F-89 rockets fail to stop Hellcat

[Paul Hirose]

This crazy incident involved an F6F target drone which went haywire
back in 1956. After taking off from Pt. Mugu on the California coast
the Hellcat's radio control manfunctioned and it headed inland. F-89s
fired a couple hundred 2.75 inch rockets at it with no effect. On
the drone, that is. They did "shoot down" a station wagon in Palmdale
and inflict some other friendly fire damage on the ground. Nobody was
hurt.

The drone eventually crashed harmlessly after running out of fuel.

http://www.avpress.com/n/susty1.hts

--

Paul Hirose >
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[Scott Ferrin]

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 03:30:54 GMT, Paul Hirose
> wrote:

>This crazy incident involved an F6F target drone which went haywire
>back in 1956. After taking off from Pt. Mugu on the California coast
>the Hellcat's radio control manfunctioned and it headed inland. F-89s
>fired a couple hundred 2.75 inch rockets at it with no effect. On
>the drone, that is. They did "shoot down" a station wagon in Palmdale
>and inflict some other friendly fire damage on the ground. Nobody was
>hurt.
>
>The drone eventually crashed harmlessly after running out of fuel.
>
>http://www.avpress.com/n/susty1.hts



IIRC the F-89 only carried 104 (52 in each wingtip pod). I remember
reading of one test when they fired of all 104 in one salvo. 103 of
the rockets went where they were aimed and one went off into lala
land. They scored 103 misses and one direct hit :-)