10 us navy jet fighters 1:48

[southwestforests]

Originally Posted by hyair

... chased a mig -17 from behind and started to close the distance and all of the sudden he saw the pilot ejecting from the Mig -17 !!! ...

Will bet the DC bean counters loved that, no costly ordnance expended!

[MichaelS]

SImply stunning work young fella!!! Hard to believe those are just dead trees!!!

[hyair]

Southwestforests and Michaels - thanks for stopping here !

Yair

[southwestforests]

Welcome! How could I not come see what's in this thread! - my Dad began in USN flight training in late 1950s/early 1960s but eye troubles soon forced him to Surface Warfare. He did do some civil flying on and off for the next decade.

[hyair]

Southwestforests You are welcome - for some reason the US NAVY jet planes always
attracts me more than their Airforce counterparts - the Panther Cougar Cutlass Demon Skyray Tiger Crusader and Phantom that started as a NAVY fighter are all fascinating to say the least .
That is the main reason why I started this thread !

Yair

[hyair]

This incident took place in the early sixties.
On of the crusaders operated from a carier of the sixth fleet
in the Mediterranean sea was about to catapult.
Everything looks regular and the plane was catapulted.
Then while airborne the pilot observed that the wings are
still in the close position !!!
The pilot requested an emergency landing and was able
to bring back the crusader to the carrier deck intact !!!
That was a testimony for the good design of the crusader.

Yair

[southwestforests]

Oh! I had forgotten about that happening!

am planning on a future disability payday to buy a book about the F8U Crusader and surely there will be references in there.

Poking around in Google finds that F8U taking off with wings folded happened several times according to various sources.

Here, have a few references, well, comments, really,

The F-8 was big but light, single-engine but powerful, with a dragon’s-breath afterburner. So powerful, in fact, that a number of F-8s made successful takeoffs—and landings—with their wings still folded. It helped that the Crusader’s ailerons were inboard of the wing-fold point, so they continued to function as roll-control surfaces rather than as self-canceling vertical “rudders.” (One distracted pilot made a wings-up takeoff and managed to bank around and land, but remained so distracted that he forgot to extend the gear.)

https://www.historynet.com/the-first-crusader.htm

Ahh, that sure makes a difference, "It helped that the Crusader’s ailerons were inboard of the wing-fold point, so they continued to function as roll-control surfaces rather than as self-canceling vertical “rudders.” "


and,

Saturday 12th January 2013
Wandering round the internet this evening and found mention of F-8 Crusader flying with it's wings folded. Dug around a bit more and found this photo!
(go to page to see photo)
internet said:
The operational history of the F-8 Crusader has an interesting distinction. In August 1960, a US Navy pilot took off from Naples, Italy, and climbed to about 1.5 kilometers. When he leveled off, he found he needed an unusual amount of pressure on the stick. Looking around for the cause, he discovered that he hadn't unfolded his wings! The pilot was obviously cool-headed, since he decided to investigate how the aircraft handled in this configuration while he dumped what fuel he could. After about 24 minutes of flight he came back in for a landing, which was fast but otherwise uneventful. He reported no particular handling problems with the aircraft. Vought engineers were very pleased when they heard the story, though Navy brass was far from happy with the incident

This is said to be the first case where an aircraft took off with folded wings and safely landed again, but Crusaders took off with folded wings at least seven more times afterward. Unsurprisingly, it usually happened at night. One pilot managed to waggle the aircraft and get the wings back down in flight. In response to the posting of an early version of this document on the Internet, the executive officer of the French Aeronavale squadron operating the Crusader, Antoine Guillot, said one of his pilots had pulled the same trick at an airshow in Belgium. At least under such circumstances the pilot might have been able to claim he did it intentionally as a stunt.
Thought it was worthy of sharing.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/...=191&t=1238215

Longer bit - an account of one of those events, note that being stressed and angry plus being in a hurry appear to be the primary causal agents.

On January 22, 1968, I was a young LTJG at Miramar, attached to Navy Fighter Squadron VF-53 preparing for a deployment to Vietnam aboard the USS Bon Homme Richard. As a final part of the pre-deployment regimen, all pilots were briefed to fly [ FMLP ] Field Mirror Landing Practice about 2100 that night. This was our last chance to practice before flying our planes to NAS North Island so that the planes could be lifted aboard the carrier. We were required to get a minimum number of FMLPs. I needed five (5) more.
...
There were several [ weird ] oscillations before I finally settled it down to a semblance of wings level. I called out on the radio : ” Miramar Tower. This is NJ207. I have some serious control problems. I may have to get out.”

I was surprised how calm I sounded. I thought it sounded pretty damned cool, considering that inverted business a few seconds earlier.
The reply from the tower was like someone stabbed me with a sharp icicle.
 ” Roger . . NJ207 . .
your
 wings
 are
 [ S T I L L ]
 F O L D E D ! “

Hoping I had misunderstood, I answered,
” My WHAT is W-H-A-T ?” 

There went all my cool and calm. And there went the radio discipline . . out the window – no call sign – no addressee. It had been replaced by terror’s edge.

I glanced into the Crusader’s rear view mirrors only to see the wing tip position lights sticking straight up into the air. They must have folded up during take-off roll. Surely I had unfolded my wings. I ALWAYS unfold the wings . . it’s right there on my take-off check list !

By now I doing 180 knots, and ...

https://www.flightjournal.com/f8-wings-folded/
And that one has a comment by a
Joe LaVeque
which is quite interesting, exceptionally interesting.

[southwestforests]

Apparently F-4 Phantom was not immune to the same mishap,

Six years later was the turn of an F-4B (BuNo. 152327) aircrew belonging to VF-14 Tophatters to experience a “wings folded” flight: in fact, on May 10, 1966, LT JG Greg Scwalber and his RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) Bill Wood were launched from USS Roosevelt (CVA-42) and once airborne they discovered that their Phantom II was flying with outboard wings folded.

They immediately understood that the locking mechanism was not properly set before launch. They quickly dumped all external stores, dropped the flaps and after declaring an emergency they diverted to the nearest airport that was Navy airfield in Cuba.

After 59 miles of flight Scwalber and Wood were able to made a successful arrested landing at a speed of 170-180 knots. As happened with the Crusader the F-4B BuNo 152327 returned into service few days later.

At least one Air Force crew had the chance to experience this strange kind of flight with their F-4, but the Rhino revealed to be a very robust airframe and it always brought its aircrew back home even without its wings fully opened.

https://theaviationist.com/2014/02/1...-folded-wings/

[hyair]

Dear Southwestforests - I remember a tragic event in the IAF . An F-4E Phantom that one
folded wing was not tightened took takeoff and in the middle of the run was thrown aside killing it's two members before they were able to do anything !

Yair

[hyair]

As a former avionics technician in the IAF with F-4E's I learned to love it.
The Phantom came in the right time for the Vietnam war.
His contribution for the war was way above all other plans that participated in the war.It was operated by all three branches - NAVY USAF and MARINES.
It was phased out of service only lately in Japan and Germany.
Some images of the NAVY Phantom in 1:48 scale will be added later.

Yair