‘When the Thanksgiving lunch meal was ready, a crew member knocked on my stateroom door to invite me to the meal. I walked to the door, turned the handle, and…
NavalWarfare
‘Tony LeVier [the test pilot who flew the first flight of the U-2] was sitting at Bob Gilliland’s bar when we arrived. The story of how the U-2 was named…
Carriers
Aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln suffers electrical fire in port at NAS North Island. No injuries reported.
USS Abraham Lincoln crew quickly put out the fire, non-essential sailors did briefly evacuate. There were no injuries According to the US Navy, an electrical fire broke out in the…
Cold War
On his first Intruder hop, A-6 B/N’s pilot performed two dirty rolls while lined up for the final approach to NAS Whidbey Island runway
“I remember looking up out of the canopy at the cars passing under us on Highway 20. After we landed and got out of the plane I was really hyped…
‘We used to have a joke in flight training: “What happens to a prop aircraft when it loses its engine? It becomes a glider. What happens to a jet when…
While the F-14 Tomcat was shown off in Top Gun, the F-16 Fighting Falcon used the questionable Iron Eagle series to demonstrate the machine’s agility to cinemagoers While the F-14…
Airshows
The story of the Blue Angels F-4 Phantom II that Knocked Out the windows of eight blocks of a Canadian City after it went Supersonic during an Air Show
“They had a parade scheduled for the next day and they had to cancel that. All the windows were boarded up when we drove downtown,” former Blue Angels Team Leader…
Cold War
F-4 pilot recalls having to do a 6-G pullup in order to avoid a pickup truck during a “snake check” down a jeep trail
‘I assured him that I know his official green Chevy pickup very well and would certainly avoid him,’ David Storm, USAF F-4 Phantom II pilot The F-4 Phantom II was…
NavalWarfare
US Navy Submariner tells the story of when on his boat Sonar notified the Head Cook when the submarine passed through shrimps and tunas to fish and cook them (with CO’s approval)
‘The head cook would take sonar’s intel, relay it to the Old Man, and the two of them would discuss menus options! Seriously. Menus options. Spices.’ Richard Morris, former US…
By 1962, Kelly Johnson had done at least a few studies on using the A-12 as a carrier for a QF-104 Starfighter The A-12 was the result of the military’s…