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Second Quarter (Apr - Jun) 2011
Volume 24, Number 2
The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
Editorial
A
viation has come an incredibly
long way since Orville Wright’s
first successful controlled, powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. Perhaps you
attended our 100th anniversary celebration of that event. If you did, you’ll recall
the yellow line on the Museum floor (at
120 feet long, it didn’t even reach across
the width of the hangar) marking the distance of that first flight. You’ll also remember that our Chief Pilot, the late Jack
Bell, took off in the world’s oldest flying
Piper Cub, a 1937 model, at exactly 8:35
that morning—100 years to the minute
after Orville’s triumphant flight.
The year 2011 marks another centennial anniversary—that of Naval aviation.
In March 1911, the U.S. Congress authorized $25,000 to the Navy for “…experimental work in the development of aviation for Naval purposes.” The Navy ordered two Curtiss A-1 biplanes on May 8,
1911, and Naval aviation was born.
We celebrate the anniversary with
this special Navy issue of Plane Talk. In
our tradition of covering offbeat, unusual
aircraft, we present the story of possibly
the most unorthodox fighter ever to serve
in the Fleet—Vought’s F7U Cutlass. We
also feature personal reminiscences from
two good friends of the Museum. Gene
Dawson reviews his 25-year flying career
in the Marine Corps, and Ted McClard
describes what it was really like to land a
high-performance Vought F8U Crusader
on the heaving deck of an aircraft carrier.
Happy Anniversary to Naval aviation. We hope you enjoy this issue. 
Featured Aircraft
T
he first decade or so after the end
of World War II was a fascinating and pivotal period in aviation
history. Early in 1945, as American and
British troops fought the last remnants of
Hitler’s “Thousand-Year Reich,” teams
of technical experts following closely in
their wake “liberated” information on advanced German aircraft, missiles and
weapons. Despite around-the-clock Allied aerial bombing, the Germans had developed many innovative projects that
were years ahead of anything the Allies
had. The scientific teams shipped train-
 The U.S. Navy’s Chance Vought Cutlass
was one of the most unusual aircraft ever to
serve in the Fleet. This F7U-3M version was
the Navy’s first missile-armed fighter, with
four Sperry Sparrow I radar-guided missiles
carried on underwing pylons. The Cutlass
had a short and troubled operational career.
Inside This Issue
Editorial ......................................1
Featured Aircraft ........................1
From the Director .......................2
A Career in Naval Aviation .........5
The Crusader and the Carrier ....6
Membership Application .............7
Featured Aircraft (Continued on Page 2)
1
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
From the Director
I
hate to sound like a one-note song,
but let me again mention how important volunteers are to War Eagles
Air Museum. You’d be right if you think
I harp on this pretty often in these columns, but there’s a good reason for it—
we just can’t operate the way we need to
without the support of volunteers.
In the 20+ years since we opened,
our roll of active volunteers has declined
dramatically, for several reasons. In the
early days, we put on monthly “mini-airshows” with our P-40, TF-51, Fieseler
Storch and other aircraft. They drew big
crowds and, more importantly, big numbers of volunteers. After rising insurance
costs forced us to stop the airshows, volunteers lost the incentive of seeing our
aircraft fly, and the opportunity to ride
along, so quite a few stopped coming out.
Too, we’re all aging and can no longer
perform the physical tasks that we used
to, such as jumping up on airplane wings
to clean canopies, hauling heavy display
cases around or what have you. And everyone is busy today, with families and
travel and medical issues and so on.
But the fact remains that we vitally
need volunteers. We have a lot of stalled
projects of many kinds that we simply
can’t get around to with our limited staff.
More volunteers would make a big difference in what we can get done. If you
have any time, interests or skills, please
come out and volunteer at War Eagles
Air Museum. We can sure use the help!
Skip Trammell 
Plane Talk
Published quarterly by:
War Eagles Air Museum
8012 Airport Road
Santa Teresa, New Mexico 88008
(575) 589-2000
Author/Executive Editor: Terry Sunday
Senior Associate Editor: Frank Harrison
Associate Editor:
Kathy Sunday
mail@war-eagles-air-museum.com
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Second Quarter 2011
Featured Aircraft (Continued from page 1)
loads of documents, technical data, research reports and hardware back to the
States. The effects that this bonanza had
on the post-War American aviation industry were immediate and dramatic. For
example, in June 1945, engineers at the
Boeing Aircraft Company were designing the aircraft later known as the B-47
Stratojet. The design featured a straight
wing, as conventional wisdom of the day
dictated. By September, Boeing had received and incorporated German wind
tunnel data on swept wings. The rest is
history—the B-47’s performance rivaled
that of the fastest contemporary fighters,
and the swept wing became an iconic design hallmark of the Jet Age.
Another aircraft that benefited from
German research was not nearly as successful as the B-47, perhaps because it
was too innovative for the technology of
the day1. The combination of afterburning turbojet engines, a swept wing and
the lack of a conventional tail proved to
be a little too much for the first aircraft
that incorporated all of these radical features—Chance Vought’s F7U Cutlass.
Early in 1945, having impressively
shown the value of its aircraft carriers in
the Pacific, the U.S. Navy sought bids for
a new high-performance jet fighter. Curtiss-Wright, Douglas, Grumman, Martin,
North American and Vought offered a total of 12 designs. A year later, the Navy
chose Vought’s V-346 design as the winner. On June 25, 1946, Vought received a
contract for three prototype XF7U-1s. At
about the same time, the Navy was also
procuring three other aircraft to bolster
its lineup of carrier-based fighters: McDonnell’s F2H Banshee, Grumman’s
F9F Panther and Douglas’ F3D Skynight.
These three aircraft were orthodox, conventional designs. The Cutlass definitely
could not be called “conventional.”
1 Some sources dispute the German connection, and
it is true that much of Vought’s design was laid out
before German research data became available. However, the F7U bears an uncanny resemblance to the
Messerschmitt Me.163B Komet rocket-powered interceptor and other German designs. It seems clear
that Vought used at least some captured German data
to lay out what became the F7U Cutlass.
2
 The first XF7U-1 sits on the ramp at
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, on December 3, 1948. The aircraft in the
far distance on the left side of the picture is a
North American F-82 Twin Mustang.
Late in 1948, Vought showed reporters the XF7U-1 at its factory in Stratford,
Connecticut. The bold, unusual design so
stunned the normally staid aviation writers that they had a hard time describing
it. Terms such as “bat-like,” “dart-like,”
“praying mantis” and “giant arrowhead”
appeared in the trade journals. Sitting on
the ramp, its needle nose angled nine degrees into the air as though anticipating
takeoff, the Cutlass looked like a strange
craft from a science fiction movie. The
broad-chord folding wing had a leadingedge sweep of 35 degrees, and was split
by two swept-back vertical tail surfaces.
On the wing’s trailing edge were surfaces
that Vought engineers called “ailevators”
(today known as “elevons”), that served
as both ailerons for roll control and elevator for pitch control. The slim, graceful
fuselage housed two 3,000-pound-thrust
axial-flow Westinghouse J34-WE-32 turbojet engines, fed by air intakes in the
wing roots. Since the performance of early jet engines was anemic, Vought’s designers added afterburners, which gave
each engine 4,200 pounds of thrust. The
Cutlass thus had the distinction of being
the first American aircraft designed from
the outset to use afterburners.
Shipped by barge to the Naval Air
Test Center at Patuxent (“Pax”) River,
Maryland, the first XF7U-1 took to the
air on September 29, 1948 with Vought
test pilot Robert Baker at the controls. Its
high angle-of-attack on takeoff alarmed
some observers, but, once it got into the
air, the Cutlass performed well. That was
fortunate (and somewhat unusual in those
Second Quarter 2011
pre-computer-simulation days), because
on July 29, 1948, the Navy, impressed
with the aircraft’s potential even before it
first flew, had ordered 14 production
F7U-1s, which Vought would build at its
new factory in Grand Prairie, Texas. This
improved version featured enlarged vertical tails, redesigned landing gear for an
even higher angle of attack on takeoff,
and provisions for external fuel tanks.
The fates of the prototype XF7U-1s
did not bode well for the future. All three
crashed within two years. Test pilot Paul
Thayer (who later became President of
Vought and a Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration) survived the crash of the first prototype at
Ardmore Army Air Force base in Oklahoma, when a rudder problem caused the
aircraft to roll and yaw uncontrollably on
takeoff and sent it cartwheeling down the
runway. Thayer was not hurt, but he later
suffered minor injuries when he ejected
from the third prototype at Pax River on
July 7, 1950, after an engine caught fire
during an air show demonstration. Earlier, on March 15, 1949, test pilot William
Millar took the second prototype aloft
from Pax River. The airplane vanished in
a cloud bank 7,000 feet over Chesapeake
Bay. Small pieces of the Cutlass washed
ashore a month later, but Millar’s body
was never recovered and the cause of the
crash remains unknown.
The first production F7U-1 off the
assembly line flew at Grand Prairie on
March 1, 1950. Westinghouse had had
problems with the engines, so the first of
these Cutlasses used non-afterburning
Vought F7U-3M Cutlass
General Characteristics
Powerplants
Two 4,600-pound-thrust
Westinghouse J46-WE8A afterburning turbojets
Maximum speed
680 miles per hour
Service Ceiling
40,000 feet
Length
44 feet 3 inches
Wingspan
38 feet 8 inches
Range
660 miles
Weight (empty)
18,210 pounds
Weight (max.)
31,642 pounds
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
J34s, along with 1,245 pounds of ballast
to simulate the weight and balance of the
specified engines. Two of the 14 crashed
during test flights at the Vought factory,
on July 6 and September 28, 1950. The
Blue Angels, the Navy’s flight demonstration team, briefly flew two F7U-1s in
solo performances until parts shortages
grounded them. The remaining 10 flew
carrier suitability tests, from June 24,
1950, until August 14, 1951. The results
were not auspicious. The Navy found the
airplane suitable for catapult launchings,
but not for arrested landings, mainly because of poor visibility and unacceptable
wave-off characteristics. No F7U-1s ever
saw service with operational squadrons.
But not to worry—one of the adages
of the aerospace business is, “We’ll make
our money on upgrades.” Vought had a
couple of options up its corporate sleeve.
Even before the F7U-1 first flew, it was
apparent that it had major shortcomings.
Thus, on November 1, 1948, Vought had
proposed the F7U-2, a relatively cheap
upgrade. The Navy bit and ordered 88 of
them. But engine development problems
persisted, and no F7U-2s were ever built.
However, at the same time, Vought had
proposed the F7U-3, which was essentially a brand new aircraft. The configuration remained the same, but the new Cutlass was bigger, heavier, stronger, thicker
and deeper, and had much more powerful
engines. The cockpit was higher, to give
the pilot a better view when he landed at
the Cutlass’ very high angle of attack of
20 degrees2. Vought changed just about
everything, including adding more than
100 new access doors to make servicing
and maintenance easier. On August 21,
1950, the Navy ordered 28 of them. The
first one flew on December 12, 1951.
Engine delivery problems continued,
however. The first 16 F7U-3s had Allison J35-A-29 non-afterburning turbojets
rather than Westinghouse J46-WE-8As
with afterburners. Even though this lot
was still very underpowered, and did not
represent the final production configuration, the Navy chose to use the Number 4
2 The raised cockpit in the first 16 F7U-3s still was
not high enough for good landing visibility, so it was
raised even further on later aircraft, giving the Cutlass its distinctive “hunchbacked” appearance.
3
F7U-3 for carrier suitability tests. The results were inconclusive, but did not dissuade the Navy from pinning high hopes
on the aircraft whenever the proper engines were available. The ongoing Korean War, in which the Navy was rapidly
becoming more involved, stoked the service’s continued interest in the Cutlass.
In mock combat, the Cutlass outperformed other contemporary Navy jets
such as the Grumman F9F-6 Cougar and
the North American FJ-2 Fury. Even
with the substitute J35 engines, an early
F7U-3 impressed Navy brass with a catapult launch carrying full internal fuel and
5,500 pounds of external stores. On a test
flight on November 1, 1952, a Cutlass
dropped two bombs while diving at Mach
1.01 in what was probably the first supersonic weapon drop in history. These accomplishments led the Navy to press on
strongly with F7U-3 development, and to
order a total of 180 for squadron service
for delivery through 1955.
By June 1954, F7U-3s began reaching their Navy squadrons, starting with
Featured Aircraft (Continued on page 4)
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
opment began in 1947,
and the first successful
intercept took place in
December 1952. With
a solid-fuel rocket motor, a 60-pound warhead and a range of 13
miles, Sparrow I suffered from problems
inherent in its beamriding guidance system, which required
the pilot of the attacking aircraft first to visually identify the target, and then to illuminate it with radar dur This striking image shows three brand-new F7U-3s in flight, ing the missile’s entire
probably near the Vought factory in Grand Prairie, Texas. The ser- flight. The Navy only
ial number on the nearest aircraft identifies it as one of a produc- bought 2,000 Sparrow
tion batch of 64 delivered to the Navy in 1953.
Is before focusing on
missiles that could
home on targets autonomously, such as
Featured Aircraft (Continued from page 3)
later Sparrow models and the SidewindVF-81 and VF-83 in the Atlantic fleet
er. The first production F7U-3M, of
and VF-122 and VF-124 in the Pacific.
which the Navy ordered 98, flew on July
They eventually equipped 13 squadrons.
12, 1954. They entered fleet squadron
The Marine Corps received just one, to
service from 1955 through 1957. On
test its high-speed mine-laying capabiliMarch 12, 1956 VA-83, equipped with
ties. Modifications continued throughout
F7U-3Ms and Sparrow Is, departed Northe Cutlass’ service life, but did not realfolk aboard the USS Intrepid for the
ly fix its undesirable characteristics. For
Mediterranean, becoming the first operaexample, under certain conditions, the aftional squadron and the first Naval airterburners could suck fuel from the cencraft type to be armed with missiles.
tral transfer tank so fast that the engines
The third type of Cutlass was the
could flame-out just after take-off even
F7U-3P photo-reconnaissance version,
with full wing tanks. Although it was
which had all of its radar and armament
stable at high speeds, the Cutlass’ spin
behavior was vicious. It was built like a
locomotive, with great structural strength
and a limit load factor of 12 Gs, but it
still required careful handling in maneuvers. The Navy was thus forced to assign
the aircraft only to well-trained units with
highly experienced pilots.
The F7U-3 was the most numerous
of three Cutlass variants. Another version, the F7U-3M, resulted from ongoing
efforts to improve the aircraft and its capabilities in those days of rapidly advancing weapon system technologies. The -M
 An F7U-3 of Naval air squadron VA-83
version was a standard F7U-3 with four
launches from a catapult on the aircraft carexternal-stores pylons. Each pylon could
rier USS Forrestal, while another waits its
carry a Sperry AAM-N-2 Sparrow I radar
turn, in this 1956 photo by Robert L. Lawson
(used without permission).
guided air-to-air missile. Sparrow devel-
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
4
Second Quarter 2011
 Anyone who doesn’t think a Cutlass had
an exceptionally high angle of attack when
landing need only consider this 1952 photo...
provisions deleted and a 25-inch nose extension added to house five cameras that
could take vertical and oblique ground
photographs. A flare-ejection system carrying 40 photoflash cartridges was added
behind the cockpit, in place of the guns,
for night photography. The Navy ordered
12 F7U-3Ps in February 1951. The first
one flew on July 1, 1954, and deliveries
took place in 1955 and 1956. Some remained in service until 1959. However,
they never took part in operational missions, being based at Pax River and used
only for evaluation and testing. One of
their problems was that the cameras were
hard to load, unload and service because
the nose was so high above the ground.
The Cutlass, one of the most innovative aircraft ever placed in service, had
neither a long nor a distinguished Navy
career. Although it was extremely potent,
rugged, maneuverable and adaptable, it
never got adequate engines. Some pilots
called it the “Gutless.” Requiring great
skill at the controls, it was easy to stall
and hard to land. About a quarter of them
crashed, leading to the nickname “Ensign
Eliminator.” Few pilots remembered it
fondly. One called it “an unforgiving, unreliable airplane that took too many lives
before it was retired.” There are reports
that some low-time F7Us ended up in
schoolyards, in ignominious decrepitude,
next to the swing sets and Jungle Gyms.
The Cutlass did not earn Vought any
accolades. But the company soon gained
back the respect of Naval aviators with a
pair of truly great aircraft, the A-7 Corsair II and the F8U Crusader. Check out
the article on Page 6 to find out more. 
Second Quarter 2011
A Career in
Naval Aviation
by
F. Gene Dawson, LTC, USMC (Ret.)
N
aval aviation started out slowly
100 years ago. Most Navy officers then did not believe in aircraft, and did not want to carry them on
their ships. Instead, they pushed amphibious operations and “control of the sea,”
at which their battleships and cruisers excelled. They saw aircraft as too expensive, not very useful and potential detractors from the Navy’s “real” missions. But
Naval aviation grew and flourished over
the years, despite setbacks and major political squabbles that often nearly killed it.
I wasn’t there at the beginning, of course,
but I did have a long Naval aviation career. I’d like to briefly summarize it for
you in this special issue of Plane Talk.
In October 1950, I was in my fourth
year at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, majoring in Pre-Med. The Korean
War had just started, and America was
getting involved more deeply every day.
 Marine First Lieutenant Gene Dawson
prepares to climb into the cockpit of an AU-1
Corsair at K-6 airfield in Pyongtaek, South
Korea (60 miles south of Seoul) in this photo
taken early in 1954.
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
I was supposedly exempt from the draft,
but I was grabbed anyway. I didn’t want
to go into the Army, so I enlisted in the
Navy. Because I was a “college boy,” I
was sent to Flight School at NAS (Naval
Air Station) Pensacola, Florida, in January 1951. A couple of Marine officers I
met there impressed me a lot, so I decided to transfer into the Navy’s “Men’s Department”—the U.S. Marine Corps.
The two years of flight training were
challenging, but very satisfying. Finally,
on February 16, 1953, I earned my pilot’s
wings and a Second Lieutenant’s commission. It was a proud moment.
From Pensacola, I went to All-Weather Flight School at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas, where I earned my instrument
rating card. Then I went to NAS Kingsville, Texas, for transition training in
Lockheed’s F-80 Shooting Star—the Navy’s first jet. Finally, I reported to my
first operational squadron, VMF-333 at
MCAS (Marine Corps Air Station) Opa
Locka, Florida. We flew Chance Vought
F4U-4 Corsairs, and were set to deploy
to South Korea in six months. It was
quite an experience for this new jet pilot
to go from the Shooting Star, which had
great visibility and no engine torque, to
the big piston-engined Corsair, with very
little forward visibility and so much
torque that a careless pilot could snap roll
on takeoff. The Corsair remains one of
my favorite aircraft, and the one on display at War Eagles Air Museum is a really outstanding example.
Marine Corps doctrine says the main
purpose of aviation is to support riflemen
on the ground. So, before we left for Korea, we became very good at air-to-ground
ordnance delivery and air-to-air combat.
The last part of our training was a threeweek deployment to Roosevelt Roads
Naval Station, Puerto Rico—a four-hour,
non-stop flight by way of Cuba. On the
return flight, three Corsairs ran out of
fuel and ditched in the Atlantic. It turned
out that we had not received information
about drastic changes in enroute winds.
Two of the pilots ditched near a freighter,
and the third—yes, that was me—ditched
very near a 60-foot cabin cruiser about a
mile off the Florida coast. All the pilots
were uninjured.
Early in 1954, I deployed to an airbase called K-6, in Pyongtaek, South Korea, with VMA-212, 1st MAW (Marine
Aircraft Wing). We flew the AU-1 Corsair, a version optimized for ground attack. After about three months, we gave
them to the French at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam. We all know how that turned out!
In less than six weeks, all were lost in action. Meanwhile, we got old Douglas
AD-1, -2 and -3 Skyraiders. We did our
carrier qualification flights on the USS
Cape Esperance CVE-88 (a small escort
or “Jeep” carrier) in the Sea of Japan.
In November 1954, I went to K-55,
in Osan Ni, as Liaison Officer with the
5th Air Force. My mission was to select
targets for joint attack. The Korean War
was winding down, so I had some spare
time to fly North American SNJs and Army Stinson L-19s. When the cease-fire
was finally signed (the War never really
“ended”), all Marine aviation assets in
South Korea went by ship to MCAS Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. The trip took about
two weeks—and two cases of Scotch.
In Hawaii, I served with VMC-1,
where my job was to receive and inspect
new AD-5Ns and train crews in Electronic Counter-Countermeasures. The ECCM
equipment in our AD-5Ns was state-ofthe-art, and we used our experience to
help upgrade Air Force and Navy units in
the area. Then I transferred to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, at Camp Pendleton,
California, as the Air Liaison Officer. My
Commanding Officer was LTC Louis H.
Wilson, who had earned a Medal of Honor in World War II and who later became
Commandant of the Marine Corps.
But no assignment in the Corps lasts
very long. I soon transferred to MCAS El
Toro, where I flew Grumman F9F-5 Panthers for a year. Then we transitioned to
the Douglas F4D-1 Skyray, with carrier
qualification training on the USS Midway
CVB-41 and USS Bennington CV-20. In
1957, my group spent an interesting six
months at a Japanese World War II airfield in Taiwan, working closely with the
Nationalists as they fought the Communists under Mao Zedong. Early in 1958,
we went back to NAS Atsugi and helped
5
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Career (Continued on page 8)
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
The Crusader
and the Carrier
by
V
Ted McClard
ought’s big F8U Crusader was
the U.S. Navy’s first supersonic
carrier-based aircraft—the prototype “broke the sound barrier” on its first
flight on March 25, 1955—and one of the
first aircraft in the world able to exceed
1,000 miles per hour in level flight. On
August 21, 1956, a fully loaded standard
production Crusader set a world speed
record of 1,015.428 miles per hour, handily eclipsing the previous record of 822
miles per hour set almost a year earlier
by an Air Force North American F-100C
Super Sabre. On July 16, 1957, Marine
Corps Major John Glenn, who in 1962
became the first American to orbit the
earth, flew a Crusader coast-to-coast
from California to New York in 3 hours
22 minutes at an average speed of 724
miles per hour. More than 1,200 of them
were built, and they had a sterling career
with the Navy and Marines from 1957 to
1987. During my Navy service, I accumulated 977 hours of flight time and
made more than 250 carrier landings in A
and E-model F8Us. Here’s what it was
like to fly one onto a carrier...
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Second Quarter 2011
The cockpit was “just
right,” neither too big
nor too small. Automatic
pressurization
and temperature control
made it a pretty comfortable place to work,
given that the pilot was
trussed up in a G-suit
and strapped tightly into the ejection seat. The
Crusader was not an
easy airplane to master,
especially during carrier landings, where it
had a reputation for being harder to land than
a “normal” aircraft. It  The Crusader had a unique two-position wing that was raised
had a unique two-posi- for takeoffs and landings, as seen here, to allow flight at slower airtion wing that allowed speeds and to improve the pilot’s visibility over the nose.
the pilot to raise the
leading edge 7º for takeoff and landing.
gear and tailhook are down. If I had forEven with the wing up and the flaps, slats
gotten to lower the tailhook and the LSO
and landing gear down, the F8U was still
had to remind me, I owed him (they were
relatively “clean” aerodynamically, and
all “hims” back in the 1960s) a bottle of
very sensitive to small power changes.
whiskey whenever the ship got into port.
About 90 seconds out, I’m flying at
When the Crusader is “dirty” (i.e., flaps,
an altitude of 600 feet on my downwind
slats and gear down), the autopilot is not
leg (that is, in the opposite direction that
available, so flying the pattern to landing
the carrier is moving), abeam the LSO
requires my utmost attention.
(Landing Signal Officer) platform locatThere’s almost no radio talk between
ed near the carrier’s stern. I’m just about
me and the LSO during landing, but there
to start my turn, banking at 30º, to come
is an important call I have to make whenin behind the ship. My airspeed is 130
ever I see “ball.” This happens when I’m
knots. My wing is up and my landing
about ¾ mile aft of the ship. The “ball” is
what we call the OLS, or Optical Landing System, an array of green, yellow and
 While at the University of Missouri from
red lights mounted on a platform on the
1956 through 1961, Ted McClard, who was
left side of the flight deck near the landalready a licensed private pilot, signed up for
ing zone. These lights show me whether I
Navy Aviation Officers Candidate School.
am on the correct glide path, or high, or
After he graduated with a B.S. degree in Aglow. When I see the lights, I immediately
riculture, his commitment to five years of
radio, “Superheat 213 ball 2.8.” This is a
Navy service began in June 1961 with flight
training in Florida, Mississippi and Texas.
shorthand way to pass on the following
He earned his wings in February 1963, and
information: “Superheat 213” is my airthe Navy assigned him to VF-162, a squadcraft identification, “ball” means I see the
ron flying Vought F8U Crusaders. He sailed
OLS lights and “2.8” means I have 2,800
for combat duty to Vietnam twice aboard the
pounds of fuel on board. The Arresting
aircraft carrier USS Oriskany CVA-34, in
Gear Crew uses that number to adjust the
1964 and 1965. When he left the Navy in
tension on the arresting cables. The LSO
June 1966, he joined Continental Airlines,
replies, “Roger,” meaning he understood
where he was a Flight Engineer, First Offimy transmission. From then on, there are
cer and Captain in several different types of
jet aircraft, including the Douglas DC-9 and
typically no radio transmissions until I’m
DC-10, and the Boeing 707, 727 and 737. He
either safely on the deck or waved off to
retired from Continental in December 2000.
go around and try landing again.
6
Second Quarter 2011
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
Membership Application
War Eagles Air Museum
War Eagles Air Museum memberships are available in six categories. All memberships include the following privileges:




Free admission to the Museum and all exhibits.
Free admission to all special events.
10% general admission discounts for all guests of a current Member.
10% discount on all Member purchases in the Gift Shop.
To become a Member of the War Eagles Air Museum, please fill in the information requested below and note the category of membership you desire. Mail this form, along with a check payable to “War Eagles Air Museum” for the annual fee shown, to:
War Eagles Air Museum
8012 Airport Road
Santa Teresa, NM 88008
Membership Categories
NAME (Please print)___________________________________________________
STREET ____________________________________________________________
CITY ______________________________ STATE _____ ZIP _________—______
TELEPHONE (Optional) _____—_____—____________
E-MAIL ADDRESS (Optional) ___________________________________________
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Individual
$15
Family
$25
Participating
$50
Supporting
$100
Benefactor
$1,000
Life
$5,000
Will be kept private and used only for War Eagles Air Museum mailings.
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 With its wing up and flaps, slats, gear and
arresting hook down, this Crusader is just a
second from landing in this dramatic image.
I start a 600-foot-per-minute descent,
keeping the ball centered and the angle of
attack at 13 units. The airspeed and angle
of attack gauges in the cockpit are located just below the glareshield on the top
left side of the instrument panel, so I can
see both the gauges and the ball in my
field of vision without moving my eyes. I
focus most of my attention on the ball.
The appearance of the lights tells me
whether I am on, above or below the
glide path, which is an imaginary line angled up 3º from the flight deck. Some
people may think Navy aircraft descend
at a very steep angle before slamming
down to the deck, but my approach angle
is actually shallow—the same as that for
a commercial airliner. I control the rate
of descent with the throttle while keeping
the airspeed constant. As I pass through
200 feet altitude about 400 feet behind
the carrier, I enter the “burble,” the area
of turbulent air in the wake of the ship’s
island. This momentarily increases my
rate of descent, which I counter with a
brief power increase. Then I quickly go
back to the normal throttle setting.
All the way to the deck, I concentrate on “Ball, lineup, speed.” If the ball
moves up, I know I’m above the glide
path and, if I don’t correct it, chances are
I’ll miss all four arresting wires. If the
ball moves down, I’m low. If it moves
further down and turns red, I’m dangerously low and need to get back on the
glide path now or risk crashing into the
carrier’s stern. While devoting most of
my attention to the ball, I also see the
airspeed and angle of attack indicators,
and I just barely catch sight of the deck
in the distance, approaching with breathtaking speed. Although it’s always tempting, I don’t look directly at the deck. Navy training is specific—“Watch the ball!”
The instant I feel the plane hit the
deck, I push the throttle to full power.
While this may be opposite to what many
people expect, there’s a reason for it. The
four heavy steel arresting cables strung
across the landing zone, 40 feet apart, are
numbered from 1 to 4 from the rear forward. If I follow the ball perfectly, my
tailhook will snag the Number 3 wire.
But few landings are perfect. If I miss all
the wires, I’m not landing—I’m heading
off the front of the deck, and the only
way I can gain enough speed to fly is if
my engine is already fully “spooled up.”
But this time I snag the 3-wire and
come to a stop. I have another successful
carrier landing to enter into my logbook,
and I’ll get graded on how well I flew it.
The best grade I can get is “OK.” 
7
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
War Eagles Air Museum
Doña Ana County Airport at Santa Teresa
8012 Airport Road
Santa Teresa, New Mexico 88008
(575) 589-2000
the Japanese deal with provocative Soviet flights from Vladivostok. But, lest you
think that my career was only flying—in
August 1959, I returned to Baylor to finish my degree in Clinical Psychology.
In February 1960, the Marines sent
me to NAS Beeville to instruct in air-toair gunnery and carrier operations at the
Advanced Naval Aviation Flight School.
We flew Grumman F9F-8 Cougars.
Eighteen months later, I transferred to the
2nd MAW at Cherry Point, North Carolina. The squadron sailed on the USS Independence CVL-22 on a six-month Mediterranean cruise. I was selected to go due
to my experience with the F4D and as a
Landing Signal Officer (LSO) on carriers. I really enjoyed the cruise, and our
many visits to Italian and Greek ports.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis in
October 1962, I was stationed at Guantánamo Bay—nearly as close to the action
as possible. Then I ended up in an A4-E
Skyhawk squadron, VMA-121 at El Toro.
Next stop—Vietnam. In August 1966, we
flew from El Toro to Kanoehe Bay, a
2,500-mile flight with two aerial refuelings. We went on to Midway, then to Japan, and finally, in September, we landed
at our operating base at Chu Lai, about
50 miles south of Da Nang, Vietnam. For
several months, until we built a paved
runway, we flew off “Marston matting,”
sometimes using a ground catapult. The
water table was less than 10 feet down,
and the terrain was sandy and level. The
base was right on the coast and there
were no villages around, so our operations were unhampered by Viet Cong attacks. I served as VMA-121’s Executive
Officer and, for the last four months of
my tour, as Commanding Officer of the
Marine Air Base, Chu Lai.
For a year after leaving Vietnam, I
was Operations Officer of the 2nd MAW
at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina.
Then, for two years, I was Commanding
Officer of VMA-124, a squadron flying
Grumman A6-A Intruder twin-engine,
all-weather bombers. Another trip to the
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
8
Career (Continued from page 5)
Far East followed, where I was Executive
Officer of an air group at MCAS Iwakuni, Japan. In the early 1970s, the Vietnam
War was starting to wind down a little,
and my group supported the evacuation
of U.S. forces from Saigon. Needless to
say, things were really a mess.
The Marine Corps then wanted me
to go to the Pentagon for staff duty. I refused the assignment, telling “them” that
I would retire first. Instead, I ended up on
a three-year tour in Oahu, Hawaii, with
CINCPACFLT (Commander in Chief,
Pacific Fleet), where I was in charge of
all Marine Corps aviation planning for
the entire Pacific area. While I was there,
I flew C-117s, OV-10 Broncos and HO-5
helicopters. The flying was very enjoyable, and made the tour bearable despite
an absolutely incredible and highly toxic
political environment. Finally, I got sick
of the politics (there’s another word that
fits better), and retired from the Marine
Corps on August 1, 1975, after a career
of 24 years and 10 months. My next and
final stop was El Paso. 