From Obamaplease, via KnucleDraggin’
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The air strike that March day in 1967 was on the ferociously well-defended Thai Nguyen steel mill, north of Hanoi, North Vietnam. One of the attacking U.S. Air Force McDonnell F-4C Phantoms was hit twice by anti-aircraft fire, and gas was streaming from the fuselage. Pilot Earl Aman and weapons systems officer Bob Houghton no longer had enough fuel to return to safe territory.
The airplane Bob Pardo and backseater Steve Wayne were flying wasn’t in much better shape: During the strike it also caught an anti-aircraft round and was leaking fuel, and the two weren’t even sure they could reach an airborne tanker to refuel for the flight back to their base in Thailand. “But I couldn’t see leaving a guy I’d just fought a battle with,” Pardo says, so he radioed Aman, “I’m gonna try to give you a push. Fly that thing as smooth as you’ve ever flown.”https://7d211f8dd61f24d1a9cfcdfd0909642c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Pardo’s initial plan was to snug the nose of his F-4 against the tail of Aman’s so he could use the thrust of his two General Electric J79 engines to propel both stricken airplanes to the Laotian jungle, where rescue was a safer option. Pardo told Aman to jettison his tail parachute, in order to open a good push point at the rear end of Aman’s fuselage. “But there was so much turbulence coming off his airplane that I couldn’t even get within 10 feet of him,” Pardo recalls.
So Pardo went to Plan B. He maneuvered under Aman’s Phantom and inched upward in the hope that he could get the other airplane over the border piggyback-style. “When I got about a foot from him, the nose of my airplane started trying to come up, up, up. I thought, This is not good because we could smash our canopies, which would be a problem if we had to eject, which it looked like we were going to have to do because we were obviously getting low on fuel too.”
Jeez, that’s unbelievable!
Wow. This doesn’t seem possible!
And the next day, it was back to the grind !
How about some Medals for these guys? Oh ,not Red Tails .
I didn’t know that Air Force F-4’s had tail hooks. I thought that was strictly for the Navy to land on aircraft carriers. As a former Navy plane captain on F-4’s all I can say is WOW!
And the brass gave him crap for losing his plane. Congressman Tower had to intervene 20 years later so that all concerned were awarded Silver Stars.
I have heard of that being done with an F 86 during Korea. The F4 pilot must have been several steps above spectacular.
He’s a good boy.
Paid attention to everything I taught him.
Real men ,with balls of steel, who loved this country to cities afraid of a bunch of Antifa pussies, letting them run roughshod.
Holy cow!
I can’t imagine today’s soy filled military personnel doing this.
Real men.
Actual bravery.
This would make a great movie.
If a non pc company got hold of it.
A large number of land-based fighters are also outfitted with tailhooks, which are intended for use in case of a brake/tire malfunctions, aborted takeoffs, or other emergencies. Land-based aircraft landing gear and tailhooks are typically not strong enough to absorb the impact of a carrier landing,[12] and some land-based tailhooks are held down with nitrogen pressure systems that must be recharged by ground personnel after actuation.
Chuckie had the same thought I did. Real men with balls and skills. I wish we had more like them now.
But where were their materniry flight suits?
Pregnant women are more desirable as pilots to reduce the rate of descent in such emergencies because they do not have balls with the density of neutron stars.
I sure hope we don’t have some sort of conflagration to send our finest in to fight.
The country would be completely nutless with what’s left over.
@geoff the aardvark – Although the F4 was originally made for the Navy, the AF borrowed a couple of them for evaluation and fell in love with them. In order to get them to the AF as quickly as possible, they were made as if they were Navy aircraft until modifications could be made for AF only aircraft. There are quite a lot of photos of F4 Phantoms with tailhooks.
Another story for faux president lieden to appropriate.
hillary, too. ^^^
And the public school teachers refuse to return to work because of a fake disease.
Not that they would ever use a story like this in their classroom, but this is the ultimate of doing your job.
The teachers that refuse to teach, even before the fake disease, can all go eff themselves.
Bravo gentlemen
All USAF Aircraft have Tailhooks…Both ends of the Runway have Arresting Cables..
got to watch one of Our F4-E Models do an Arrest at Nellis AFB…Pretty cool.
Don’t forget the Israeli F-15 after a Mid-air with an F-16 (lost His Right
Wing) and still Arrested at 200 Knots(any slower and the Plane would roll)
It tore the Hook off of the Aircraft…but slowed it enough to brake.
Oh, any mention of Robin Olds makes My Heart swell…Dude was a Badass
(Operation Bolo) Plus He had thee best Gunfighter Mustache in Military
History.
I remember seeing an old episode of JAG where Rabb did the same maneuver
with an F-14! Ain’t that sumpthin’?
@ Extirpates
In Korea…..1952……F-86……
Future Vietnam POW and Air Force Colonel Robinson “Robbie” Risner…..was the guy……
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/this-f-86-pilot-pushed-his-wingmans-crippled-sabre-for-60-miles-to-keep-him-out-of-enemy-hands/
The Blue Angels have nothing like this. Talk about precision flying in extremely close quarters to get out of this jam. I knew F-4 Phantoms were tough planes but not this tough. I am also biased as I was in a Navy F-4 Phantom fighter squadron (VF-114 Aardvarks) and they are still my favorite fighter jet.
No mention of how happy Earl & Bob were that that wasn’t John McCain back there….