Reply With Quoteare the pics working for anyone else?
An interesting carrier landing in the '60s. (No Photoshop here) Is it a good landing if you can swim away from it?
Check these sequences, with a landing speed of about 125Kts (140MPH) from touch down to ejection is about 3 seconds, traveling at over 200 ft/sec. All the pilot had to do in this 3 seconds was see the fire, realize he had flamed out (no power), let go of the controls and reach for the face curtain and pull it 18" to fire the seat. No telling what he did in his spare time.
This occurred on the aircraft carrier, FDR south of the Dominican Republic.The aircraft was an F8U-1 assigned to VF-11, and piloted by Ltjg. Terry Kryway.
Ripper Jim Roberts: I recall it clearly (*in my dreams*) , having flown that same day (*when donkeys fly*) . The state of the sea was really crappy, and when Terry made his landing, I was in the ready room watching his landing on the PLAT (*if I had only-really-positively been there*). It could have happened to any of us flying the Crusader aboard the Roosevelt that day. The deck was moving all over the place, and with only a 12 foot hook-to-ramp clearance, there was NO room for error coming aboard. Thus, but for the grace of God, any of us could have taken the same ride. ........ I think it should also be pointed out that Terry was and is an outstanding pilot. He was a member of the flight demo team, and that single event should not detract from our view of his piloting ability.
The aircraft hit hard on the stbd main mount and broke off the wheel. The wheel bounced up into the wheel well and ruptured the main fuel line, which is the cloud of fuel you see in the first picture. Take a look.
The scraping of the bare main strut pulled the nose to the right, imposing an asymmetrical load on the tailhook, ripping it out (movies from the starboard quarter showed this). The fuel caught fire, and the rest is as you see it.
The movies showed a 5-foot diameter vapor donut for an instant just in front of the intake at the moment the engine flamed out. Terry cobbed the throttle and felt nothing so he "read the instructions"* as the nose passed over the end of the angle.
*"Reading the instructions" is an euphemism for pulling the face curtain to fire the ejection seat There are no instructions printed there, but if there were, one could read them.... if you read really fast.
You can see him reaching for the curtain.
Look Maw, no chute! We didn't have 0/0 (Zero altitude, Zero speed) ejection seats in those days (*if I had not been 3 years old then*) and his chute did not have time to fully deploy. He got a small abrasion on his neck from his harness -- and was wet, but that was all. Whew.
And you think you had a bad day?
The two worst Navy aircraft to fly... The F7U Cutlass and the F8U Crusader. We had more crashes with these two, than any other variant of the Navy.
(* ... at least that's what I've heard and read ... as I've never flown any of the above aircraft*)
Last edited by A4sForever; 12-16-2006 at 10:06 PM. Reason: To put a poser to rest .....
are the pics working for anyone else?
not for me
Nope, can't view the pics either. I logged in to my yahoo account, altered the cookies setting on my computer, still no pics.
Skeeter, can you repost somewhere else?
Thx.
Sorry Gentlemen, I will try to get the pics up.
I think these are the correct pictures. I had them on my computer.
(See Above - nittany03)Speaking of the F7U, I have this video of one with a nasty landing. I think him and the LSO didn't get along too well....Originally Posted by Skeeterman
video
Last edited by nittany03; 12-02-2006 at 08:01 PM. Reason: Transferred pics to Skeeter's post
Heads Up, Mules83. Good job. You might want to transfer those pics up to my original post, if you like...
you can copy and paste the links (go to "quote") to your story line. I can't edit your post.
CDR John Moore (Ret.) has an entire chapter devoted to how badly the Cutlass sucked in his memoirs The Wrong Stuff. Apparently, he crashed several. Some of the stuff he describes is simultaneously scary for the action and side-splittingly hilarious the way he describes it. Well worth the read.
Pics transferred . . . I also took the liberty of bringing the font down to readable size . . . if I infringed on anyone's artistic license feel free to change it back . . .
Officer, Naval Flight, EA-6B.
nattany03, Thanks for the transfer of the photo's.
I'm no computer guru. Might learn one day on how to do all the necessary things on one.
removed due to "truthiness"
Last edited by skidkid; 12-16-2006 at 10:09 PM. Reason: lies
Skeeterman, were there any specifics to the designs that made the F7Us and F8Us crash as much as they did? or was it just the aircraft in general? I've read that the design of the "flaps" for the F8U made carrier landings interesting when they failed...
No good deed goes unpunished
Nice
"Fuckface... I like that one Errol. I'll have to remember that one next time I'm climbing off your mum."----Turkish
L-I-V-I-N
Must have been a freudian slip. Somebody give that man a hand towel.
Brett
CDR John Moore (Ret.) has an entire chapter devoted to how badly the Cutlass sucked in his memoirs The Wrong Stuff. Apparently, he crashed several. Some of the stuff he describes is simultaneously scary for the action and side-splittingly hilarious the way he describes it. Well worth the read.[/QUOTE]
I met CDR Moore on a Ferry from Bremerton to Seattle. He was a great man to talk to and told some great stories about a wingman he had named Neil Armstrong. I agree, The Wrong Stuff is a great read.
gaetabob, Probably twelve good reasons to list the F7U un-flyable.
1. Difficulties with the Westinghouse J34 engines.
2. When the slats were extended, the aircraft would stall. At a low speed such as landing with the slats retracted, the aircraft could go into a non-recoverable spin. This spin, called a post-stall gyration, and the next step was ejection.
3. At the marked carrier approach speed with flaps down, the aircraft would work itself into a float (lumbering), and if you hit the throttles too heavy, there wasn't any thrust to carry you over the ramp.
4. Carrier tests showed the F7U unacceptable for shipboard landings.
The Cutlass had four 20 MM canons mounted over the intakes. They had muzzle blast deflectors to prevent gases from entering the engine intake. Problem was, they were rigidly installed at the factory and we could not boresght the guns! Had a pattern all over the place and we could not get hits! This feature also led to some tubes vibrating loose and we came close to shooting ourselves down.
Carrier work was something called experimental. To begin with, we tried to old tried and true take a cut, high dip, and flare. Problem was the tip of the tailhook would be pointed up and we'd get a hook skip over all the wires. Thankfully, we began CQ with a clear deck because there was no barricade that would stop us.
After figuring out that our nose high attitude was the cause on no traps, we started using a cut further out in the groove, and holding the attitude. This led to float and on one pass, yours truly touched down by the island and had a neat time getting back airborne on burners while skimming the water. I have no recollection of who was the CO on the Hancock at that time but he must have had at least one ulcer.
Chance Vought replaced the J34's with J35's. Their number one problem.. Known to flame-outs in rain.
The "Gutless Cutlass" was also known as, the Ensign Eliminator..
Here is a prime example of a F7U Cutlass approach..
Last edited by Skeeterman; 12-03-2006 at 10:38 AM.
Amazing stuff...Thank you Skeeter.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves discussing what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the vote.
Thanks HAL Pilot:
http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/sho...light=kryway:p
I just posted the pictures once upon a time. Skeeterman has been there, done it.
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