Mind If I Borrow It?

The day an Air Force mechanic commandeered a North American F-86.

  • By Paul D. Mather
  • Air & Space magazine, November 2011
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Airman George Johnson (in a T-33 in late 1955) spent hundreds of hours maintaining Sabrejets and much less time flying one. Airman George Johnson (in a T-33 in late 1955) spent hundreds of hours maintaining Sabrejets and much less time flying one.

Courtesy George R. Johnson

Photo Gallery (1/3)

On his cruise, Johnson would have eyed his altimeter (lower left of large directional indicator in center) and attitude indicator (to its right).

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(Page 2 of 4)

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Before the evening shift’s work could be signed off on, the mechanics had to perform a functional check, to be followed the next morning by a pilot’s flight check. While one mechanic connected a ground power unit to the aircraft, Johnson gave the Sabre an external check, grabbed his headset and microphone from his toolbox, climbed into the cockpit, and started the engine. Normal procedures called for the aircraft to be taxied to a run-up area, a short concrete spur near the active runway, where the engine could be monitored for normal operation up to full power.

Donning his headset, Johnson called the control tower, manned by Airman First Class Theodore Davis Jr., who cleared him to taxi to the run-up area. A few minutes later, after the engine check, Johnson called again and asked for permission to use the runway for a high-speed taxi test—a common procedure after any work on the brakes or nosewheel. The F-86 had a history of problems in which the nosewheel shimmied, so the damping mechanism had to be carefully adjusted. Davis again granted clearance, and watched as Johnson taxied the Sabre to the active runway, 30L, which was seldom used at night.

“My intentions were still just to do a high-speed taxi,” Johnson recalled. “I never had a conscious intention to fly that airplane. The nose lifts off the runway at about 105 knots [120 mph]. As I approached 105, I could feel the nose getting light, and I thought I would just wait a few more seconds to see if I could feel the plane getting light on the main gear. The few seconds passed, and I just didn’t think I had enough room to stop. I wasn’t thinking about being in trouble. I was thinking about maintaining climb airspeed, and when I was in a definite climb, I retracted the landing gear. I was off and committed. There was no wind at all that night. The air was smooth as glass.” The time was 10:34 p.m.

Reaction on the ground was immediate. As the F-86 climbed northwest into the moonlit sky, Davis tried, unsuccessfully, to contact it. He then alerted the Officer of the Day, Captain Robert McCormick, who in turn notified other officers, including the base commander, Colonel Jerry Page, and the fire chief, Edward Anderson.

As all of them converged on the airfield, Johnson finally came on the radio, calmly announced that he had taken off, and asked what the tower thought he should do. McCormick, who by then had arrived in the tower, asked Johnson to orbit eight or 10 miles from the base and to avoid flying over residential areas. McCormick, who was an F-86 pilot, talked Johnson through the proper engine power adjustments to conserve fuel and to cease his climb and level the aircraft.

Johnson told me that while he was a bit apprehensive about his predicament, he was not afraid for his life. “I knew that airplane,” he said, “and I knew the numbers on various approach speeds because I knew the pilot’s handbook. I knew that intimately. Spent a lot of time studying that. I was as prepared as you could be without actually flying.

“The F-86 had one nasty characteristic. You could get into trouble on takeoff. If you lifted the nose too high at 105 [knots], then you get [too much] drag, and it wouldn’t accelerate out of it. You had to put the nose down to get the speed on up.

“I knew all about things like that, so I flew the airplane largely with trim. I knew all about over-controlling. I wasn’t gonna do aerobatics or anything like that. It was very stable. And it instantly obeyed where I told it I wanted to go. I just spent my time at 10,000 feet circling the base.”

Even as the powerful F-100 and other Century Series jets were carrying the U.S. Air Force to supersonic speeds in the 1950s, the North American F-86 Sabre was still a trusted fighter. Its reputation as a MiG killer, earned during the Korean War, made flying the Sabrejet a young airman’s dream. It wasn’t easy, especially considering the competition. Many F-86 pilots were World War II veterans with combat experience.

New Sabre pilots faced at least a year of training, including several hundred hours of classroom work and several hundred more of dual and solo flight time. After that came 15 hours in a cockpit simulator. During the student’s first flight in the single-seat fighter, an instructor flew on his wing, teaching via radio.

And then there was Airman First Class George R. Johnson. A 20-year-old mechanic at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona, Johnson skipped the preliminaries; on the evening of September 20, 1956, he took a Sabrejet up for a ride. Up to then, Johnson’s piloting experience amounted to two hours with an instructor in a Piper Cub.

I learned about Johnson from an article in the now-defunct Argosy magazine, published in February 1959. At the time, I was a senior at Iowa State University studying aeronautical engineering and in the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program. (I was commissioned in November 1959 and entered active duty the following January.) There were no quotes from Johnson in the Argosy story, and the piece did not say what happened to him after his adventure. I always wondered about him, and when I asked around in the rather large community of former F-86 pilots, I was surprised to find how little anyone knew about his exploit. After retiring from the Air Force, I decided to look him up.

Now 75, Johnson was amazed that anyone would still be interested in his long-ago flight. An intensely private man, he nonetheless agreed to meet me at a motel in Safford, Arizona, near his hometown, last November.

He grew up fascinated with airplanes. Johnson still remembered the bright yellow AT-6 Texan trainer that buzzed his family’s Pima home early in World War II. After his family moved to Los Angeles, he rode his bicycle to Inglewood to watch airplanes take off and land at the airport. At 17, with a letter of permission from his mother, the underage Johnson enlisted in the Air Force in January 1954. He got his first airplane ride on a chartered Convair 240 to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas for basic training. Having worked on cars in high school, Johnson had mechanical skills, and so was sent to jet engine school at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois. There, he accompanied pilots in the T-6, rode in the nose of a B-25, and in his spare time logged Cub flight time. Though Johnson dearly wanted to fly for the Air Force, he knew he never would; as a boy, he had stared at the sun during an eclipse and had slightly burned one retina, making it impossible for him to pass the physical for military pilots.

In October 1955, Johnson arrived at Williams, about 30 miles southeast of Phoenix. The base was just beginning to transition from a basic training site, where students flew the Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star jet trainer, to an advanced fighter training base stocked with F-86s. Assigned to the 3525th Periodic Maintenance Squadron as a T-33 mechanic, Johnson did hydraulic and electrical repairs, engine changes, flight control and system checks, and flight instrument calibrations. He learned how to start and run the engine, and how to taxi the aircraft.

Johnson was proficient enough to be reassigned to the Sabre early the next year. On September 20, he and several other mechanics were working the evening shift on the flightline. The day shift had done major maintenance on an F-86F, no. 52-5039, but the work had not been done correctly; as a result, one of the aircraft’s control cables became inoperative. Fixing it required that the aft section of the Sabre be pulled off, the cables realigned, and then the aft reinstalled before all wiring, cables, and tubing could be reconnected.

Before the evening shift’s work could be signed off on, the mechanics had to perform a functional check, to be followed the next morning by a pilot’s flight check. While one mechanic connected a ground power unit to the aircraft, Johnson gave the Sabre an external check, grabbed his headset and microphone from his toolbox, climbed into the cockpit, and started the engine. Normal procedures called for the aircraft to be taxied to a run-up area, a short concrete spur near the active runway, where the engine could be monitored for normal operation up to full power.

Donning his headset, Johnson called the control tower, manned by Airman First Class Theodore Davis Jr., who cleared him to taxi to the run-up area. A few minutes later, after the engine check, Johnson called again and asked for permission to use the runway for a high-speed taxi test—a common procedure after any work on the brakes or nosewheel. The F-86 had a history of problems in which the nosewheel shimmied, so the damping mechanism had to be carefully adjusted. Davis again granted clearance, and watched as Johnson taxied the Sabre to the active runway, 30L, which was seldom used at night.

“My intentions were still just to do a high-speed taxi,” Johnson recalled. “I never had a conscious intention to fly that airplane. The nose lifts off the runway at about 105 knots [120 mph]. As I approached 105, I could feel the nose getting light, and I thought I would just wait a few more seconds to see if I could feel the plane getting light on the main gear. The few seconds passed, and I just didn’t think I had enough room to stop. I wasn’t thinking about being in trouble. I was thinking about maintaining climb airspeed, and when I was in a definite climb, I retracted the landing gear. I was off and committed. There was no wind at all that night. The air was smooth as glass.” The time was 10:34 p.m.

Reaction on the ground was immediate. As the F-86 climbed northwest into the moonlit sky, Davis tried, unsuccessfully, to contact it. He then alerted the Officer of the Day, Captain Robert McCormick, who in turn notified other officers, including the base commander, Colonel Jerry Page, and the fire chief, Edward Anderson.

As all of them converged on the airfield, Johnson finally came on the radio, calmly announced that he had taken off, and asked what the tower thought he should do. McCormick, who by then had arrived in the tower, asked Johnson to orbit eight or 10 miles from the base and to avoid flying over residential areas. McCormick, who was an F-86 pilot, talked Johnson through the proper engine power adjustments to conserve fuel and to cease his climb and level the aircraft.

Johnson told me that while he was a bit apprehensive about his predicament, he was not afraid for his life. “I knew that airplane,” he said, “and I knew the numbers on various approach speeds because I knew the pilot’s handbook. I knew that intimately. Spent a lot of time studying that. I was as prepared as you could be without actually flying.

“The F-86 had one nasty characteristic. You could get into trouble on takeoff. If you lifted the nose too high at 105 [knots], then you get [too much] drag, and it wouldn’t accelerate out of it. You had to put the nose down to get the speed on up.

“I knew all about things like that, so I flew the airplane largely with trim. I knew all about over-controlling. I wasn’t gonna do aerobatics or anything like that. It was very stable. And it instantly obeyed where I told it I wanted to go. I just spent my time at 10,000 feet circling the base.”

Though Johnson wasn’t worried, the men on the ground were. For one thing, Johnson had no parachute. His only hope, base officials felt, was to make a survivable landing with their help. “There was quite a lot of [radio] chat back and forth,” Johnson recalled. “Everything got pretty well stabilized with me at slow cruise and orbiting the base. I could see everything moving on the taxiways and runways. I don’t recall being frightened, although I was being very careful with the controls.”

Johnson asked the tower to contact Second Lieutenant George Madison to come and fly on his wing. Madison, an F-86 check pilot, had until recently been Johnson’s supervisor, and Johnson respected and trusted him. One of the senior maintenance officers, Captain Linden Kelly, also a pilot, rousted Madison from bed and briefed him on the situation. Madison quickly dressed, grabbed his flight gear, helmet, and parachute, and rushed to the flightline, where a crew had readied an F-86. Madison asked Kelly to accompany him in another F-86. Within minutes, both were airborne.

“The F-86F is very stable in smooth air and the night was smooth,” Madison told me via e-mail (he wouldn’t say where he lived). “I knew that if we could get him in a controlled descent of about 500 feet per minute at around 140 knots [161 mph] and keep him lined up with the runway, there was a chance he might survive. I told George to just relax when the aircraft smacked the runway and keep it straight. All the time I was hoping the aircraft would not bounce or porpoise. I told George to forget about the brakes and let the barrier stop the aircraft.”

Said Johnson: “When we turned to final approach, they [Madison and Kelly] had me lined up with the runway very nicely. On their instructions, I had extended the speed brakes and landing gear, and put the wing flaps down. Madison had me back off the throttle at just the right time, and I touched down very smoothly, right on the runway centerline. I saw both of them accelerate and begin climbing away. One of them said ‘Good boy’ as I touched down.”

Even though he had come in faster than normal touchdown speed, Johnson had lots of experience in braking and steering the aircraft. Still, he took Madison’s advice and let the Sabre roll the length of the runway and plow into the cable barrier.

“It seemed to me that I was still very fast and not at all sure about getting stopped. I stayed off the brakes and was still rolling quite fast as I hit the barrier target right in the middle. The barrier engaged very smoothly and quickly slowed me down to a stop.”

Johnson opened the canopy and shut down the avionics and navigation lights. Anderson, the fire chief, ran over, hopped up on a wing, and leaned into the cockpit, where Johnson was cleaning things up. “This bird really can fly by itself,” Johnson told Anderson in amazement, adding, “It’s all over now but the shouting.”

And it was. Johnson had flown an F-86 for one hour and two minutes. For his adventure, he was whisked off to the base hospital, given a blood test (presumably to check for drugs and alcohol), and confined for the night in a guarded room.

The next morning, Page, the base commander, came in and opened the conversation with “Well, what do we do now?” Johnson had expected a tongue-lashing, but found the colonel to be a kind man. Page told Johnson that he had put on quite a show of flying skill, and under other circumstances Page might even have considered recommending him for pilot training. However, Page said, a court-martial was inevitable. If he were to show leniency, he told Johnson, “I would have half of my mechanics trying the same damn fool stunt tomorrow.”

Johnson’s general court-martial was held on March 26, 1957. The mechanic faced three charges: stealing an F-86F (valued at $217,427), causing $195.64 worth of damage to the aircraft when he hit the barrier upon landing, and flying the aircraft without proper flight orders or clearance. The trial lasted a day, and a transcript shows that members of the court were keenly interested in whether Johnson had seemed distraught or had hinted that he intended to fly the aircraft. Witnesses who spoke with him on the radio that night, and those who listened in, were unanimous: He seemed calm and completely in control of the situation.

Ultimately, the court agreed that Johnson had not intended to steal the Sabre. He was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge: wrongful appropriation. He was found guilty on the second charge of damaging the aircraft but was acquitted on the third on the grounds that the regulation applied only to Air Force pilots.

The court sentenced him to six months confinement at hard labor, which reduced his rank to Airman Basic, plus he had to forfeit $65 a month for six months. But Johnson was not discharged. He served his time in the jail at Williams, and looks back on his imprisonment as not at all depressing. Daily he was allowed outside to serve on various work details, such as mowing grass. His cell door was seldom locked, and he spent many evenings playing cards with the guards. For good behavior, he was freed after five months.

The Air Force put Johnson back to work in a different maintenance squadron, and at a desk, rather than on the flightline. Given charge of the technical and maintenance library, he soon excelled and began to earn back his rank. Johnson served another two years at Williams until the base began a transition to training pilots in the new F-100 Super Sabre. In early 1960, he was transferred to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, and assigned to the headquarters of the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing. Following his overseas tour, Johnson opted not to re-enlist, and in late 1961 he was released from active duty as an Airman Second Class (equivalent to today’s Airman First Class or E-3).

Johnson went on to work in the computer industry as a customer engineering and service representative. He eventually earned his pilot’s license, flew cropdusters, and for a time owned a Mooney M20 four-seat airplane. He did not consider his Sabrejet flight a big event in his life. “It was kind of a dumb thing to do, but I got away with it,” he told me. “Had a guardian angel on my shoulder that night.”

When the F-86 was rolling out to U.S. bases in the 1950s, North American Aviation dispatched its legendary test pilot, Bob Hoover, to show the fighter’s safe handling and flying capabilities to Air Force pilots all over the world. Hoover’s demonstrations—which included barrel rolls immediately after takeoff—were meant to allay concerns about the stability of the new swept-wing aircraft at low speeds, and to reassure pilots of the ease of flying the Sabre. Too late came Airman Johnson and his amazing one-hour flight to provide the ultimate proof.

Paul D. Mather is a lifelong self-admitted aviation nut who has never read or heard an uninteresting airplane story.


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Comments (24)

This is an amazing story of a F-86. This aircraft has a place our family history. My Aunt's husband, who worked for NORTH american Aircraft Co. as an electrician. The day of the accident, they were working on this new aircraft's electrical system (no intentions of even taxiing or flying this new aircraft).The workers had the engine revved at a high speed for testing only. Then the most dreadful thing happened. For some reason this employee of N>A> Aircaft Co. decided to go to the other side of the aircaft. As he walked in front of the aircraft with its engine revved at a high speed, he was sucked head first into the air intake, causing his death.

Posted by Jack Northrop on September 18,2011 | 10:32 PM

I love this story about my favorite airplane. Having over 1200 hours of F-86 time, I readily agree it is the most honest flying airplane of my 55 years of piloting everything from Cubs to SR-71s and Boeing 767s.
Well done, Airman Johnson!

Posted by George Andre on September 21,2011 | 01:49 PM

Great story - - but the Air Force messed up, should have sent him to flight school immediately- - -what a loss to
the service----BB

old navy combat pilot from WW2- -ain't many of us left!!
started flying at age 17- - - -now 89, still miss it every day.

Posted by Bill Brannen, Sr. on September 22,2011 | 03:59 AM

The same story happened at MCAS El Toro in the 1980s. An enlisted Marine took an A-4 for a ride.

Posted by ron kent on September 22,2011 | 01:28 PM

Dad flew F-51's in Korea. Transition time from the F-51 to the F-86 was 3 weeks. Less if they needed a body in the cockpit. They were trained in Japan and they flew back in combat.

Posted by Frank on September 29,2011 | 04:27 PM

The F-86 Sabre was a magnificent aircraft Even as late as 1965 it was faster and more powerful than anything that the Indian Air Force had. The Pakistanis flew F-86s against the Indians in their 1965 war while the Indians flew Gnats - primarily a trainer but later a very small fighter. The Indians were grossly under prepared for an air war with Pakistan because it was felt that Pakistan was merely trying to occupy territory in the Thar desert. But Flying Officers Trevor and Denzil Keelor (later both became Air Marshals) led the Indian Gnat fighter squadrons to put up a show that had the Pakistanis wondering which was the better aircraft. The Air war was inconclusive but to the credit of the the Indians and their tiny Gnats, the F-86 did not win it.

Posted by Sharad Bailur on September 29,2011 | 09:06 PM

I joined the Pakistan Air Force in 1957 and got my wings in 1959. In 1960 I was a fully operational Fighter Pilot flying, what came be known, "The last of The Real Fighters." How true.I loved the F-86 and flew it for over 2,000hrs., both, in peace and combat. I remember fearing about this story, but reading about it in detail was a thrill. The 86 that Airman Johnson had his adventure on, was a f-86-40 or F-86-35?

Just read Sharad Bailur's account. I don't know if he is/was a fighter pilot. What is the point of making up stories? The readers, surely, are highly experienced fighter pilots with a bagful of peace time and combat experience and they can't be fooled. The Hunter was far superior to the F-86. It was faster, guns were of higher cliber and in close combat it could use wing flaps to achieve a much smaller radius of turn than the 86. The Hunter pilots did not have enough experience to handle it. The IAF was using DFLS (RAF) tactics which were ineffective whereas as PAF was following Nellis phiosophy with our own inputs incorporated. The first airfield strik strike on Sargodha Air Base was lead by Trevor Kelor with 6 Hunters causing no damage. The strike was again carried out in the same fashion but with a different result that changed the course of Air War in that conflict. Out of 6 attacking fighters, 5 were shot down during exit. Thereafter, no resistance was ever met by the PAF. Documented history by writers, unbiased, is available in abundance. No offence meant, let us be factual.

Posted by Ali Kazim on October 9,2011 | 04:34 AM

sorry, but the IAF suffered huge losses in the 1965 war...this is a documented fact...and even in 1971, Gen Chuck Yeager verified that the PAF was still superior in the kill ratio...
cheers...just trivia !!!

Posted by Pervez Iqbal on October 9,2011 | 08:49 AM

I was stationed aboard an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean...(leaving out date and carrier on purpose). We were cutting circles, and an announcement came over the 1MC of a group of allied aircraft that were gonna fly around the ship. They looked like a ragtag group of fighters out of Yemen. Well, one broke off from the group and it was a Sabre. He started showing off and climbed through the ceiling, I lost him in the clouds. Mind you, I was a Navy Photo Mate, and when I first heard the announcement I was walking through the hanger bay, so I ran down to the photo lab and grabbed a ready camera and ran to the tower. 010 level. When this Sabre climbed and disappeared in the clouds, I was scanning the sky to try to spot him again. I finally found him, about 30 ft above the waves heading directly for the ship. I was looking down at him, and he was below flight deck level. I started firing off film as fast as I could. When the show was over I ran the film to CVIC, and my friend ran it through the EH-38 processor for me. A couple hours later I got a call from my friend. He said the captain classified it. I'll just let you guess why it was classified. I did get one copy of the bird, with nothing but water surrounding it. Who ever was flying her, sure had fun showing off for our ship, and had probably never been given that privilege again.

Posted by Mark Parton on October 10,2011 | 02:29 AM

Since this is a story involving the F-86 (presumably the F-86F that I became a fighter pilot in, because I heard a similar story at Willie when I was checking out in it), why is the picture of a T-33A? (indistinguisable externally from the T-33B that I flew while on my Navy Exchange tour). I would expect that pictures from a purportedly "authoratative" source would support the story. Just my nit-picking $0.02 worth. EDITORS' REPLY: The photograph is there to show the man who flew the F-86, not the F-86 itself.

Posted by Shad Dvorchak on October 17,2011 | 10:44 PM

The aircraft pictured is not an F-86 it is a T-33 trainer aircraft. EDITORS' REPLY: It's there to show the man who flew the F-86.

Posted by Marlin Scott on October 18,2011 | 08:55 PM

Well said, Sir Ali Kazim and Pervaiz Iqbal. I too flew the F 86 during the 1971 Indo - Pak war in est while East Pakistan. Despite being outnumbered 1:10 I suppose, only 3 F 86 were shot down by the IAF. IAF included Hunter, SU 7 and MIG 21.

Posted by Mahmood Gul on October 23,2011 | 12:14 PM

A C-130 crew chief cranked up a C-130 at Mildenhall AB in England, taxied to the runway and took off. An airplane that normally requires a minimum of pilot, copilot, and flight engineer! He was distraught over his marriage. When everyone realized what had happened, and the plane was heading for mainland Europe, they scrambled F-100s out of Lakenheath and shot him down over the English Channel. A sad ending but another example of how easy it is to fly an airplane. After this incident the military increased security measures astronomically so friend or foe couldn't do it again.

Posted by W.E. Nelson on November 8,2011 | 02:45 PM

I was there ...I was burning in brakes on a T-28 trainer. As I turned the aircraft to taxi back to the parking area, Johnson waved to me as he passed the me and turned into the active runway. I watched Johnson advance the throttles to take off speed and then when release the brakes...I was in awe as the aircraft lifted off...Memories of Willy air Patch!

Posted by Joseph Jablonka on November 13,2011 | 12:32 PM

This story takes me back to my days at Navy VR(F)-31. We had a plane captain at NAS North Island take a P2V Neptune out for a high power run, and proceed to take off. He landed at Shreveport, LA, hours later. The only damage was to the nose wheel because he was unable to stop on the runway. This was another aircraft that needed a pilot, co-pilot and a flight engineer.

Posted by C. Carlson on November 29,2011 | 09:52 PM

This story brings back many wonderful memories of my days in the USAF. I worked on a specially modified B-66 for two years out of Edwards AFB, detached to a Navy Base. I flew 55 hours in that plane and some wild rides took place that I still remember. Nosed over at 45,000 feet and hitting .98 Mach, then at 10,000 feet to feel the pilot pull back on the yoke and pull 6 Gs, then roll that bird out in a climb. What a ride!
I shipped out to RAF Alconbury, in England to work on the RF-4Cs. I can still remember the feelings of doing something like this as I ran engines on the Phantom. The feeling of power when I hit 100% was exciting. I never did what my heart would have loved to do but I still get excited when I smell jet fuel or see the Phantom fly. I would not take anything for my four years in the Air Force!

Posted by Ike Riddle on December 2,2011 | 10:13 AM

Ohh...my lovely Saber F-86...how much I loved you and to read that you were doing so wonderfully against the Mig-15s and 17s during the Korean War. I dreamed of you until finally my cousin built me a model one in 1:48, or close to it. Then years later after the Thunderbird team had switched to the F-100 and saw them at an Air Show in this Central American country, I could still see some heritage from you. Also fell in love with the Super Saber.
The last time I saw you my darling was the day the very first Boeing 747 made its first test flight at Everett, Washington and you were the chase plane, and you were as beautiful as ever.

Posted by Herbert Erdmenger on December 4,2011 | 04:46 PM

What a hoot! All you need is one chest swelled up and a pair of nostrils flared and a pilot will tell stories all day. Great exchange!

Posted by CLAY THOMASSON on December 5,2011 | 12:20 PM

Takes me back to Japan and flying the F-86F. I wonder if anyone knew the 86 also carried a nuclear weapon. Kill area about one mile and was to be fliped into a flight of Russian bombers.

Posted by Kimoyle on December 18,2011 | 07:59 PM

I worked on the F-86F the first 4 years in the AF. Two years at Chitose AB Japan where we could high speed taxi even as an A2c 5 level. I was assigned to Willie in Apr 57 and heard all about this story and why we could not taxi the aircraft. I was a jet mech.

Posted by Charles Jacobs on January 8,2012 | 12:36 PM

I remember reading about the incident in the mid 50's, when I was on my first hitch. Ironically, I was assigned to Williams AFB in 1971, and was an Air Traffic Controller in the GCA and control Tower.

Posted by SCOPEDOPE on January 12,2012 | 03:03 PM

As any pilot will tell you, takeoffs are easy--just keep the aircraft rolling straight down the runway while it is accelerating and then just lift the nose wheel at the right speed and the airplane will do the rest.




Making a good landing is the real trick, as landings can be much more challenging.

Posted by Southron Sanders on March 14,2012 | 01:37 PM

Hoping you will share this with the author, Paul.D.Mather. I am searching for information on my MIA uncle, LC James D LaHaye shot down in the mid60s Flew on the Kittyhawk. Please consider having Paul email me. Thank you Jkellner2 [at] sbcglobal [dot] net

Posted by marcia LaHaye Kellner on June 3,2012 | 08:28 AM

Wasn't it at about that same time that an enlisted ground crew took a B-45 from an air base in England?

Posted by Michael Holt on April 8,2013 | 04:20 PM

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