F-8 Crusader sea stories

[PRB]

Started reading the book Crusader! Last of the Gunfighters, by Paul Gillcrist. It’s an interesting book. Lots of fun facts and “sea stories” about the F-8…
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Early on he talks about going up for a test flight with another F-8. They wanted to know how the supersonic shock wave of another F-8, in formation, would affect yaw stability in the RF-8 variant of the Crusader. You see, the early Crusaders lacked those two downward pointing fins at the rear of the fuselage. Those were added later, because of yaw instability... It was known that the RF-8 variant had even less yaw stability than the fighter version, due to the squared off lower forward fuselage shape. So the test was to take up two RF-8s and fly in formation at Mach 1.7, and see what happened!
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The shock wave is in the shape of a cone extending from the nose of the plane. The faster you go, the narrower the cone. Gillcrist says that when he came up behind the other plane, passing through the shockwave was “interesting”, yawing the plane so violently that he hit his head on the canopy. It would yaw towards the other plane while coming “into” the shock wave, and outwards from the other plane when passing through it going away. Further, when tucked up along side the other F-8, his plane would get “sucked” into the other plane, and he had to reduce power a lot to stay with his lead in the formation. Drafting! Just like NASCAR!
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Then he says he attempted what amounted to an immelman turn, starting at 30,000 feet, and 625 knots KIAS. The book said never to try such a maneuver in the F-8 above 10,000 feet because you would end up too high, resulting in compressor stalls, over heated engine, and the possibility of death from “the bends” if you lost cabin pressurization, which would probably happen if your engine over heated and had compressor stalls, since the engine provides cabin pressure… But he did it anyway, ended up at 67,200 feet, with the engine going BANG, BANG, BANG!!, which is what a compressor stall was like in the F-8, only much louder and more violent.
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Amazing plane!

[Crusader]

You might want to add this one .(Hint , notice wings) No story but picture says it all . If I had a dollar for every 250 , 500 , 1000 , 2000 pounder , plus 5" Zuni rockets , 2.75 rocket pods , 20 MM gun , oh yes lets throw in a little napalm once in awhile too . I would be a millionaire . You're right , an amazing aircraft . I might dig up some of my pics from VMFA(AW)-235 "Death Angels " from 1967 if your interested . Great story by the way . An interesting read . . If memory serves me right "TarpsBird" here at SOH spent some time on a carrier in the Navy with F8's
Rich

[Crusader]

Here is a link of my old unit . Plenty of pics .

http://www.vmf235.com/crusader.html

Rich

[PRB]

Yep, ths wings folded story is in chapter 32! No pictures though, amazing! I’d heard that story a long time ago and was sure it was BS, but not so! Amazing the outer wing panels stayed on during that flight.
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Oh, by the time Gillcrist got to 67,000 feet, his airspeed read 0, and he fell back, out of control. He said that when the nose passed through the horizon he just let the plane alone, no control inputs at all, throttle at idle. He just let the speed build up to 200 knots than started flying again. So of course I had to try it in my Alphasim F-8! I didn’t make it to 67,000 feet. Only 47000-ish, before she stalled. The interesting thing was that my recovery was similar to his. The silly thing was all over the sky, and I was getting no-where recovering, until I just brought the throttle to idle and got off the controls. Eventually the nose came down through the horizon, and speed built up. Cool... I got a pic just before I started the maneuver. I forgot to get any others…
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Speaking of stall recovery procedures, he said the first step, or one of the steps, was “wind up the 8-day clock.” This required that the pilot let go of the stick since the clock was on the right side of the cockpit, and it was meant as a reminder to let go of the controls to recover, because it worked so often!

Good stuff, Crusader, thanks for the link!

[redriver6]

yeah but can it shoot??

[Technogrunt]

I saw a show where they were talking about the F-4 Phantoms stall characteristic the recommended thing for the pilot to do is put the throttle at idle, take your feet off the rudder controls, and put your hands in your lap. The plane will undulate 3 times to the right than 3 times to the left you will have fallen 5000 feet and when the nose comes up level with the horizon take control of the aircraft. they also said that anything you do to try and correct for this will only make it worse. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
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[TARPSBird]

PRB,
I believe in the book ADM Gillcrist also mentions LCDR Tim Hubbard's MiG-17 kill where he ran out of 20mm and finally shot the guy down with Zuni rockets.
I admit I'm prejudiced, but some of the finest aviators I've ever worked with are former F-8 drivers. Also the maintenance guys who kept the F-8's flying for over a 30-year service life.
And speaking of Crusader sea stories, my personal favorite is the account of John "Crash" Miottel catching the barrier aboard USS Hancock:
http://www.miottelcollection.com/ind...rash%22+Page+1

[simkid22]

Then there was the great episode on Dogfights about Lt. Commander Richard Schaffert and his Crusader.

Not the episode but a good read:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...12/ai_n9310839