vincent p. norris wrote:

On 11 Jul 2003 22:59:25 GMT, ost (Ditch) wrote:

What about the April 4, 1963 dead-stick landing of an F-8 Crusader flown by Stu
Harrison?

Could you tell us more about that?

VF-62 was operating the F-8E while all & sundry were discovering
that the pump into the fuel feed tank would sometimes inexplicably
*reverse* and start pumping fuel back out to the other eight fuel
tanks in the airplane. Harrison and Gillcrist had launched from
Shangri La on "a routine air intercept training mission" and were
thirty miles out when things started going backwards in the fueling
system.

Making their way back, Gillcrist requested an emergency pull
forward and soon had a ready deck. They entered the cone at 175 knots
with idle power, and Gillcrist thinking they were never going to drain
45 knots before Harrison hit the deck. "He's going to rip the tail
right off the airplane." Passing 500 feet, he was about to suggest
that Harrison pull up and get in shape to eject, when Harrison's jet
abruptly dropped below and behind.

He looked back and saw Harrison's jet sitting on the deck and
could not understand how the guy had possibly reeled it all in: he'd
gone from the top of the cone and thirty knots fast, to the one wire.

The standing order was to keep the engine running on any F-8E
that had been recovered with the feed tank goof, so that technicians
could take a look at the thing in action and try to sort it out.
Well, the flight deck director was signalling the taxi forward, but
Harrison's airplane just sat there (while Gillcrist was going around).
The VF-62 CO had geared up and run out on the deck to personally
supervise investigation of the feed tank goof, and was circling two
fingers to Harrison to keep it running. What happened was that
Harrison flipped 'em both the bird and climbed out of the jet right
there where it sat.

The CO promptly went nuts, of course, and told Harrison that he
was in hack for the rest of the cruise.

That's when Harrison told him, "Goddamn it, Skipper, the reason
why I didn't keep the engine running was because the son of a bitch
quit while I was in the groove!"

He'd come over the ramp with one hand gingerly adding
back-pressure on the stick and the other hand on the ejection
handle... which was cool because there was no point in paying
attention to the throttle.

He must've done it all just exactly right.


That's how Gillcrist describes it in his book.


Billy

http://www.two--four.net/weblog.php