them up in the event the bridge did
not go down. Major Remers and his crew, including copilot Lt. Tom
Turner, navigators Capt. Norman Clanton and Lt. Rocky Edmondson, FE
MSgt John R. Shields and loadmasters SSgt Aubrey Turner and A3C Johnny
Benoit, took off from Dan Nang shortly after midnight and headed up the
coast of North Vietnam at 100 feet. At a specified point, Remers took
up a course to cross the North Vietnamese coast and fly a 43-mile long
course overland to the bridge. They would be over hostile territory for
17 minutes.
As they approached the bridge, the C-130 had attracted no enemy fire.
Remers elected to pass over the first planned release point and press
on for another that was closer to the bridge. They had climbed to 400
feet and slowed to 150 knots, with the rear cargo door and ramp in the
aerial delivery position. After crossing the first point, the crew
encountered the first ground fire of the evening, but it was
fortunately inaccurate. The crew dropped the five weapons in the river,
then Remers banked sharply to the right and dove back down to 100 feet
as they egressed out of the target area and back to the safety of the
South China Sea. They headed back to Da Nang and a cold beer and bottle
of champagne.
The next morning photoreconaissance pictures showed that the bridge was
still standing. Major Case and his crew still had five weapons, so
another mission was scheduled for his crew that night. At the last
minute before take-off, Case asked Lt. Edmondson to go along on the
mission with his crew since he had been on the flight the night before.
Major Case and his crew took off at 0110, ten minutes late and almost
an hour later than Major Remers had taken off the night before. After
clearing the Da Nang airport area, the crew began radio silence and
turned north. They were never heard from again.
A flight of two F-4s was scheduled to for a diversionary mission near
the bridge. As it turned out, one of the F-4s was also lost, but the
returning crew reported that at the designated time for the C-130 drop,
they had seen antiaircraft fire and a large ground flash in the
vicinity of the Thanh Hoa Bridge.
During the interrogation of a North Vietnamese PT boat crewmen sometime
later, intelligence personnel learned that a large aircraft had dropped
five mines in the river in May, 1966. Four of the five had exploded,
but the bridge had not been damaged. Not long after he returned to
Tennessee, Major Remers saw Japanese news film of North Vietnamese
parading aircraft parts through a city, parts he recognized as having
come from a C-130. The news account stated that none of the Americans
on board the airplane had survived. The bridge itself remained standing
for six years, until it was finally knocked from its supports by new
generation guided-bombs in the spring of 1972.
Pete Purvis
732
[DF-8Fs]
The "D" prefix indicates it was equipped with special avionics to
control drones. Hence, the F-8 pilot could remotely fly the
drone
from his cockpit. Some of the VU squadrons had the DF's.
Sam Marinshaw
733
Point Mugu (NMC) had DF-8Ls when I was there in 1973. They were used
for drone control and chase hops when the F-14 debuted. We used several
on one mission that year to make the 1st 6 on 6 hsot of the
F-14/Phoenix. As I remember, we got about 22 aircraft; 2 shooters, 6
drones (some of them Firebees or something like that, and the rest were
QF-86's), plus a bunch of spares and telemetry aircraft. The amazing
thing was that no one went down, initial separation was nearly 200
miles, and the F-14 detected the 6 targets at ranges of 102- 120 miles;
hitting 4 directly and 2 others within the lethal kill radius (remember
this was with telemetry'd warheads) of the Phoenix missile. The targets
were hit at all altitudes, low and high, at ranges of 88 to 110 miles.
I do remember thinking that air-to-air had changed significantly when a
target never got closer to his shooter than nearly 90 miles, and these
new missiles came screaming down from 100,000 feet - unseen and
undetected. Naturally Hughes and Grumman had a huge bar tab at the
O'Club afterwards. The DF-8L that I flew while there were:
145449
145450
145481
145498
145528
Regards
Litning Phelps
734
Reading about the search for the DF8 series I thought I would send some
information that might be helpful. In the early 60's the US Navy was
deploying the Vought Regulus I and Regulus II missile. An early version
nuclear cruise missile that was mostly submarine deployed. The
dedicated squadrons that were the naval air part of the system were
GUMGRU (guided missile groups) squadrons which sometimes deployed with
the carrier launched version of the Regulus I, they were later
disestablished and the task sent to VU-1 which is where I come in. We
were used as airborne controllers to pick up the training missiles
launched by the subs and returned them for recovery at ALF Bonham on
the island of Kauai, part of the Pacific Missile Range complex. We were
flying FJ-3 and later F8A that were modified with airborne control
equipment that allowed us to fly wing on the missile and get it back to
the recovery site. We were also range safety for the launches and many
times had to take control of the missile if the launch sequenced went
awry as sometimes happened. You can imagine the problems submarine
sailors had launching little airplanes off their boats. We usually had
three or four aircraft in the airborne team (called Charlie I, Charlie
II, etc.) that would proceed to the launch position, wait for the sub
to surface and run out the missile. As the countdown proceeded the
Regulus had its wings spread, engine started (J-33 as I recall) and set
on the launcher, at T minus 5 we would let down and set up to be at 25
feet and 200KTS just aft of the boat when the solid rocket boosters
fired the missile into the air. If all went well we just joined up on
the missile as it dropped the boosters and followed it to altitude
until it reached the target point. If things went wrong, ( boosters not
separating, control locks not removed, missile autopilot malfunction,
etc.) we would attempt to gain control before the missile hit the water
and effect some sort of recovery. This was always exciting with a clean
configured F8 at 200 KTS 25 feet above the water.
I left the squadron in september 1964 and don't know much about what
happened after that, the Regulus program was being phased out as the
Polaris system was deploying. I had a great time with a lot of good
guys flying the DF8's, we had a lot of fun as all the Crusader pilots
were mostly JGs and Ensigns as the more senior guys didn't want
anything to do with the F8. Almost every hop ended up as an ACM as
there wasn't a whole lot of rules back in those days. Almost everyone
requested split tour assignments ( in retrospect a dumb idea to leave
Hawaii to go to a fleet deployable squadron) Bill Poppert to VF 53,
Mike Dunne to VFP, Rod Streng to VF 191 or 194, Les Sanders and I to
A4's at Lemoore. Later on I was in the reserves back in the F8 with VF
703 when the squadron was recalled in 1968, which is another long
story. Finished up with VF 202 in the new style reserves ... got out as
the Phantoms were coming into the squadron. (not the same type of
flying).
Sincerely,
Phil Sisney
735
[This was sent to the restoration crew at the Seattle Museum of Flight
Restoration Center, where the original XF8U-1 was being restored.
The restoration was under the direction of a young former
USAF
mech, Craig Wall. The result is phemomenal; if you ever get
to
Seattle, go see it. And ask for Craig, he really likes F8
drivers].
Some months ago I was made aware of a "Seattle F8U Restoration"
project. Subsequently I received a serial number and "it's the early
test vehicle" input. Then later I received pictures, -and had an
immediate feeling of disbelief ! But after checking my files of
logs,pictures etc, even the paint job confirmed it. The "knob" on top
nailed it solid for me; -- I was the one responsible for the KNOB !.
(Kindly Not Open, Brother !). There was no doubt, this was the original
XF8U airplane that John Konrad and I had numerous "interesting
experiences" with. But first I must back up, and put the sequences in
understandable context.
Navy Flight Test procedures were built around an awareness that
on-going test results will cause change from the original Flight Test
Plan. The object is two-fold; (1); find out what is happening, and, (2)
Confirm ! Thus, a Navy project test pilot is assigned, and a back-up
pilot joins him, to repeat/confirm findings. First tests by the Navy
are outlined in NPE (Navy Preliminary Evaluation) plans. Normally they
were laid out for three separate occurrences, (1) an initial evaluation
to identify problems and gain some indication of performance,; (2)
evaluation of problem corrections and performance gains, and (3) last
normal NPE to evaluate final results and provide information for Navy
BuAer to decide future action. I was the assigned Navy Test Pilot for
the XF8U, ne Crusader. That is another, and longer story.
My reason for this message is to explore whether you fully recognize
just what you have. FAI, ( Federacion' Internationale Aeronautique).
rules are quite rigid. I think it was 1929 (I may be off a year) the
Italians had a seaplane, that set a new speed record. But, FAI rejected
it, because the wording in the rules were '--must take off and return
to land under its own installed power and ---". It was 4 or 5 years
later when the rules were changed to (--earth's surface --"), and the
Italians gained International recognition in a new seaplane. In fact,
if my memory of history is correct, FAI made the rules retroactive, to
acknowledge the 1929 Italian flight. Succeeding years resulted in
numerous and periodic increases, even running into the then known, but
not fully understood, "sound barrier", i.e. Mach 1 (Speed of Sound).
Since speed of sound is a function of temperature, all record attempts
were tried on the hottest day and lowest altitude available. Probably
the last low altitude record was Pete Everest, (Maj Frank Everest,
USAF), in an F-86 at the Salton Sea. Then it shifted to high altitude,
with coldest and thinnest air available. A series of new things came
along, and the one considered most important, a real trail blazer, was
Chuck Yeager who exceeded Mach 1 in the X1. A historic event, but it
was not an airplane; it was a rocket plane, and did not take off from
the earths surface. With the aforementioned background, we now come to
the machine you folks have. The XF8U you have is the Worlds First
Airplane to fly 1,000 miles an hour. I am not sure, but I think Mil Apt
had hit the speed, or very close to it, in the X1E, in which he was
killed in a high G turn resulting from "inertia coupling", the new
found phenomena. "Wheaties" (George F) Welch was lost in a F-100
exploring the phenomena. The F8U design capitalized on these and other
earlier problems.
The airplane you have, flown by John Konrad, Chief Test Pilot, Vought,
reached 1012 Mph. He became the first pilot in the world to fly an
airplane over 1,000 mph. Shortly after, I became the second person, and
the first Military pilot in the world, by reaching 1026 MPH. The F8U
airplane was subsequently produced in numerous configurations, and was
also produced for the French Navy. When I elected to quit the Flight
Test business, and transferred from the Marine Corps into the Marine
Corps Reserve, my back-up pilot Capt. Hal Vincent, USMC, took over the
program. He led the team that expanded, and made the Crusader probably
the best high technology fighter plane of the post WW II era.
I truly extend my most sincere best wishes for your program, and
congratulate you on having a vital piece of our Nations Aviation
History.
Lt. Col J. L. Helms USMCR (Ret)
736
The F8U 3, who flew it and what were the performance figures. I saw one
once and thought that there were too many add on, finlets etc. that
were an attempt to so solve high speed ie. Mach 2 plus
problems.
The question of landing characteristics would be interesting. Given
that our beloved F8 wasn't exactly a piece of cake on the boat at
night, would this one have been an improvement???? They chose the
flying brick instead as the new fighter. That reminds me of
the
big airshow off the Virginia Capes with Pres. Kennedy on the Enterprise
and VP Johnson on The Forrestal, plus an absolute mob of so called VIPs
from Washington. The first F4 squadron was part of our Airgroup 8 on
Forrestal and four of them were airborne for the grand finale. An old
Couger drone was flown between the two carriers and the F4s were
to shoot it down with their high tech missiles. They got
inside
arming range for the Sparrows and a cloud of them whizzed off
harmlessly followed shortly by a cloud of Sidewinders, now also inside
of arming range. The commentator on the Bullhorn had been leading the
big crowd on the flight deck on with his descriptions of the "mighty
F4s" and the enemy aircraft (Couger drone at 250 kts.) attempting to
attack the mighty fleet. In desperation they flew the drone into the
water while the guy on the bullhorn tried to make it look like a kill.
I figured that there were 32 missiles that attacked that "enemy
aircraft" that day. As I recall the CO of the F4 squadron who was
leading his flight of four that day left forever on the next COD.
John Ellis
737
One of these days, when I can find my old logbooks to verify the
Buno.??? I recall ferrying a DF-8 (A or F) from Pt Mugu to NARF Norfolk
for rework. This would have been around the Jan.-Mar. '75 time frame. I
remember because I made a refueling stop at Richards-Gabauer AFB and
landed there in a snowstorm. Had to promise my life away to get a
flashlight from our sister service since I had lost mine somewhere. It
got dark on me about over Louisville, KY. Sure enough as I might have
expected in this old bird, the only cockpit lights I had were over the
"g" meter, the turn needle, and the VSI. So I landed by flashlight only
and the flashlight was not a gooseneck, so I had to stick it under my
upper leg garter and move my knee around to scan on landing.
Landed a little hot but didn't have to take the gear on the shorter
runway. Whew! I think that was my last hop in an F8.
Doug White
738
We flew the DF-8F, Drone Controllers, in VU-8, renamed VC-8, Roosevelt
Roads, P.R. When our DFJ-3 Furies got too old, around 1963,
we
transitioned to the DF-8F. We used this F-8 to control QF9F-6
and
8 Cougar drones for the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range. Most
times
the ships used missiles with dummy warheads and telemetry.
During
Operation Springboard,each February, the missile cruisers and
destroyers would also use full warheads. This used up our
supply
of F-9s pretty fast so we got a batch of of QF-9s from VC-7, Point
Magi, CA.
The "West Coast" QF-9s had basically the same autopilots that our "East
Coast" QF-9s, except for one really big difference. When our
QF-9s lost radio signal they went into a left circle and climbed to
16,000 ft. The Left Coast QF-9s, however, turned to 270
deg. This was great when civilization was to the east, but
disastrous when 270 deg. took you toward Puerto Rico, and even San
Juan; as happened in 1964. Our control A/C was an
DFJ-3,
piloted by Dick Wyman I believe, and his Sidewinder went dummy when he
tried to shoot it down before it reached land. Luckily a
flight
of Marine F-8s were air-born for some air-to-ground strafing, and the
had a field day shooting down this poor QF-9.
Alan Peterson,
739
I was to bring a late repaired Crusader out to the Sara as it was
leaving for the Med. The rest of the Air Group was already on
board and the SARA was holding off Jax for the F-8 and also a F-4 that
was flown by Mike Fleming (later killed int a TO accident at Oceana)
and Phil Anselmo as the backseater. While we were waiting for
a
clear deck, Mike and I started tail chasing and max diving turns etc
just to kill the time but not wanting to go all out because of the
fuel. I had the lead and took Mike vertical with me easing
the
throttle. As we hammerheaded he had couple overtemps on both
J79's, declared and emergency and bingo-ed to the beach with me as the
escort.
Well the powers to be were not happy and for some reason did not
believe our story that we were just in a dog pattern. All we
did
was follow the Wings of Gold code and admit nothing, deny everything
and make counter accusations. Well the Sara was delayed a day
or
so and we received the hairy eye ball but that was all. Just
no
sense of humor after you pass O-4.
Ray Fitzgerald
740
The late VADM Don Engen wrote and published in 1997: "Wings and
Warriors, My Life as a Naval Aviator"
From page 209, "The NPE would folllow in September (1958),,,,Larry
Flint and I (VADM Engen deceased)named Lt. Dick Gordon as the F4H -1
project officer and Lt Bill Lawrence (VADM deceased) was named F8U-3
project officer (for the NPE between the F4H and the F8U-3).
From
NASA Dryden Neil Armstrong was named to fly the F4H and from NASA Ames
Bob Ennis was named to fly the F8U-3. Both were former naval
aviators. From Carrier suitability Lt. Cdr. Bill Nichols
would
fly the F4H and Lt. Cdr. A.C. O'Neil would fly the F8U-3.
Captain
Bob Elder (Director of Flight Test Division) would lead the joint team
and with Larry Flint and me, we would fly both airplanes to provide
comparative qualitative analyses..... Each aircraft company had
conducted the first flights of the airplanes and done preliminary data
gathering...accumulating about twenty to thirty flight hours.
McDonnell pilot Bob Little made the first flight in the
F4H-1.
Vought pilot John Conrad made the first flight in the F8U-3.....(For
the NPE) Bob Elder flew the F4H-1 first and I (Engen) flew it
second. Larry Flint flew the F8U-3 first and I flew it
second....My first impression of the F4H-1 was that it flew like a
truck....The F8U-3 was another story. The single seater had
the
nicest flying qualities of any airplane that I had flown to
date.
It was a true Cadillac..."
An interesting description of the NPE followed. The team
liked
both airplanes but the Navy had to select one and it was as we all
know, the F4. Admiral Engen's book was published by the
Smithsonian and is a part of the Smithsonian History of Aviation
Series. I do not know if it is still available.
Sam Hubbard
741
As an add-on to Bob Harrison's note about Paul Gilcrist's article, I,
too, wrote a story on the Dash 3 for the now-defunct British quarterly
Wings of Fame. If you can find a copy of Volume 9, which also came out
in 1997, you'll find a 12-page story with photos, even a cutaway (!)
and 4-view general arrangement color drawing of the Crusader III. Don
Engen helped with the story. I might also add that I had done a story
on the Crusader for the same publication in their Volume 5 a year
earlier. Same treatment with lots of photos, color drawings and
cutaway, and a huge gatefold presentation of Billy Philiips' CAG bird
for VF-191 in 1966. With a red radome??!! I've always wondered about
that color. Can anyone confirm or deny it?
Peter Mersky
742
ORISKANY SAR
2008 Narrative
Twenty-three years ago, the First Annual Crusader Ball was held in San
Diego near Miramar Naval Air Station. All pilots who had
flown
the F8 Crusader were invited, as they have been every year
since.
Over the years, they've become what could only be called irascible
antiques. Perhaps their warped personalities might be excused
because they're the only pilots who have ever raised and lowered their
wing intentionally during normal flight. More likely, they're
so
damned arrogant because they survived the life-cycle of the
Crusader. Beginning in 1955, there were 1,266 F8's
built.
Before they were retired in 1987, 1,106 had been involved in a major
accident. 151 F8's were shot down over Vietnam. Not
counting combat, 199 other pilots lost their lives in the Crusader.
Those kinds of statistics were probably what prompted the Navy to share
the aircraft with the Marines. There were a couple squadrons
of
"Jar-Heads" deployed on carriers during Vietnam; but, for the most
part, they dominated the DMZ from their base at Danang.
Obviously, the Corps assigned the cream of their crop to the
Crusader. We found out years later that some of them could
even
read and write. They began to dominate our F8 Crusader
web-site
with their emails, espousing the glories of the Corps, the capabilities
of the Crusader, and the importance of their Danang operations.
One of that noisy "Danang contingent" commented about the lack of
sea-story contributions from the Crusader guys on Yankee Station, and
specifically about the Navy SAR's, (Search and
Rescues).
Truthfully, it just hurts too damned much to talk about it!
However, at two in the morning of another sleepless night, I responded
with the following email. I tried to tell this story without
resorting to profanity, so it may be difficult for a Marine to
interpret. Hopefully, it will help some of us remember we
were
just along for the ride! It was really all up to God and that
magnificent Crusader flying machine.
An explosion and fire aboard USS Oriskany on 26 October 1966 had
disabled the carrier in the Tonkin Gulf. Forty-six men had
been
killed, most of whom were air wing pilots. In July '67, Air
Wing
Sixteen and the USS Oriskany returned to the fight. After a
brief
warm-up on Dixie Station, during which we lost an A-4 Skyhawk off the
catapult, we moved to Yankee Station on 14 July. That first
day,
an Attack Squadron 164 Ghost Rider, LTJG Cunningham, lost his Skyhawk
to flak in Route Package 1, but we got him back.
In the thirteen days that followed, we lost 12 aircraft. (1)
AD-7
Spad, (6) A-4 Skyhawks, (4) F-8 Crusaders, and (1) KA-3D
Whale.
Dead or missing were attack pilots Castle, Hartman, and Davis; fighter
pilots Hunter and Zuhoski; and two A-3 crewmen. Rescued from
deep
in Indian Country were F-8 driver Butch Verich and A-4 pilot Larry
Duthie. Now, let me tell you how it went with Duthie and the
Fighter Squadron 111 Crusader, call sign Old Nick 106, that saved him.
On 18 July, I was assigned MIGCAP to escort an Alpha strike to the
Hanoi battery plant. Unfortunately, after the catapult shot
106
gave me a wing-unlocked warning light. Several re-cycling
didn't
change anything, and since my wingman had a radio failure, I traded
Fighter Squadron 162's John Hellman my MIGCAP for his BARCAP.
I
dropped my wingy off, so he could join the recovery in progress, and
took the BARCAP station off the Northern SAR destroyer.
During the strike, Ghost Rider Dick Hartman's A-4 was hit by
flak. He got about 30 miles south of Hanoi before
ejecting.
Other Skyhawks set up a RESCAP over him, but they were getting low on
fuel.
Listening to all this on Strike Control frequency, I again recycled the
wing several times - still the unlocked indication. The A-4
RESCAP made contact with Hartman on his emergency radio and reported
his position to Oriskany, but they were out of fuel and had to bingo
back to the ship.
I knew from personal experience with the rescue of 162's Butch Verich
two days earlier, that timing was everything. If the rescue
couldn't be made in the first hour or two, the unfavorable odds became
astronomical! So . . . , I asked Red Crown (the Yankee
Station
command and control cruiser) for a steer to Hartman's position and went
feet dry.
I had witnessed Lee Prost's death off the Oriskany a few months
earlier, when his wing came off in a strafing run, so I tried to hold
106's speed down to the wing-unlocked limitation of 220kts.
Not
possible! Before I got to the middle of the Red River Delta,
I
started taking 37mm flak close aboard - so I pushed it up to
300kts. When a Fansong tracking radar for surface-to-air
missiles
(SAM's) locked on, and the APR-27 began warbling for a SAM launch, Old
Nick 106 showed me her wing would stay on through a 350kt-3g, barrel
roll.
I was still about 10 miles south of Hartman's reported position, and
down to 1,500 feet trying to shake-off the Fansong, when I stumbled
across an emergency radio beeper. Going over the top in
another
barrel roll, I spotted a parachute in the trees.
It was the first time we realized that two Skyhawks were down - both
Hartman and his wingy, Larry Duthie. I couldn't get Duthie to
answer me on the radio, but his emergency beeper was loud and clear, so
I swung down into the trees in an attempt to pick him up
visually. That brought a whole lot of 37mm my way.
Not
wanting to give Duthie's position away to the bad guys, I climbed out
of there and took up a position to the west where I could still see his
'chute.
The Jolly Green and Sandys had been scrambled from Thailand when
Hartman was reported down and they were already enroute from the
southwest. It was simply a matter for me to stay overhead and
vector them to the parachute when they got there. That
involved
45 minutes of evading continual flak and an occasional
SAM.
At one particularly hazardous point, 106 kept her wing on at 400kts and
4.5g before the SAM-2 flew past.
Unfortunately, the Jolly Green helicopter still had a ways to come when
I reached bingo fuel. Oriskany had earlier launched all her
KA-3D
tankers to top off the Alpha strike and was trying to hot-spin one to
get some fuel back in the air, but all they had airborne now was one
A-4 buddy tanker to cover the recovery. The rules were
clear! That tanker had to stay around the carrier landing
pattern.
God was in the air that day. I felt His hands on the stick
many
times! He also inspired one hell of an A-4 driver by the name
of
Mac Davis to lie about his fuel state, take the fuel from the buddy
tanker, and come back in to help me.
When I heard Mac coming in, I knew we had a great chance to get Duthie
- if I could stay there long enough to show him the 'chute.
So, I
changed my bingo calculations from making Oriskany to just making feet
wet. Davis made a perfect rendezvous, and I dropped him off
over
Duthie's 'chute as the Sandys reported 20 klicks to the southwest.
I was down to 500 lbs. (less than 10 minutes of fuel) and didn't really
think that I could make it out to the water. I was trying to
give
Red Crown my likely ejection position when tanker pilot Tom Maxwell
came up on the frequency. His KA-3D detachment had dozens of
saves during that cruise, and I was the recipient of two of them in our
first two weeks on the line.
It was against all the rules for the guys in those big slow (B-66)
tankers to go feet dry in the area of known SAM firings, but Tom
Maxwell gave me the same break I had given Duthie and came on
in.
He swung in front of me with his drogue extended, and the APR-27
blaring a SAM launch warning in our ears.
After plug-in, I glanced down at the fuel gauge and saw it rising past
the first index mark from zero. When I disconnected with
enough
to get back to the ship, Jolly Green reported the successful pickup of
Duthie.
Four hours later, Oriskany launched the equivalent of an Alpha strike
and tried for Hartman. The Northern SAR helo got within a
mile
before it flew over an automatic weapons site and got shot up real
bad. One crewman was killed and another injured.
Crusader drivers J.P. O'Neil and Pete Peters dodged SAM's in that area
all night long to keep radio contact with Hartman. He
reported an
intensive weapons build-up all around him and suggested a massive
strike on the area.
At first light the next morning, Oriskany launched 16 aircraft to
escort the second Northern SAR helo to get Hartman. Just
short of
his position, the helo made an unfortunate right turn over a 37mm gun
position and all seven brave souls onboard were killed.
At noon, we tried again - but the third helo got shot-up before getting
more than ten miles feet dry. Perfume (the Yankee Station
commander) called it off. There was talk of trying the Fulton
Recovery Rig, but we lost contact with Hartman that night and it was
over.
Years later, I wondered if Hartman's story had been the inspiration for
the rescue segment in the movie, Flight of the Intruder. I
know
they stole Rock Hodge's "Cool Hand" call sign. But God bless
them
for keeping him alive in some way! Rock was a former Air
Force
B-47 pilot who had transferred to the Navy to get into
combat.
Flying a Ghost Rider A-4E Skyhawk with Shrike missiles, he was an
absolutely fearless SAM killer. Up until the night of 6
October
1967, when he took on too many Hanoi SAM sites at the same
time.
I escorted Rock on several Iron Hand missions. It didn't
matter
to him where the target was, if there were no SAM's there to shoot at
us, he'd fly towards Hanoi until they opened up and he could launch his
Shrike's at them!
Rock's remains were finally returned to America and recently interred
at Arlington. In a note to his daughter, I mentioned that,
while
on Yankee Station, I would add the Twenty-Third Psalm to my prayers -
and when I was scheduled to escort Rock, I would add: "Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow death, I shall fear no evil; for
Thou art with me, and I'm going there with Cool Hand." Rock
Hodges was one of only two mortals I ever knew who could give the
Angels lessons in courage.
Mac Davis was also killed, seven days after he vectored the Jolly Green
to Duthie. The Secretary of Defense was visiting Oriskany,
and we
had to show him that we could bomb trucks at night, even under a 500
foot overcast. Mac hit the side of a hill in Route Package
One.
Between July '67 and January '68, Oriskany lost 37 aircraft and 26
pilots. Add that to the 33 pilots lost in the fire and 6
MIA's
from the '66 cruise, compare that with the manning-level of 70 pilots
and 60 combat aircraft on an Oriskany-size carrier, and the odds get
rather grim. An Air Wing Sixteen pilot's probability of
surviving
both those cruises was less than 50 percent.
Our CAG (air wing commander), Burt Shepherd did get some recognition on
the Ed Sullivan Show as the Navy's (then) most decorated aviator; and,
of course, now-Senator John McCain (who flew only 23 missions before he
got bagged) was the star of Discovery Channel's documentary about the
Attack Squadron 163 Saints.
The rest of us have just suffered in silence, along with scores of
others, through long sleepless nights, and occasionally trying to type
an e-mail with tears fogging our glasses. God Bless Us, each
and
every one!
With great respect for all concerned,
Dick Schaffert
743
I was in an F-8E with 8 zunis rolling in on a target at Fallon, circa
'67, fake tank or something. Loud noise and big "Thump"...looked out
and the starboard outer wing droop is gone..panel is still there. This
is what happened...the whole starboard zuni pack separated from the
fuselage, including the pack that was bolted to the fuselage along with
the zunis. Helluva jolt! When I slowed and looked out and saw the outer
droop missing...I decided to not slow flight it, because of the 'jolt'.
My reasoning was that something big had happened. And there had to be
structural damage. So I made a fuselage up landing at Fallon. About a
160 kts...took the midfield gear. Aircraft was a strike. The wingbox
was canted 6 inches to starboard...and of course the fuselage would
never be the same. Don't know what would have happened if I had raised
the wing. Maybe a punchout? Just felt the fuselage up was the best way
to go at the time. I still want to say "wing down landing"...but that's
just me.
Larry (Hook) Miller.
744
I believe they lowered the fuselage to get better visibility over the
nose for carrier landings. Technically that is a correct statement but
I always raised and lower the wing. The A-7 attitude for landing must
have been different or else the "better visibility over the nose
problem for the F-8" was just a "story".
Ray Slingerland
745
The wing neither raises nor lowers: it simply rotates about an axis at
the rear spar. The part forward of the axis "raises" and the parts aft
"lower" (like the flaps and outer wing trailing edges).
All that said, I (almost*) always raised the wing for TO/LDGS and
lowered it for the rest of the flight.
Sam Marinshaw
746
USN or USAF? by Bob Norris
Bob Norris is a former Naval aviator who also did a 3 year exchange
tour flying the F-15 Eagle. He is now an accomplished author of
entertaining books about US Naval Aviation including "Check Six" and
"Fly-Off". In response to a letter from an aspiring fighter pilot on
which military academy to attend, Bob replied with the following:
12 Feb 04
Young Man,
Congratulations on your selection to both the Naval and Air Force
Academies. Your goal of becoming a fighter pilot is impressive and a
fine way to serve your country. As you requested, I'd be happy to share
some insight into which service would be the best choice. Each service
has a distinctly different culture. You need to ask yourself "Which one
am I more likely to thrive in?"
USAF Snapshot: The USAF is exceptionally well organized and well run.
Their training programs are terrific. All pilots are groomed to meet
high standards for knowledge and professionalism. Their aircraft are
top-notch and extremely well maintained. Their facilities are
excellent. Their enlisted personnel are the brightest and the best
trained. The USAF is homogenous and macro. No matter where you go,
you'll know what to expect, what is expected of you, and you'll be
given the training & tools you need to meet those expectations.
You
will never be put in a situation over your head. Over a 20-year career,
you will be home for most important family events. Your Mom would want
you to be an Air Force pilot...so would your wife. Your Dad would want
your sister to marry one.
Navy Snapshot: Aviators are part of the Navy, but so are Black shoes
(surface warfare) and bubble heads (submariners). Furthermore, the Navy
is split into two distinctly different Fleets (West and East Coast).
The Navy is heterogeneous and micro. Your squadron is your home; it may
be great, average, or awful. A squadron can go from one extreme to the
other before you know it. You will spend months preparing for cruise
and months on cruise. The quality of the aircraft varies directly with
the availability of parts. Senior Navy enlisted are salt of the earth;
you'll be proud if you earn their respect. Junior enlisted vary from
terrific to the troubled kid the judge made join the service. You will
be given the opportunity to lead these people during your career; you
will be humbled and get your hands dirty. The quality of your training
will vary and sometimes you will be over your head. You will miss many
important family events. There will be long stretches of tedious duty
aboard ship. You will fly in very bad weather and/or at night and you
will be scared many times. You will fly with legends in the Navy and
they will kick your ass until you become a lethal force. And some days
- when the scheduling Gods have smiled upon you - your jet will
catapult into a glorious morning over a far-away sea and you will be
drop-jawed that someone would pay you to do it. The hottest girl in the
bar wants to meet the Naval Aviator. That bar is in Singapore.
Bottom line, son, if you gotta ask...pack warm & good luck in
Colorado.
Banzai
747
I'm going with:
Raise and lower the wing on the ground.
Raise and lower the fuselage in the air.
How else do you think we could see the ball unless the fuselage lowered
when you raised the wing handle? Not to mention the death and
destruction we would all have experienced with the fuselage not lowered
and the back end of that big cigar fuselage smacking the deck (or ramp)
on every approach?
Also, the "don't move the power without moving the stick" mantra we all
learned explains the thrust vector only contributed to slow/fast and
moving the stick fore/aft contributed to flying up/down the glide slope.
My story and I'm sticking to it. Not that I ever flew the approaches
all that well...... As Moon and Bug would attest.
Pnuts
Mike Borich
748
I flew both the A-7 and F-8 and I still recall my first impressions of
the seating positions of each aircraft. I think this affected the
visibility over the nose during landing. Obviously the F-8 had a
thinner wing and maybe more drastic sweep angle and needed more AOA to
get the needed amount of 'lifties' during landing. Since I'm not a Pax
river guy, those are just my amateur impressions.
The first time I strapped on a Crusader, I thought it was a wonderful,
laid-back, stretched-out position. I distinctly remember thinking how
nice it was to lean back a bit and kick my feet out. Besides being very
comfortable, I figured it was better for pulling G's.
Then when I got back into A-7's a few years later (with 5 years in A-4s
between the F-8 and A-7), I recall how it felt like I was sitting
directly upright in one of my grandmother's old kitchen table chairs
with my feet hanging straight down. I always wanted to lean back more
in the Corsair II. Both were great airplanes!
Of course, both eventually came to feel natural but I'll bet the seat
position affected the cutoff-angle of visibility over the nose and the
need to "drop the fuselage" approaching the ramp. I do recall
frequently running the seat up or down as needed on the A-7. Can't
remember if the F-8 had electric seat height adjustment or not. It's
one of the minor details that has dropped out of the required items in
the last 40 years ... along with where I last parked my car.
Tom Brown
749
At a constant airspeed in level flight, when you raise the wing handle,
the nose dropped 7 degrees, or close to it, on the attitude gyro: Wing
kept close to the same aoa while the fuselage dropped, the UHT
retrimmed, droops drooped, ailerons and flaps lowered. It was magic
either way.
Will Gray
750
While flying F9F-8s aboard Kearsarge, in 1957, we had an Air Force
exchange pilot with us. He was a great pilot and a fun guy. As the
cruise came to and end I asked him what was the major difference
between the Navy and the Air Force. His answer was. In the Airforce we
have a group of instruction telling us what we CAN do that fills a
shelf about 40 feet long. The Navy appears to have a small pamphlet
that tells you what you CAN'T do !!!!!.
Chuck Anderson
751
I seem to remember that when you got into a low speed scissors with
another A/C, you could unlock the wing and position the wing incidence
handle to the letter "L" on the wing lock quadrant so the land droop
would extend but the wing stayed down. Created a lot of slow speed
lift. The only drawback was that you had to stick your head in the
cockpit to visually position the handle just right.
BlackMac
John McDonald
752
on the runways, IIRC--but Whitey and his wingman really (really) needed
to land. (His last glimpse of "dash two" showed he was inverted an on
fire.) Both got down OK.
Some may recall test pilot "The" John Moore who penned probably the
funniest article ever written about flying: "Surviving the Cutlass."
[Also in his book "The Wrong Stuff".] He related a project test pilot
who exercized the ejection seat over The Strand. But the errant F7U
kept on aviating. John said, approximately, after an exciting simulated
rocket attack on the Hotel Del and a mock strafing pass at the beach,
the bird alit just offshore amid a school of startled abalone--SOME OF
WHOM HAD NEVER SEEN A CUTLASS BEFORE.
Barrett [Tillman]
753
I drove the Cutlass, the F7U-3, until transferred (pre Med-Cruise) to
shore duty, in Dec '54. From those that stayed around for the cruise, I
heard that the F7U a/c were transferred to Port Lyautey; because the
combination of a "high" over-the-ramp approach, the needed high angle
of attack on final and a closed clamshell canopy, usually caused an
in-flight wire grab. This caused a high impact slam down. In turn, that
would drive the nose wheel strut up through the cockpit deck. Too
often, that would cause the seat to fire, driving the pilot, head
first, into / through the canopy bow - with fatal consequences . . .
I don't know anything about either a 2-position seat or a loss of
forward vision on final.
Those accidents reportedly occurred while doing Flight Ops enroute from
Norfolk to the Med.
I was also told that the a/c then operated out of Port Lyautey until
the ship was ready to head back to the states.
Supposedly, the a/c were flown to Naples and then were hoisted aboard
by crane. When the ship got within range of the beach, the F7U-3s were
launched and flown to Oceana.
That may have been the last time that F7Us were deployed on board ship.
Jim Carmack
754
Sometime in the late '60s in the reserve F-8 squadron in Atlanta, I
recall hearing skipper John Barnes spinning a yarn about diverting off
some carrier to Port Lyaute, Morocco with some sort of problem in the
F-7U. I can't remember the details (this was probably in the O'club bar
and the details might be fuzzy) but I think he somehow ended up either
skidding off the runway or landing gear up in a cloud of dust. I hope
someone else will confirm these facts.
Anyway, he said he slid to a stop, unstrapped and walked about 2 miles
in the dark to get into Base Ops. He went over and got a coke out of a
vending machine and sat down to observe what appeared to be a Chinese
fire drill in progress. When he asked someone what was going on, the
guy replied that an airplane had crashed on the airport and the pilot
was missing and they were launching Search & Rescue.
Those of you who know John, or who know how war-stories get bent in the
bar, know that this story may or may not be close to the facts. I do
know that it was the first time I ever heard of Port Lyaute.
Tom Brown
755
Some F7U/F8U visibility comments gleaned from comments made by someone
who flew both:
The F8U has just a great large, and comfortable cockpit, with fine
visibility. Just getting into the cockpit of the F7U was a feat. The
Cutlass had a two position switch for the seat.. When taxiing, taking
off or landing, the high nose strut required one to use the forward and
up position.. In the air, when flying level one had to reposition the
seat aft if you wanted to see anything but your knees. Thus IF you had
to land in the cruise position you would be just about lying down and
the handbook says "bail out" if this happens at the ship. I had it
happen just once and luckily on a field, but had to be towed in as
could not see to taxi. Overall I, for one, liked the F8 cockpit best
[of many types flown]!
756
Speaking of A7's and F8's. In the early to mid 70's, there was a battle
going on as to what would be the next photo bird. In the late 60's,
there was proposal to buy 78 RF4J's. This was shot down by the RA5
community because it would destroy their command structure. Then, the
powers to be at OP-05 decided there would be an RA7. I end up going to
a conference in Georgia to discuss the next recce bird. I am sitting in
the O'club the night before the conference, and this 4-striper walks
in, and is the project officer at OP-05. We start talking and he asks
me what do I think about an RA7. I start telling him and he starts
getting more and more red in the face. He finally says, "I don't care
what you think, you are going to get an RA7!". Now the A7 may be a good
air-to-mud platform, but sucks as a recce bird.
Later, I get sent down to LTV to fly an A7C - two seater - configured
with a simulate recce pod hung on the wing. A real pain hauling your
flight gear on a commercial flight. while I am there, LTV shows me a
proposal to convert F8L's that were sitting in D-M to RF8L's.
completely rebuilt birds, new wings and all. simply take the jigs that
were sitting in the weeds at LTV, refurbish them, and modify the nose
to a recce configuration. Cheap.
I walk in first thing in the morning at LTV, and this guy in a flight
suit is standing there, turns out to be the LTV A7 test pilot. He asks
me if I am ready to go flying, and tells me to go change so we can get
in the air. since I had never flown the A7, I expected some sort of
ground fam with the aircraft, but that was not to be. We walk out to
the A7, do a preflight, and he tells me to get in front and he will
talk me through a ground start. I get strapped in and look around for
the key instruments, airspeed, AOA, and VGI - I figure the rest of them
will come in handy when I need them. Figured out how to taxi, and we
head for the runway. Asks him a few questions like at what airspeed
does this thing get airborn, raise the flaps, etc. I ask where could we
go where we could spend some time at low altitude. In the summer, where
the thermals tend to get a little rough in Texas. We are getting
bounced around a lot, doing high-G turns - for an A7 - overhead
maneuvers, and the like. Finally, I decide to check out rudder
effectiveness - following a crooked road and such. The A7 has a rudder
knob, and I turn it if full one way, and stomp on the rudder, and cross
control to maintain wings level, asymetrical loading. After about a 45
turn one way, I reverse the rudder knob, stomp on the rudder and go the
other way. Now, the A7 does not like asymetrical loading. all of a
sudden, a whole bunch of warning lights come and the A7 fusses to you.
Seems I ran the oil pump dry and it got upset a little. The test pilot
gets a little excited too. Go back to level flight and all the lights
go out. A few minutes later, the LTV test pilot says for me to fly
straight and level for a while. Seems I was getting him airsick. I
guess they do not wind the test pilots as tight as they used to.
Finally we head back to NAS Dallas. I ask him what the speed limitation
is in the break. He says no speed limitation. I challenge him again and
he assures me there is no limitation. Okaaay, so I two-block the
throttle. We are several miles out, and the last time I looked at the
airspeed indicator, we were passing 400 knots. He is breathing a little
heavier then usual. Enter the break, roll it 90 degrees, and pull.
Wanted to see how fast it slows down. It really does. I hear this Uhhhh
from the back seat. Seems he did not feel it necesssary to plug in his
G-suit. Get the thing on the ground, and found out the A7 has a really
good breaking system , about the only good thing I could say about the
bird as a recce bird.
As a recce bird, the A7 did not have the speed, maneuverability, and
capability to perform as a recce bird. The main problem being that they
could not find anyone stupid enough to fly it on a recce mission in a
high threat area. With the pod out there, it handled like a mac truck.
Lousy roll rate, slow, etc. Senator Cannon's hatchet man comes through
Miramar and we had a chance to talk to him for a few minutes. later,
the OP-05 project is before Senator Cannon's Armed Services Committee
and he is shot down. In spades. The camera comfiguration they were
going to use for the RA7 was re-packaged, and it became TARPS that was
hung on selected F14's.
Scott Ruby
757
Yes, the F7U Cutlass approach attitude was quite nose-high but was
accommodated by tilting the seat. The seat was normally put in the
"LANDING EYE" position whenever the A/C was in the landing
configuration. This position gave adequate visibility over the nose.
If, when landing, you were unable to move the seat, from the "CRUISE"
position to the "LANDING EYE" position, it felt as though you were
sitting in a hole but safe operation was still possible.
As many other new jets of the period, the F7U had engine problems but,
overall, the A/C was very solid and a pleasure to fly. Its (3000 psi)
flight control and trim systems became the basis for those found in the
Crusader. If the F7U had been fitted with a single J57, instead of its
2-J46's, it would likely have stayed in service for an extended period.
In August 1955 we made the Cutlass' first WESTPAC deployment in VF124
onboard the straight-deck USS Hancock, with paddles landing control. It
was not the best ship-aircraft combination and, after two accidents
enroute, the squadron spent the remainder of the cruise at Atsugi. F7U
squadrons, that deployed on angled-deck ships, had a better time of it
but few made complete deployments. Many wild and untrue stories came
from people who never flew the Cutlass or who flew it very little.
Following the Hancock deployment, F3H's took the VF124 squadron
designation. From February 1956 until March 1957, the F7U's, now as
VA126, trained very successfully for a nuclear and conventional attack
mission. However, the West Coast Cutlasses were retired in early 1957.
Ivan Lewis and I stayed with the Cutlass during its time at Miramar and
each of us ended up with about 400 hours and 26 traps.
Been there, done that.
Dick Cavicke
758
Reading Pnuts comments, which are spot on, reminds me that on the 1970
Bon Homme cruise when Pnuts and I were nuggets in VF 51, Bud Collicott
trapped with the wing down. Those of us goofing in the Ready Room
trooped up to vulture's row to watch Cowboy, who flew a beautiful pass
at very high speed with nose cocked up in the hopes that the A gear
wouldn't break. It didn't, but Bud had a very sore neck and the
aircraft had a big crack in the fuselage just aft of the cockpit from
slamming on the deck. I think the bird was a strike but don't remember.
Skipper Tom Tucker and BHR captain had no problem with Cowboy coming
aboard wingdown...I think if it had happened to me or Pnuts we would
have been told, quite properly, to go elsewhere or come alongside and
step out.
Were there any other wing down traps on a 27C or big decks?
Frog Burgess
759
To answer Frog's question (Were there any other wing down traps on a
27C or big decks?), I'm sure there were many.
I was mounted aft of the island on Hancock '68-'69 cruise to Vietnam
when Pat Scott (RIP) made an uneventful fuselage-up landing. I had a
ringside seat. He said later, after he found his voice, that he'd never
do it again. I seem to remember NATOPs gave us the option of shucking
the jet, and Pat said that's what he'd do. Pretty hairy ride, but he
did it just fine.
Cole Pierce
760
Re wing down landing on 27C: In '65 I was photo det on the Bonnie Dick
(I believe) an F8 from the fighter folks came aboard with no damage
OK3. He was instructed to come in at 170 and at the ramp lower the nose
slightly and add power. He did it perfectly. Don't remember his name
but he was a JG had big ears and they called him "Flaps".
Jerry Mitchell
761
Thanks, for the memories, Frog. The untimely configuration was the
result of a utility failure. I was able to blow the droops down but
couldn't get the wing up because the handle jammed on a loose wire
bundle. The amazing part of the scenario was that the nose-gear did not
collapse. Those many AFBs incorporated over the years, reinforcing the
nose-gear box in various and sundry ways, proved their worth. The next
weakest link up the energy-transmission path turned out to be the
partition between the cockpit and the main fuel cell. The bird was a
strike and spent the rest of the cruise parked in HB-3, but oh what an
on-board spare-parts locker it became.
Bud 'Cowboy' Collicott
762
As I recall I was the QA Officer at the time and while we were looking
through an inspection panel, the QA Chief noticed there was a wire
bundle not properly tied down which prevented wing handle movement.
Must have reared its ugly head on the cat shot.
No handle movement, no wing movement. Murphy strikes again.
I thought the barricade was up and part of the landing equation
contributing to the stop.
Pnuts
Mike Borich
763
I landed wing down in an F-8J at Da Nang on our '69 cruise on the
O-boat. As I remember it, I had a utility hyd failure and could not get
the wing up. I think I got the droops down, but could not get the wing
up. I was sent to Da Nang and in those days did not have the ability to
blow the probe out, so could not take any fuel either. I landed at Da
Nang with 300 pounds; approach speed was about 165. I shut down on
touch down and took the long field gear still going over 100 kts. Still
seemed like a better idea than trying to come aboard ship.
Fun times to be sure, Hoss [Pearson].
764
Returning to The John Moore and his priceless Cutlass descriptions. He
said (and I believed him) that after his Fam One he wrote Westinghouse:
"Gentlemen: I have just flown the Vought F7U-1 Cutlass with your J34. I
thought you should know that your jet engines produce slightly less
heat than your toasters."
765
One that I remember from the 67-68 VF-194 deployment in Ticonderoga:
CDR Joe Vinti had blown his wing up without unlocking it. His
subsequent landing couldn’t have been better—great
approach
and trap . . . without even a scratch on the tailpipe. Forced
excellence, so-to-speak.
Cheers,
Jerry Houston
766
[Ed. note - USAF Thud driver story, but still good.]
My Last Combat Mission
November 5, 1967
I flew my 145th and last combat mission 5 Nov '67, not by choice. I had
arrived at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base on March 15, 1967 after
completing the Wild Weasel School at Nellis. I talked to my boss, Lt
Col Obie Dugan, who was commander of the 357th Tactical Fighter
Squadron and our deal was that I would fly 100 missions as a Wild
Weasel and then complete another 37 missions as a strike pilot. This
would make me one of the first guys to get 200 missions in North
Vietnam in an F-105, since I had flown 63 missions in '65 when the 563
TFS had been at Takhli for 4 months. In fact it would make me one of
the first to get 200 in anything, since Carl Richter at Korat would be
the first to finish 200 in September. My Boss sent me up the command
chain. The Deputy for Operations for the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing
(355TFW/DO), Colonel Bob White agreed as well. My next stop was with
the Wing King of the 355 TFW, Colonel Bob Scott, Colonel Scott also
agreed and I was off to the races.
By late October '67 I had flown 77 missions as a Wild Weasel and Carlo
Lombardo and I had become a hell of a fine Weasel Crew. In October of
'67, Colonel White was reassigned to Saigon to become the Director of
Operations for all Out-Of-Country missions. He was the first director
to have ever flown in the North and that, along with his excellent
other qualifications, made him the best man for the job. All of us who
flew in North Vietnam really needed someone who could walk and chew gum
without gagging in that shop. We needed all the help we could get and
Colonel White promised to be an absolute treasure. The only problem was
that he needed an Electronic Weapons Officer (EWO) in his shop and
wanted Carlo. Carlo Lombardo was easily the best choice for the job,
but it would break up our team and I was selfish enough to want to keep
him. Colonel White actually asked me, a lowly Captain, if he could take
Carlo. I was forced to smile and be a nice boy. I became an instant
Strike Pilot and also "D" Flight Commander instead of "E" Flight
(Weasel) Commander.
Colonel White took me in to see our Wing Commander, Colonel Giraudo,
who had replaced Colonel Scott in the summer. Colonel Giraudo, AKA The
Great Kahuna, reluctantly agreed to let me finish out my remaining 60
missions for the magic 200. Carl Richter had been killed recently with
only a couple to go for 200 and the all of the Brass were a bit nervous
about allowing anyone to try for the 200 mark. I would rather have been
a Weasel, however, Captains take what they can get. I took over "D"
flight and started to relearn how to lead a Strike Flight. I flew my
first Strike Flight Lead to Kep Airfield and my second to Phuc Yen. My
third was to Kep again and I was back in the saddle. Three Route Pack
Six missions in three days are a good way to get back in shape.
I managed to slow myself down in the Takhli Stag Bar by dislocating my
right shoulder while rolling for drinks. A "Roll" consists of several
staid, sober, careful folk looking at each other and yelling, "Last one
with his feet on the bar-rail buys!" Everyone does a front roll and the
last one to whack his feet on the bar rail buys a round for the mess. I
tripped, dislocated my shoulder, AND had to buy for the bar. Not a very
swift way to "Roll" for drinks. Ted Moeller took me over to the
Hospital and had my arm taped to my side for 10 days.
I spent the next fortnight being Supervisor of Flying (SOF), a job that
ranks somewhere near dental work without anesthesia. I also heard a
whole bunch of my "Friends" offer to "Roll" for drinks. I finally got
the shoulder working at about half speed and flew an engine change test
hop to prove I was ready and went back on the schedule.
One of the reasons I had been reassigned as a Strike Pilot was that all
of the Squadrons were short of Mission Commanders. My Squadron, the 357
TFS, had only two, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Kirk, our boss, and Captain
Neely Johnson. Neely and the Boss were both outstanding; however, we
really needed at least 2 more to keep the workload down. While I was
SOF for 10 days, Tom Kirk was shot down over Hanoi, not recovered, and
Neely was the sole Mission Commander in the Squadron. I was scheduled
to become a Mission Boss after my first 3 missions, but the dislocation
put that on hold. I was scheduled for two more to see if the shoulder
would work before I would be certified as a Mission Boss.
I led a flight to Kep the first day back and the next day, November 5,
1967, I led to Phuc Yen again. My call sign was Marlin and we were to
be the last flight to roll in (Tail End Charlie). Flying a raid against
Phuc Yen is about like being in hell with your back broke. The only
thing worse is to be Tail End Charlie at Phuc Yen. The bad guys kept
all of their MIG-21s there and objected rather firmly when we hit the
airfield. As I remember, there were over 1,000 37 mm and larger guns
surrounding the place and it was covered by between 6 and 16 SAM sites.
Not exactly the best spot for a sight seeing trip.
The briefing for Marlin flight was a bit different on that day because
I was checking out Major Frank Billingsley as an element lead. Frank
was over 40, had come to the F-105 from C-141s, and had never flown any
single-seat aircraft since he went through pilot training. Frank had
been one of our students at McConnell and I had given him a couple of
check flights before I went to Weasel School. He asked me to cover
Rescue Procedures (RESCAP) during the mission briefing at the squadron.
I asked why and he told me that if he were to really be an element
lead, he might have to run a RESCAP. I told him that I would run the
RESCAP if required. He said, "Not if you're the one on the ground." I
covered RESCAP for at least 15 minutes and asked for questions. There
were none and we suited up.
All of the ground routine went smoothly. Taxi, takeoff, join-up,
refueling, pod formation, and all of the other aspects of an RP-6
mission were routine. The Strike Force held a good pod position as we
made our way through Laos and North Vietnam to the Red River crossing
point about 10 miles downstream from Yen Bai. From there toward Phuc
Yen, the Strike Force flew at about 6,000 feet and 540 knots until we
neared the MiG base and started our afterburner climb to roll-in
altitude. For some reason the 3rd flight hung it high and waited way
too long to start their attack which caused Marlin to be almost at
18,000 before we could head down the slide. Our attack heading was
almost east instead of southwest because of the delay and it seemed as
though it took a week to fly down to release altitude of 7,000'. Since
our target was the last standing hangar on the airfield, it was easy to
spot. The normal problems caused by the flack bursting in layers caused
us to lose sight of the hangar two or three times, but it didn't move
and was there when we got to our release parameters of 7,000', 45
degree dive, and 540 knots. The pass looked good at the time and, the
next day when I saw the Bomb Damage Assessment photos (BDA), we had put
18 of our 24 M-117 750# bombs through where the roof had been. Not too
shabby for manual bombing.
I reefed my bird hard up and left at 5+ "G" and did my normal roll
right and then left to allow my wingmen to see me for the rejoin. Our
problem was that we were now headed almost directly toward Hanoi and
really had few options to avoid the vast amount of flack. I took the
easiest way out by flying a loose left, jinking turn around Phuc Yen in
order to fly on the north side of the complex and head for Thud Ridge.
There were fewer guns on the north side. It took over a minute to
rejoin. Before the flight could get into pod formation for SAM
protection, we had 3 missiles launched at us from our six o'clock.
My choices were not very good. I could turn right and over-fly the
north railroad and dodge the missiles while in the flack from the rail
lines, I could turn left and fly back over Phuc Yen dodging missiles in
even worse flack, or I could put the flight down in the weeds
supersonic and haul for the ridge below 50'. I chose to mow the grass.
Red-Dog, the Weasel flight, called the launch and told me which SAM
site it was from. I jerked the bird around enough to catch sight of the
first SA-2 Guideline missile and watched it hit the deck. My wingmen
were almost in formation by now as I saw the second missile loose
guidance commands and go up out of sight. At about the time I heard
Red-Dog 3 call that he was hit and burning, I caught sight of the 3rd
missile as it went into some houses and exploded. I decided to come up
out of the grass and started a climb as Marlin Flight got into good pod
formation. We were at 750 knots and were below 100' above the rice
paddies as I came out of after burner and continued to climb.
As I passed through about 100' altitude, I saw several rounds zip by me
and three hit my aircraft. I took three 57 mm hits almost
simultaneously. The rounds came from a 57 mm site almost a mile north
of us and were optically fired. These were the same guns that had hit
Red Dog. One round hit the afterburner section just above the right
slab, one was in the bomb bay directly under my feet, and one was in
the Air Turbine Motor (ATM) compartment just in front of my right knee.
I kept climbing at near military power and the cockpit instantly filled
with smoke. I heard Red-Dog 3 calling that he was on fire and also
heard his element lead tell him that he was in "Great Shape", a big fat
lie.
Red-Dog 3, Dutton and Cobiel, bailed out over a rail yard less than 20
miles away and were put in the Hilton. Dick made it out in '73;
however, Ed Cobiel died from torture he received from Fidel, the Cuban
torture specialist at the Hilton.
I couldn't see anything because of the smoke and decided to blow the
canopy. I flat could not find the canopy ejection handle on the left
console and pulled some knob off trying, so, I flipped the manual
canopy unlock lever under the canopy rail and the canopy went like it
had been blown off. I was now in a convertible at 695 knots, still
supersonic, climbing through 300'. I got two or three radio
transmissions out before the radio died and everything else decided to
quit. It was probably a good thing the radio failed or everyone could
have heard me squealing. The fire from the AB section caused the Fire
and Overheat Lights to both come on and then quit. I checked the
circuits and they didn't test (just like the good book says can happen
when a big fire is on board). All three hydraulic gauges started down,
bounced a few times, the utility gauge went to zero followed by primary
flight gauge #2 (P2). P1 (primary Flight #1) went slowly down and then
dropped to zero. The oil pressure gauge went to visit the hydraulic
gauges and every light on the peek and panic panel came on and then all
of them quit.
Shortly after the radio quit, I had a complete electrical failure
followed by the failure of all pitot static flight instruments. The
only thing in my Thud what worked was the Whiskey Compass and I think
it was leaking alcohol.
I was still flying and heading up Thud Ridge away from Hanoi. I still
had smoke coming into the cockpit and swirling around before the truly
tremendous slipstream sucked it out. I caught myself reaching up and
fanning the compass mounted on the canopy to see what heading I had.
Now that is very stupid. I am in a 450-knot convertible fanning a
compass. If my arm had gotten caught, I would have been sans arm. I
started to laugh at my stupidity until I noticed that the right front
quarter panel of the windscreen was starting to melt. I reached as far
forward as I could and felt extreme heat from the fire in the ATM
compartment. I am sure that the utility hydraulic reservoir had
ruptured and was burning. The right quarter panel melted almost
completely and shortly thereafter the right rudder pedal collapsed and
dangled from the cables. I was now over half way up Thud Ridge and had
turned for the Red River crossing. That was pure reflex, I guess. I
then had an explosion in the bomb bay, which blew the doors off and a
small amount of fire came into the cockpit below my left foot. I had to
hold my left foot up to stay clear of the flame. It wasn't all that hot
due to the suction from the canopy area.
I had a couple more minutes to get to the river. I held what I had,
trying to be the smoothest pilot in the world since I didn't have the
foggiest how much hydraulic fluid I had in P2. The fire burned up from
the AB section and the aft fuel tank blew leaving only the aircraft
struts showing. The fire also burned up the right side of the aircraft,
out into the right wing and the right main tire blew causing the right
main gear to smack down into the slipstream and be ripped off the
aircraft. All three of my wingmen looked like the Thunderbirds at an
Academy Graduation. I had no right rudder pedal, no right gear strut,
my bomb bay doors were missing, no lid on my cockpit, a melted hole in
the windscreen, my left foot up, sundry other things disastrously
wrong, BUT, I was coming up on the Red River. I found out afterwards
that I had been called out as a SAM twice by other aircraft as I burned
my way up the ridge. Marlin Three only said, "That's no Sam, that's
Sparky" I started to think I had it made until the controls went and I
became a passenger.
I still had 5 miles or so to go to cross the river when all of the
controls went south. The bird pitched up, shuddered, rolled right like
it was going to spin, and the started another pull-up. It was still
going my way, so I held on to the stick to keep my arms from getting
outside and stayed with my Thud. It would pull up sharply, shudder,
shake, and snap right as if it were going to spin, and then start
another pull-up. It did this three times until I was over the Red
River. The last time it did snap into an inverted spin entry and I
decided that it had taken me as far as it could go and pulled the
handles up and squeezed the triggers. Only an F-105 could have taken
that amount of punishment for 7 ½ minutes and deliver the
driver
to the river.
I still had one of my wingmen trying to fly formation and saw him flash
by as I ejected. I had no idea what my altitude, airspeed, or attitude
was since nothing worked except the Whiskey Compass. I learned that I
was at 24,000', 270 knots and entering an inverted spin, BUT I was over
the Red River. Being over the river was wonderful since the rescue
Jolly Green Giants were not allowed to cross the Red River for a rescue.
I fell about a week subjective time waiting for the 'chute to open at
10,000' and remembered that the last time I had ejected I had caught
the risers under my chin and really put a Raspberry on my neck. I was
at least not going to do that again. I stabilized on my back in a head
down position that didn't spin and when I heard the spring motor in the
parachute whir, I snapped my chin down just in time to catch the risers
under it. I put another Raspberry on my neck. When I looked down I was
not quite across the river, so I hauled on the front risers and slipped
across. I then saw that I was going to land near a small group of
houses, so I went back up the risers and turned the 'chute and headed
down stream. I pulled the front risers down and then got my knee in the
riser "Y" and did front riser slips to put as much distance between me
and the houses until I was at about 200 feet or so above the jungle. I
had come almost 4 miles and had two ridgelines between me and the
nearest house or road. I looked down and decided that I needed to stop
the slip and land in what I thought was "Elephant Grass". I landed in
75' tall bamboo.
I smashed into the bamboo and the 'chute caught with me at least 40
feet up. The bamboo broke and I fell the last 40 feet and landed like a
sack of feed on a fairly steep hillside with no place to do any kind of
a parachute landing fall (PLF). I didn't even do a Fighter Pilot PLF of
heels, ass, and head; instead I just crumpled into a mound of goo. I
broke my right patella, chipped a bone in my right elbow, dislocated my
right shoulder again, had hairline fractures in several small bones in
both feet, and landed on the family jewels with a mighty thump. I was
down and across the river.
I moaned some, cursed even more, and managed to get the beeper from my
parachute and shut it off. I pulled out my primary survival radio and
found that the radios were very weak. Not to worry, I had two survival
radios, three sets of batteries, the 'chute beeper, and a partridge in
a pear tree. I drank one of my 6 baby bottles of water, contacted Frank
Billingsley who was running the RESCAP in an exemplary fashion, and
started to move down the hill and find a place I could see the sky.
If you have never been in bamboo, don't go. It is not a nice place. I
would end up several feet in the air trying to squeeze through the
bamboo and have to break my way back down. I moved about 200 yards in
about 15 minutes and worked my way into 25 foot tall ferns that made
the bamboo look like a good place. It took another 10 or so minutes to
wiggle out of the fern thicket and get under a huge tree. I tried to
find a better place and gave up since the whole area was bamboo and/or
ferns. I talked to Frank and vectored him in to my tree and asked him
to check his fuel. He in informed me that he was running this show and
to shut up. He also told me that he had a better view than I did, had
sent the wingmen out for fuel, and was about to have to leave for a
while. I found out that he left my tree, 75 miles northwest of Hanoi,
with less than 2,000 pounds of fuel. He went to a tanker and was back
in 29 minutes. The tanker could not have been in Laos. Everyone was
trying his best to pick my worthless butt up.
I sat under my tree for almost 20 minutes; it seemed like a week, until
I heard a burner light. I came up on the survival radio and had a call
from Ozark; a flight of four from Korat who had my cap until Frank got
back. I vectored them into my tree and they set up a cap away from me
to keep the bad guys guessing. Frank called back a few minutes later
with the rest of Marlin Flight and took back the RESCAP duties. I was
starting to get lonely and had finished two of my baby bottles when
Frank told me that the Sandies were inbound. I had been on the ground
for only a bit over 2 hours clock time or a month subjective time. I
started to believe I had a chance. I inventoried my stuff and put
everything I was going to take out away. Pistols, spare radio and
batteries, the beeper, all seven knives I carried, my Medical kit, and
my trade goods kit. I kept out several flares and two pen-gun flare
kits.
The Sandies called shortly thereafter, at about 1630 local time, and I
managed to vector them in to my tree. They left to set up an orbit away
from me and I waited very anxiously for the HH-3 to arrive. I listened
to the Jolly call in and then all hell seemed to break loose. Some
MIG-17 showed up and the Sandies became most nervous. The Jolly tried
to calm things down and the Low Sandy came by to mark my position with
a Willy Pete (White Phosphorous) bomb. The Sandy then marked another
location for some reason and the Low Jolly went there. I had 17
aircraft in my CAP and everyone started to talk at once. The Jolly went
to the wrong place and then headed back to me. All this time I could
see a little patch of sky only about 30 feet in diameter. Frank made a
pass at the Low Jolly and turned him towards me and shouted for me to,
"Do something!" I pulled out my pen-gun flare and fired and reloaded as
fast as possible. I bounced a flare off his canopy and saw the pilot
jump and then hover in my tree.
The radio went absolutely Able Sugar with people shouting out MiG calls
and as I watched the penetrator come down towards me. I had stowed my
radio and did not hear a transmission from Harry Walker who was told
that there were MiGs in the area. His answer was, "Keep them off my
ass, I've got better things to do!" and stayed in the hover with his
rotor blades whacking the tree well below the top. I backed out to see
the cable operator, but the open space was so small I couldn't see
squat. The cable stopped a few feet above me and then came down some
more and was level with me a bit down a steep slope. I couldn't jump
because of my ankles and knee and then it swung towards me and I let it
hit the ground and discharge a huge spark. I then unzipped the straps,
pulled down on the folding seat, put my legs around the penetrator,
really tightened the straps around my body, and yanked on the cable as
hard as I could. I was pulled off the ground and up about 50 feet or
so. The HH-3E pivoted 180 degrees and started to pull me up and through
the tree as it accelerated to his max speed. It was a very wild ride
for a while. I broke out of the canopy at top speed for the Jolly as
the winch hauled me up. The door gunner was firing his mini gun at
something; so, I whipped out my 38 and shot the jungle. I figured I
could get off six rounds and make everything lighter.
I was pulled in the door and hugged by the crew. I thought I would be
the happiest man in the world, but the crew of Harry Walker's HH-3E
were happier than I was. The whole crew was laughing like mad, so I
asked what was funny and was told that Harry had just said, "Tell the
SOB not to die until we get him to a hospital. We need a live one for a
change." I had problems standing and the Paramedic (PJ) sat me down and
started to check me out. The first thing he did was to strap a
parachute on me. I sure as hell didn't want to use one of those again
for a while. He asked if I was hurt and I told him I had some small
problems. He them put me on a stretcher and gave me a good once over.
It was noisy as all hell in the Jolly and since I didn't have a headset
I had real problems hearing. He pulled out a Morphine Styrete case and
I said NO. He grinned and showed me a miniature of Jack Daniel's Black
Label that was in the tube. It was exactly what the doctor ordered.
I guess I was beat up worse than I thought since I went into shock for
a while. The whole crew took off their jackets and piled them around me
to keep me warm. I straightened out in time to watch the Jolly refuel
on the way back. The PJ and the flight engineer helped me up to the
cockpit and I sat on the jump seat as the C-130 came over us, stopped
just in front and then let down until the hose was only 50 feet or so
in front. We were in Laos with all of the Low Level Fuel lights on, it
was just after sunset. There were layered clouds that were black with a
blood red sun shining from below up through and between them. It was
incredible. Harry moved the big HH-3E up to the hose, stuck it, and
took gas. It was all very smooth, very easy, and very beautiful. I was
the second furthest north rescue in the whole war. The whole crew of
very brave men had risked their lives to pull me from the jungle. Harry
did understand what "We Band Of Brothers" meant.
We went to Nakon Phanom (NKP), AKA Naked Fanny, and landed about 2100
hours. I was on a stretcher and really couldn't walk. I was treated
like the crown jewels and rushed to the hospital for a check up. I was
on the x-ray machine that was broken when Brigadier General McBride
came in. Willy P. had been my Wing Commander at Spangdahlem and was a
very nice and very funny man. He went into a routine about having given
me a perfectly good F-105 and I had dumped it! He was not going to give
me any more. He also brought a bottle of Old Overshoes Rye Mission
Whiskey and a six-pack of warm Miller beer. We both sat on the x-ray
and drank the Old Overshoes neat with warm beer chaser. He also told me
that The Great Kahuna had sent the Takhli Gooney Bird for me and it was
inbound.
I was taken from the Hospital, never having seen a Doctor, and loaded
on the C-47 in my stretcher. When we were airborn, the pilot came back
and put my going home ration from Colonel Giraudo on my chest, a bottle
of Chivas Regal, a glass, and a bucket of ice. The Chivas was to get me
back to Takhli in good humor. It did a very good job. When we landed
the crew turned the stretcher so I could see what was happening. I was
met by the fire suppression helicopter, fire trucks, over 1,000 folk,
and was treated to a Hundred Mission Parade at near midnight Tahkli
time.
When we stopped, the doors of the Gooney Bird swung open and The Great
Kahuna jumped into the C-47 and hollered, "Throw her up!" A very
shapely female came flying through the air and landed in Colonel
Giraudo's arms. He came over, dumped her on me and said, "Welcome Home
Sparky, look what I brung ya!" The lady, Vicky Nixon, had just arrived
that day and was the first female on the base. She was his brand new
secretary, very sharp, and she was scared spitless. I was laughing like
a hyena and decided to try and calm her down since she was actually
shaking. I whispered in her ear, "I just fell out of a tree, landed on
my jewels, and there isn't a thing I could do to you!" She looked at
me, started to cry, really hugged me, and said, "You poor baby!" We
were placed in the back of Colonels G's pickup, still on my stretcher,
and given a tour of the base. Neely Johnson who I was supposed to
relieve as a Force Commander, met me with the Flight Commanders for the
morning go and saluted me from the C-47.
I was grounded and that was my last combat mission. I tried to talk the
Boss out of his decision, but I went home. I was the first guy from
Takhli that was picked up from North Vietnam in over nine months that
made it back to Takhli. Frank Billingsley did a perfect job the first
time he ran a RESCAP and I am the most fortunate person in the world. I
never did get to help Neely out. He finished his tour after having led
over one third of his total missions into Route Package Six.
Bill Sparks
Once A Thud Driver
767
Jimmy Crump said "watch this" and then lit burner while flying
wing,port side,and proceeded to pull away from me on a night flight
while crossing over Manhatten at a low altitude. I will never forget
seeing that bright yellow cone of fire, intersticed with blue rings in
the flame as that beautiful bird pulled away from me. We thank God we
flew that aircraft.
Bill Quinn
768
I may have told this tale before, but if youse guys's memories are like
mine, it will probably sound fresh and new.
We launched on a night BARCAP from Oriskany, late 60's. My wingman was
a FNG from our sister squadron, PXO I think. Though a mere O3, I had
the experience and lead. We were there to protect some spooky Air Force
mission further up in the Gulf against airborne threats that never, not
once, rose against us during my time there.
If you were part of the action during this time (Johnson's bombing
halt), you know that there were only a few breaks in the boredom of
this BARCAP "combat mission": two of them were the cat shot and the
recovery; and a third was the obligatory topping off from the duty
tanker at the start of the mission so you could make it through the
1+30 cycle (which was really 1+45 because you were first-off last-on).
The really fun night-BARCAPS were those that ended after dawn, when you
were obliged to make a reveille pass on Red Crown.
It was a cholesterol-enhancing time too. We were on the
midnight-to-noon schedule. This meant rising late at night and eating
mid-rats (usually involving eggs), returning from a BARCAP and eating
breakfast (usually including eggs), doing JO stuff until
lunch
(no eggs!), and then turning in to dream of, as it turned out, sailors
chipping paint on the deck plates above our staterooms.
The weather that night was MVFR from the deck to, as it turned out,
well above 30K. It was like flying in thin fog, from the deck to
who-knows-what altitude. It was a milk-bowl.
After launch we leveled off at 20K, headed north and checked in with
Red Crown. Passed the off-going BARCAP barreling back for Charlie on
Arrival. I called the duty tanker, got his position, locked him up on
radar, and attempted a rendezvous. Several times we got close, seeing a
green rotating beacon flash past us and vanish into the mist. I
suggested higher. We went higher.
The mist was thinner at 32K, and we finally got aboard.
I graciously let my wingman try to plug first. At that altitude, at 250
KIAS, controls were sluggish, and our RPMs were in the high 90s (J
models with P20 engines!) He thrashed around a while, and I suggested
he take a break and let me try.
It took some doing, but I got plugged. Pushed the hose in. Green light.
Checked the guages, fuel was flowing.
As I got heavier I had to add more power to keep the hose in. Then I
hit the mil detent. I had a thousand pounds to go, and as that
registered I saw the white stripes on the hose slowly emerge from the
tanker package. I had worked pretty hard to get here, and didn't want
to let it slip away.
I should have asked the tanker to start a gradual descent, but that
didn't occur to me. I figured that if I just tapped burner and pushed
the hose in a bit, then while the hose eased out, I could get the rest
of my gas.
I know, NATOPS said you could get stuck in burner on rare occasions,
and if that happened I would wind up with a drogue and lots of hose
trailing.
My wingy, in loose parade formation, later described the sequence as
seeing the hot-streak-ignition pop from my tailpipe, followed by a most
brilliant white light, my AB lighting off. What a surprise. His
night-adapted pupils went to pinpricks. Blinded, he broke right to get
the-hell away from the other metal in the sky.
He later told me he bottomed out at 10K before he could read his
instruments. It took him a while to get back aboard. A while longer to
get plugged and get his gas. We didn't talk much after that.
And, he never paid for another beer at the Cubi Club if I was around.
Bull Durham
769
In my 2800 plus hours in all mods of the F8, I never once experienced a
PIO. Now the FJ-3 was a real bitch at low altitude and high speed. I
left quite a bit of paint on the canopy from my head banging around the
cockpit of that bird.
C Horse
aka Chuck Baker
770
I recall an attempt to make the term "Pilot-Induced Oscillations" more
PC by calling them "Pilot-Involved Oscillations". Makes sense. Even the
best pilots with thousands of high-performance hours on the edge of the
envelope have been bitten. I don't think the new term ever caught on.
Bull Durham
771
Back in the EARLY, EARLY Crusader days - before ventral fins, AOA
indicators and dependable pitot static systems - we referred to a PIO
as a "JC" maneuver; that's what you'd shout the first time you got into
one.
Dave Winiker
772
We tanked when taking our old VMF (AW) 232 F8s from Kaneohe to
California, bringing "Es" back to Hawaii and thence to Vietnam, and
then returning to CONUS with the "Es" at the end of our tour, lots of
TransPac. All tanking was with USMC KC-130s. As we
cruised
at high altitude, (40K plus plus), it was a pain to descend to 20K
which was about the max altitude that we could take on fuel from the
130s. Occasionally they would have to toboggan but I don't recall that
as being the norm. The trick was to find the tanker force if there was
weather in the refueling area and to catch them in their turn to the
outbound leg of their racecourse pattern. We only had one
section
divert in all those evolutions due to not getting plugged in.
We
did lose one bird, Wyatt Baxter's, on a training profile from Kaneohe
out toward French Frigate Shoals when a shut off valve failed and his
main fuel cell ruptured. Some of those flights were 6 hours
plus,
a long time to be in any cockpit, even one as comfortable as the F8's.
Bruce Martin
773
Reading about the PIO stories and refueling reminds me that, I was
tasked to take part in a joint USAF/NAVY air-air refueling mission out
of Barksdale AFB, La. I think it was in 1972-73. The purpose of the
study was to evaluate the drogue vs. probe method.
I was the only F8(H) and there were three F-100's and 2 F4's. I was to
refuel first behind a KC-135 with drogue and the F-100's would do the
same, then the AF F4's would go the probe route.
After taking on fuel, I slid to the starboard side to observe the
"Huns". First guy couldn't hook up, and the second guy poked the
probe,missed because of high speed overtake and fenced with the hose
till it circled the fuselage and promptly bashed in the left side of
the canopy. Two down, one to go. No. 3 lines up, charges the basket,
and then the PIO started. The probe on the 100 was out on the wing, so
now, he is plugged and porposing and rolling as well. With the fourth
or fifth oscillation, the probe tore away from the wing of the hun and
stayed in the basket.
I had seen enough, so burner exit strategy seemed the best idea. The
de-brief was something to behold. Needless to say, I think some new
procedures were employed from that day forward by USAF.
Pat McGirl
774
When I think of PIO in the F8's, what comes to mind is the oscillation
you get when in a high G maneuver and the aircraft starts to nose
oscillating left to right, of course this was the sign you were about
to depart and you let off a little G. In 1961 during an ACM flight in
VMF-AW- 451 in F8U2NE's over El Toro a squadron mate Arnie Tanzman
(since passed away) got into this position and did not back off on the
G's and the aircraft flipped ends, a great maneuver if you could
predetermine the outcome. On a side note the F-18 had a similar
oscillation but in that aircraft you pulled harder and it smoothed out.
In my opinion the F-18 is the best fighter we have had after the F-8. I
know this will ruffle a lot of F4 drivers but remember the F4 slogan
"two times the engines, three times the speed, four times the cost and
five times the need, you could fly them twice a week if you tried, Bang
your burners." Now after that I expect to hear someone talk about
tinker toys and little boys.
Semper Fi
Al "Animal" Ransom
775
While starting a deployment with VFP-63, on Ranger CVA 61 in the fall
of 1964. We were in port in Hawaii. The Turner Joy, gunboat incident
went down and liberty was canceled.The ship departed Ford Island about
2200 and steamed into the night. About 2300 the Admiral decided that we
needed to have F8 Photo aircraft on the catapults ready to go. If we
were going to be over flown by Russian aircraft the Photo planes would
launch and take NIGHT pictures of them. There we sat until dawn when we
were relieved by the F4 Squadron. The following nights the Photo planes
were kept below. Would have fun trying to get Air to Air pictures with
Photo Flash bombs !!!
Chuck Anderson
776
Best PIO I ever saw was a Phantom. On the '69 Tico westpac cruise, a
pair of F-4's (from the Kitty Hawk, I think, but it could have been
Connie) requested a low fly-by shortly after we secured from flight ops
at noon. The boss announced the upcoming flyby so all hands on deck
wouldn't miss the show from our sister CVA in the Gulf. The four A/B'd
J-79s were close to supersonic as they approached for a starboard
flyby. Just before the abeam position, the wingy started violent PIOs
and the crew ejected close abeam Tico. As the phlyers rocketed upwards,
the UAV F-4 steadied like a rock and continued in A/B until it
eventually rolled over and splashed a mile or two ahead of us - a
really big splash. Naturally, everyone on deck cheered. Tico's angel
picked them up and brought the dunked phlyers aboard. They were ok,
physically.
Sam Marinshaw
777
I had 7 hours in the F-8 and some said we need to go IFR. I chased the
drouge all over the place and finally got my plugs. I year later same
thing, on fourth pass hit some turbulence of some sort...we were
refueling behind and A4, the basket spun around my cockpit, then took
off the AA probe.
Duane Kalember
778
I did DWEST in November. Kicked off the back of a boat in a poopy suit
and dragged along in parachute harness. Ice cold water of San Diego Bay
filled the suit through the loose-fitting neck. Ripped a few
fingernails off on the Koch fittings.
Bull Durham
779
Can relate to your poopy suit adventure. Ended up in the
water
after exercising the Martin-Baker option; the vent hose was supposed to
disconnect from the console during the vertical travel, but instead the
hose stayed wi/the a/c, along with a hunk of rubber from the
suit. Thing holds lots of water, took 5 guys to pull me onto
the
tin can.
Dave Johnson
780
When VMF(AW)-232 was based at Kaneohe around the mid 1960s someone who
evidently didn't wish us well scheduled water survival training in
Kaneohe Bay. The procedure was pretty much standard and involved being
dropped off a platform from some small craft, being dragged behind the
boat until one was able to release the parachute harness, and then
bobbing about in the tropical water until a helo came by to do the pick
up. What was remarkable was the presence of an enormous concentration
of sharks. I for one, and I'm pretty sure I speak for all involved, was
unaware of that menace at the time. Shortly thereafter I took a ride in
the air station SAR helo and counted, TINS, 76 large sharks,
hammerheads and other big bruisers, between Chinaman's Hat and the
runway, not a great distance at all. No one got eaten despite lots of
trolling and floundering about. Maybe the sharks, like the army at
Schofield Barracks, just didn't like marines.
Later, in a practical application phase, I had a Martin-Baker ride into
the Gulf of Tonkin. On the way down, as my mind was sorting through the
negative events of the day, I remembered a National Geographic article
had stated that sea snakes, aquatic vipers with bad dispositions, could
be found in abundance off the Vietnamese coast. They often, the article
reassuringly pointed out, congregated in masses up to a mile long and
hundreds of yards wide. Since I was going to log one less landing than
take off, the pessimist in me entertained the possibility of splashing
down in sea snake city, but as with the Kaneohe Bay episode everything
worked out ok.
Bruce Martin
781
the meaning of HUD'N HUD'N.
It originated in the early days of the F8 in VF-194 when a Skipper had
an old kick start Harley motorcycle. It was an adaption of the sound
the Harley made when he cranked it up and opened the throttle for a
couple of turns to get it running.
Dudley Moore
782
Dudley Moore has the correct history of "Hud'n Hud'n" as I recall. I
joined
VF-194 when Dudley was there and all of our birds had "Hud'd Hud'n"
stenciled on the wing box.
Scotty Bates
783
I don't recall which one, but a Willy Fud det used to respond to "Hud'n
hud'n" with "Fud'n fud'n."
Barrett [Tillman]
784
The nose gear on the F-8 took tremendous pressure on a carrier landing,
the main mounts off the deck during the first part of the
arrestment. I
broke an inner barrel landing with a pitching deck aboard Oriskany off
Japan. Author commented about PC reservoirs in main landing
gear
struts. That was modified as one of a series of Vietnam fixes, the
reservoirs later located in the wheel well inboard of gear strut. Along
with hard points on the wings (F-8E), gun select switches (Select two or
four guns) Continuous Ignition (for hi-altitude Aim-9 firing, and also
off the cat) the Gator was a very tough warbird. I took a
bunch
of hits
and always got back. Flying the Crusader was a religious
experience.
Deej Kiely
785
Went through SERE sometime in Feb, '66.
Waterboarding was
common practice as part of the training--most went through it--although
"knowing" they weren't going to kill you made it easier to
endure--still terrifying.
Nevertheless--since I know it was part of '66 SERE, would be easy to
believe it went on before I got there and long after--and it is been in
the press numerous times that it was part of SERE training.
Crist Berry
786
We were trucked into SERE Warner Springs in the dark of the night. Only
in the last few years I discovered a very nice resort just down the
road from the SERE facility.
I was there in July 1968. Water boarding was on the menu.
I was a swimmer and thought that a little water up the nostril was
piece of cake...Totally wrong, obviously..!
I was one of the last guys to show up after the escape routine and was
forced to march up the dry river bed back to the prison.
On the way I was shoved into other guys and broke my nose.
Marched on and lost some blood. Ended up with uncontrolled chills and
in sick bay.
Doc told me that the guards had to be reevaluated quarterly because
they started to enjoy beating the hell out of the inmates!
Thrown back into the daily routine!
The morning that we were released was absolutely breathtaking!!!
Made me feel what it was to be a citizen of the greatest country in the
world...
What has changed are the people presently in charge!
Two years ago I turned down the road to the Navy Facility just north of
Warner Springs and after a quarter of a mile I was suddenly surrounded
by a squad of fully armed Marines.
No matter that I had proper ID and car pass "If you do not turn back we
will have to detain you SIR!
I was not detained!
PJ Smith
787
From reading about the old days at Warner Hot Springs, I'm throwing in
my two remembrances.
First, when I was flying F8s out of North Island with VU-7, we used to
pack the speed brake area with Hershey Bars and drive over to the
compound. We knew that when a/c flew over the site, the captors would
ring a bell and force everyone to dive into there little dugouts.
During a low pass we would activate the speed brakes and, if we
calculated right, a bunch of the bars would drop into the confined area
and sometimes the "prisoners" even got them.
Second, when I was a participant in the Escape and Evasion course,
there was one pilot who prepared for the upcoming event by boiling his
green shirt and trousers in bouillon. Whenever he got hungry all he had
to do was suck on his clothes! As I remember he didn't smell all that
good.
Jack Allen
788
Went through SERE in Sep, '58 and Sep '65. No compound phase the first
time, since I escaped/evaded. Although they never caught me the second
time, the compound was then mandatory, and they gave me the "Senior
One" treatment, with lots of knockdowns, the box for 30 min plus pretty
intense interro session with knife blade on the throat while being
forced to bend backward with head against bulkhead, while kicking my
feet out. I never heard of the waterboarding, unless they called it
something else.
John Holm
789
Back in 1958 when I was a brand new ensign in VF(AW)-3, I too got
orders to survival school. After an unmemorable night or two
bivouacking on the beach at North Island about where the Navy Lodge is
now located, we were bused into the hills near Warner Springs to play
at survival. I recall a multi-mile hike thru the brush, mostly uphill
to what was described as a cool spring where we could refresh
ourselves. I was out of shape and a limp puppy when I arrived at the
spring. Only problem was it was a muddy little pool about a yard wide,
and the best we could do was rest our feet in it.
What followed then was the escape and evasion phase of our sojourn.
They cast us loose with the word that the bad guys would be looking for
us before we could reach our destination a couple of miles away.
"They'll never catch me!" said the brand new fighter pilot, as I rushed
head-long thru the brush toward the safe point. Well, within five
minutes as I tried to cross a dirt road I was intercepted by the bad
guys, my hands tied behind my back, and escorted to an assembly point
for prisoners.
After about a half hour a few more prisoners were ushered in, and the
bad guy in charge (a CPO I found out later) herded us back toward their
prison compound where bad things were going to happen. I knew I had to
make a break for it, so about a hundred yards down the path, I took off
into the brush. I was tackled within 50 yards and dragged back to the
other prisoners.
"OK," says the Chief, "It looks like we got a runner here!"
With that, they took some rope and shackled my ankles. Then the Chief
told me to pick up this pine tree along side the path that had been
chopped down and drag it behind me.
"This ought to slow you down! We're gonna have a little talk when we
get back to the compound."
"Oh my," thought I. "I've got to do something. They're gonna torture
me!"
About another 100 yards down the path, I notice my roped ankles have
loosened free, but no one else had noticed.
"This is it," I thought as I threw the tree I was dragging, with all my
might at the Chief who was walking next to me. Away I ran again into
the brush and the woods with only the Chief in pursuit! I felt like I
was fleeing for my life as I crashed thru the shrubs and cacti, knowing
I had to outrace this guy!
Now, this CPO was maybe 15 years older then me, and had a pretty good
gut on him, probably from overindulging at the Chief's Club, and I
figure, just maybe, I could outrun him. Finally, exhausted, I could run
no more and dived into some bushes and brush to await my fate. I was
sure anyone within a mile could hear my heart beating and me gasping
for breath, as I awaited to be recaptured.
But nothing happened! I lay there about 15 minutes regaining my breath
and composure before I felt it safe to head toward the marshaling point.
I was home free! I escaped interrogation and torture!
I did get to observe, along with the others who escaped detection, some
hazing and hard questioning by the bad guys. This was only a few years
after the Korea episode and things were predicated upon brain washing.
Through daring, skill, perseverance, and chicanery the author had once
again shown his ability to overcome adversity and returned safely to
the North Island Bldg. I to attest to his daring-do over a Beefeater
martini, up, olive, stirred, not shaken.
Howard "Nick" Nickerson
790
I went through SERE at Warner Springs three times. The last time was in
November '65. I was never waterboarded but my son was in the 70s.
Royce Williams
791
I went through SERE on the east coast (Brunswick, ME) in the summer of
1967. I have no recollection of anything close to waterboarding.
I do recall that a Flight Surgeon was on staff (behind the one-way
mirror) to look out for the poor bastards in the compound and to call a
halt to any dangerous practices. Further, I recall that we (the
prisoners) had the right to blow the whistle and stop unpleasantness
should we think that serious harm might occur. If my memory serves me
correctly, the password "This is an academic situation". If that was
invoked, all nastiness stopped.
Ed Feeks
792
I attended SERE in early 1972 before going on the O boat for the 72/73
cruise with Chuck Tinker. I remember the waterboarding, and had it done
to me, and I seem to still be ok today- NICK/NICK. I remember being
strapped to the board and having water poured over my face. I'm saying
what's the big deal here- just turn your head/ time your breathing,
etc. No problem. Then they put the wet t shirt over my face and held my
face straight so I couldn't move it. Yep that'll get the job done.
I watched a 20 yr service chief almost crying like a baby after they
finished him. It works, but obviously no long lasting effects. The main
thing I remember about the SERE experience was the guy who did most of
my personal interrogation. Beat me up pretty good. His face was
emblazoned in my memory forever. Then, on my first trap on the
Oriskany, I looked up to the right for my taxi director to get me out
of the wires, and guess who?? Yes sire there he was- definitely in
range of my intake. Very tempted to hold the brakes and go to full
power, and SUCK HIM UP. I looked him up and spoke with him later and
thanked him for what he had done at SERE- helping to mentally prepare
many of us for what, luckily, never happened.
Bubba/Track/Half Track/Wide Track Meyers [Frank]
793
When I was a 2nd Lt. at MCAS Miami, Ken Keck and I were junior and
filled the quota for E&E at Ft. Bragg (home of the 82nd
Airborne).
The rest were Ensigns or JGs. Soldiers were predisposed to dislike
Marines. A week in the field with just the clothes on our back,
expected to forage for whatever! We ate a turtle after a day of hacking
into it!
We had hid in a hole for three days when Ken hiked down the road to a
small store (off the base) and got a can of beans, some cheese and some
bread. This kept us going. Army choppers flew over broadcasting a
recall. Ken and I looked at each other and said bullshit. They are
trying to trick us. We stayed out!
When the three days and walked out. The Colonel in charge was pissed,
said he had kept a company out overnight looking for us. Seems
hurricane Hazel was coming.
Buck Peck
794
The first and last time I ever had it was back in '57 - As I'm sure
Easy Ed Shiver and Dwinky Winiker will confirm that, no matter how
hungry you are, roast ground squirrel tastes like scorched s**t.
Crash
John Miottel
795
SERE in Maine, Dec. 05. Heavy snowstorm; during initial briefing, bad
guys "captured" us all. Honcho declares "academic situation", explains
that due to wx conditions, sked would be reversed -- compound first,
then E&E. "Academic situation" undeclared (anyone remember what
that verbiage was?), everybody packed into trucks & hauled off
to
the compound. Other than near-zero temps and near blizzard conditions,
compound life was probably similar to everyone else, no waterboarding
then but did have The Box. E&E likely similar too except that
we
were on snowshoes -- some guys had never even seen snow, and I was the
only one who had ever been on snowshoes. Bedding down was done in a
double "down" [more like feathers] sleeping bag in a snowbank. Good
prep for a SEA scenario, I'm sure.
We had an A-6 skipper in our midst, and of course his guys back home
knew the usual sked, and knew where the camp was. So they launched a
strike the day we were supposed to arrive in the cmpd .... only we were
out in the woods then, dreary day. But it was a truly inspiring sight,
4 Intruders in a row, popping out of the clag in maybe a 30 deg.dive,
following the topography at what looked like about 100' along a
mountain that extended 'way up into the clag; they disappeared in the
direction of the cmpd., then reappeared following their runs. Much
whooping and hollering accompanied them.
Bumped into a guy in the woods who was obviously in tough shape;
offered to carry his pack for him, he refused.... said that he was
going thru for the second time because he contracted pleuresy the first
time and was sent home. He was having a recurrence, but said if they
catch me not carrying my own load, I'll have to do it all over again,
and he'd rather die than repeat; I thought he probably would. He made
it to the end. Stubborn Marine!
We had a couple guys escape, but they didn't get far without snowshoes,
leaving tracks that even a blind man could follow.
I did have a session in "the box". It was adjustable, to
squish
any sized person into a packed ball. I made myself big and
inflexible; they set the size, I relaxed, and had a nap.
A good time was had by all......
Dave Johnson
796
In response to Dave "Fireball" Johnson's post on a snowy December in
Brunswick: Dave, that sounds like we were in the same class, as we had
gone through the 174 RAG together. The two guys that escaped (and
really paid for it) were me and Bob Hinckley, a future A-4 driver. The
guards forgot Tom "Gator" Wilburn, and left him in a frozen culvert. He
almost got frostbite and severe hypothermia. For some reason, they put
Hinckley and me in their own barracks for about 10 minutes, while they
conferred on what to do with us for escaping. We trashed their barracks
and kitchen, eating anything that wasn't moving or made of cast iron.
They then peeled our clothes off and rolled us in a snow bank, which is
probably why I hate skiing vacations today.
Hot Dog Nelson
797
I went thru Pickle Meadows in a November class. Just as we started
evading and working a three day navigation to a "rendezvous point," a
very bad snowstorm ensued. Very bad. The upshot was that tracks were
covered which prevented capture, guys holed up, built fires to keep
warm, and didn't change their socks four times a day as we had been
warned to. We had the white arctic "mickey mouse" boots that were
overkill for the lower 48, so feet went quickly from white and wrinkly
to trenchfoot with the skin coming loose. We learned later that several
instructors had gotten lost. By the time the storm let up, time was up
so we did not get the compound. 25% of the class went home on crutches.
Fortunately, I had changed my socks. Survival school in the Philippines
was much more appropriate for SEA.
John "Circus" Becker
798
Dave's mention of the A-6 strike reminds me:
In our book "On Yankee Station" the late John Nichols described a
similar evolution on Warner Springs, conducted by a sneaky section of
F8s. Pirate and Bob "The Original Maverick" McDonough cranked up the
191 mimeograph machine and stuffed bundles of paper inside their speed
brakes. Then they launched for The POW Camp where Billy Phillips was
held in durance vile.
Crossing the perimeter, Pirate and Maverick popped their speed brakes,
thereby Arc Lighting the camp with mimeographed copies of Yankee AIr
Pirate propaganda. The message was, approximately:
"Dear Prison Guards. You have in your control our beloved CAG Billy
Phillips. We are obliged to tell you that you are wasting your time.
You will NEVER break that hard-headed Commie hating Tennessee redneck.
In fact, he hates everybody. He is the toughest SOB in the US Navy and
no matter what you try to do, he will resist your efforts. You'll just
have to kill him. Sincerely, Pirate & Maverick."
Upon release, CAG informed his miscreant JOs that the guards took out
their frustration on him...but it was worth it.
Barrett sends
Barrett Tillman
799
All these SERE sea stories bring back some nostalgia.
Recalling my RAG time in VF-174 at Cecil Field, I walked into the
Training office one morning and Duke Hernandez said, " Guess where you
are going Monday?" I said, "I don't know, Disney World". He told me, "
No, Brunswick". I said, "What am I going to do in Brunswick, Georgia
(just up the road)?" He then said, "Not Brunswick, Georgia, but
Brunswick, Maine, you are going to Survival School ( later to be called
SERE school). I am just now begining to forgive him for that detailing.
I survived it just as the relaters did, but I guess they had not yet
discovered the "waterboarding" methodology of extracting information.
It was September, but I don't think I have ever been colder. Myself and
a Demon driver, Gene Faulk (later killed in a mid-air with a civilian
Beechcraft) were the two biggest guys in the group so we endured the
brunt of the abuse.
Now a little irony. A couple of years ago, my wife and I attended a
seniors safe driving course sponsored by AARP. It reduces my auto
insurance premiums by a hundred dollars or so annually, and is probably
the only benefit I have experienced from AARP membership. The
instructor, looked as if he was approaching my age group introduced
himself and said he was a retired Navy E-8 Corpsman. Note I haven't
given his name. He said that in his earlier life he had been a survival
instructor. During a break, I asked him where and when he had served in
this capacity. He said in Rangely (Brunswick), Maine from 1960-1963. I
then told him that I had gone through up there during that time. He
said, " I WAS YOUR INTERROGATOR". To which I replied, as he began to
look familiar, "you son-of-a bitch". I had forgiven him earlier but I
had some unpleasant recollections. We had some interesting
conversations during the breaks for the two half-day sessions.
Doug White
800
Pickle Meadows Calif: At one time they had a pipe in the ground (1965)
that you could barely fit. Then a screen on top. They would fill it
with water, where you had to push your mouth up to the screen to
breath, till a foot would push you down. You could not move your arms
up. One of the guys faked passing out and when they took him out he
beat the shit out of two of the tortures. That part of the program was
deleted.
Sumo-Ron Foreman
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