The Travolta thread made me think about what jet I would purchase, if I had the funds and the skill set.

A local collector, now deceased, had many jets including several migs, A7, F4, a Vampire, and a Sea Venom, a Douglas F4 D skyray, F 86, P 80. Hell he even had a demilled F 111 sitting in the yard.

I always considered the F 100 to be a sexy bitch. But I understand she was a bit difficult to land.

One local resident used to keep a Hawker Hunter at a nearby airport. Occasionally you would see him out putting it through its paces. One day he was flying inverted at near tree top level, and possibly pulled back on the stick to climb. He is not commenting.

The first gentleman mentioned lost a friend and pilot when a Vampire augered in. The ejection seat was not maintained.

That Skyray is also a very impressive airframe. I understand that delta wings are difficult to rotate.

Is there a cold war era jet you would be interested in owning?

That’s a good question.
If I had those kind of funds and skill set as you pointed out, I would have a hard time making that choice.
F-4’s in my opinion, are one of the sexiest jets ever built. I loved seeing them fly over when I was a kid. Loud and smoky and cold war cool.
Vampires are neat. They kind’ve resemble a P-38 in a jet configuration. They just look nimble.
F-86’s are sleek and beautiful. They look fun to fly.
Out of the ones you mentioned, I believe I would pick the A-7.
They always appealed to me as did it’s older brother the Crusader.
When I was a boy, my uncle lived at the head of a big valley that was probably four miles long. A-7’s from the Indiana ANG would come smoking up that valley right at the tops of the trees. Sometimes the pilot would kind’ve turn to port and we could see him for an instant. They were not moving at quite the speed of the F-16’s that later replaced them but they had more of a cool factor.
Last summer, we painted for an older gentleman that was retired from USAF.
The first four years he flew F-100’s and then transferred to C-130’s the rest of his career. I asked about the handling problems and he said he never had a problem with them. He just said it was a “hotrod” and you had to treat it with respect or it could get you into trouble. He was an interesting guy.
They are a awesome jet though. IIRC, the problems were mainly on take-offs and landings. I think Indiana ANG flew them up until 1978 or something like that.
I know they flew a ton of close air support in Vietnam and may even hold the record for sorties in that conflict. That may not be correct. I would have to research that cause’ it’s been a while.
Anyway, it would be the A-7 for me Idaho.

Can’t speak to flyability but the F104 is a sexy airplane.

F4 Phantom is bad ass but utilitarian not so sleek. I had several models of these planes and have always been impressed by their versatility in Nam.

Obviously if I could have any military jet it’d be an SR71... I say obviously cuz I assume that’d be the top of the list for most guys between the ages of 45-80.

In Ground Attack School, I flew F-80s - actually the two-seat version called the AT-33. It had a lot of quirks but was a solid plane. That school originally wanted to use F-86s but there weren't any two-seat versions available.

As a FAC, I controlled airstrikes using F-100s, F-4s, A-37s, and A-1Es. And at least one set of Navy A-7s IIRC. Of those, the F-4 took last place for bombing accuracy. Whether that was because F-4 drivers got more air-air than air-ground training or if it was just a hard airplane to be accurate in I don't know. If ground forces were in close contact (by which I mean smelling distance) I would fervently hope for Vietnamese A-1Es. Those guys were SUPER accurate. If F-4s showed up, I would be extremely nervous about using them at all, depending on the weapons load.

Back to the OP. I always thought the Navy F-9F was a cool little jet that might even be affordable to fly. They made so many T-33s that parts ought to still be reasonably available, and it is fast for a straight-wing plane.

TR-3M or an old TR-3B.

I think if I was using it to pick up women I'd go F-106.

F-86 Sabre Jet for me. There's one that's kept up on a stick up the road from me. Along highway by EAA museum. I built a plastic model of an F-86 when I was a kid.

They got a C-47 out in front too. Always liked that aircraft too.

I always thought the F5 & F20 looked cool as hell. I have no idea whether they were mannerly at the controls, or a bitch.







I, too, thought the F100's looked great, but...





Dad was a B58 jock, and when I learned that nearly 1/4 of them were lost in crashes, I asked him if it was hard to fly. He replied, "Nope. It was beautiful." I suppose it helps to have a crack DSO to keep the fuel shuttled between the tanks to maintain a constant center of gravity.

FC

I always thought the F-4 Phantom was a intimidating aircraft in the camo paint scheme. Looked tough and mean.
But if I could own any of the group mentioned it would be the F-86 Sabre jet. Of course would have to be younger and richer, but I can dream with the best of them.

The only thing I know about airplanes is how to sit in my seat with my seatbelt fastened.

The F-100 in the video that crashes, did the pilot try to pull up/lift off @ too low of a speed?

I would go for the B58 Hustler. Looks great. I think that is the plane that dropped the H-bomb that Slim Pickins rode down like Rodeo bull rider! (Failsafe movie?)

I think the reason they had so many B58 crashes is that the B58 was designed for very fast high altitude attack missions, but the USSR developed SAMs that could knock them out. So the USAF tried using the B58s as fast low altitude bombers, but they were very difficult to control as such. Hence the crashes.

Having no experience with any plane as well as being scared tschidtless of flying, I have always thought that the F-86 was the coolest.

That was a B52.

That’s the mythical “Sabre Dance”.

If someone gave me one of those jets, I'd immediately sell it. I could not afford the fuel cost, let alone the mechanics who knew how to keep it running, spare parts, etc. and who would i get to teach me how to fly it?

Gotta be an F-86 for me, they just ooze cool. We used to drive by Richards-Gebauer AFB outside Kansas City when I was a kid, going to visit family, and they had, IIRC, F-100s based there, but for some reason, they just didn't flip my switches like the older jets. At my grandparent's house out in Kansas, there was a lot of A-4 and A-6 flying going on, they were on the flight path for Olathe NAS.

In all honesty, though, I like the old piston-engined stuff from WWII better than a jet. Those old A-1Es Rocky mentioned really get me going, though they are more Korean War vintage than WWII.

Couldn't say what the most flyable was or is but I would know not to get an F-104 Lockheed Lawn Dart aka Starfighter, although they get my vote as one of the sexiest looking fighters without propellers.

Speaking of aircraft with visible means of support, was watching "The Cold Blue" documentary about B17's again on HBO the other night and one of the pilots mentioned how easy it was to fly, like a big Piper Cub.

I would take an F-14, toss in a CV while you're at it.

The F-100 had an adverse yaw problem - worse on takeoff. With a swept wing, if you use aileron at low speeds, the wing with the down aileron creates more lift but also more drag, and as that wing gets pulled back, its swept angle causes it to lose lift while the other wing is advancing and getting more direct airflow, so it has more lift. The result is that if you try to roll left, the plane actually rolls right, and the more you push the stick over to "correct" that, the problem gets worse. You can actually snap roll just a few feet above the runway. And that's fatal. F-100 guys had it drummed into them to never use aileron on takeoff, only rudder.

The "Saber Dance" video happened when the pilot got too slow, pulled the nose up and immediately got "behind the power curve" where there simply isn't enough thrust to overcome the near-stalled drag. In that realm, the adverse yaw threat also appears, and you are essentially doomed from the instant you haul back on the stick. As that guy was.

Thanks for sharing!

I agree, and I like 106’s too. Very sleek and fast!

It wasn't until years after I graduated from pilot training that I learned that the T-38 Talon was designed to have near- F104 landing characteristics - which were eye watering. The theory was that if you could land the T-38, you could fly anything the Air Force had. Giving a plane that hard to land to student pilots may have been a bit ambitious, but all of us who got that far in training survived it. If you look at a T-38 you can see the resemblance: long sleek fuselage and itty-bitty wings. Yeah, it was a rocket to fly.



If I remember correctly, you held about 85% power on final and 190 knots, and it touched down/stalled at 165 knots.

I’d like a A-4 Skyhawk. Small , nimble , and simple. I remember the Blue Angels flying them when I was young.

Wasn't it a T-38 that one of the astronauts used to eliminate himself and another astronaut from the program (and life) as well as taking out part of a hangar in St. Louis?

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the F105 Thunderchief.

If I remember correctly the landing problems of the F-100 and F-104 had to do with landing speed and stall speed being so close together. The plane response was mush at landing speed so inputs were vague and response slow. It was very easy to get the plane turning way too much and bleeding airspeed. A couple of over corrections and your airspeed dropped past stall speed and the plane dropped out of the sky.

I always kind of liked the A-5 Vigilante. Huge plane, remember one crashed into the island of the Forestall in the Tonkin gulf.

It was. NASA still flies T-38s as astronaut trainers and taxis. And as photo chase planes at Edwards.

T-38s are about to be phased out from pilot training, or already have been. They had a 50+ year run at that job and the airframes are getting pretty tired.

Somebody up above asked about the F-5 and F-20. The F-5 was a single-seat version of the T-38, with some basic weapons capability. It was used as an export fighter to Vietnam and some other smaller countries but never adopted here. The F-20 was a single-seat and single-engine version of the same, with much improved performance, better weapons, and a decent radar. It was never bought by the AF at all and they only made a few demonstrator copies. You can WIKI both of them for more detail.

I had a 1500+ hours flying mostly ACM in three versions of the A-4 and it was a lot of fun. The cockpit was a little tight for “fat a$$e$” but it was agile and had simple systems. We normally launched with a 5800 lb fuel load and landed with less than 1000.

Of the a/c I flew the F-14 was by far the most complex as far as systems go. Lots of system interfaces that could get you in trouble if you didn’t know your stuff. The TF-30 engines were known for being prone to compressor stalls especially if you tended to be a little ham handed with the throttles. Flying the Tomcat around the ship was less stressful than in the F-4 because it carried more fuel and didn’t burn it as fast. We normally launched with 20,000 lbs of fuel and would land with 3,000-4,000 depending on what ordnance we were carrying. IIRC max endurance fuel flow was 2400-2500 lbs/hour per engine. It’s a huge a/c but at the same time pretty agile. It was hard making it look nice coming aboard the boat because all the control surfaces were moving at the same time. That’s why you’ll sometimes hear it called “the Turkey”.

I think my favorite though was the F-4. I had over 1000 hours in three versions (N’s, J’s and S’s) and it wasn’t as agile as either the A-4 or the Tomcat but there weren’t many “gotchas” in the systems as in the Tomcat and the J-79 engines were just about bulletproof. We were practicing night landings at Cubi Point, Philippines and happened to suck one of those huge bats (as in Crocodile Dundee) down the right engine. After we shut down and were getting out of the jet one of the plane captains yelled, “what did you hit sir?” He put his flashlight down the intake and there was a big bat wing stuck on the front of the inlet guide vanes. The rest of the bat had gone through the engine 😳. When the mechs borescoped it....no damage! The later versions (J79-GE-10-B’s, IIRC) weren’t smokers and the F-4S’s had maneuvering slats and a much improved weapons system,, radar, etc..Mach 2 was doable if you executed the profile precisely with no tanks or pylons.

I think I learned more about operating around the ship in the Phantom than in all the others because we were always sweating gas on a 1 + 45 cycle (launch to land). We normally launched with 18,500 lbs of fuel and max landing weight was 3000-3500 lbs depending on our ordnance load which was usually 2 Sparrows and 2 ‘Winders. Max endurance fuel flow with that load was 6000 lbs per hour or 100 lbs/minute. At night if we were working blue water ops (meaning no divert available) we were “trick or treat on the ball” so if we boltered we went right up to the recovery tanker to take a little more gas and try again. If you didn’t learn all the little tricks to manage and save your gas you could get in trouble really quickly and have some rather unpleasant conversations with the captain of the ship and/or the CAG.

Fascinating! I cannot even imagine doing any of that.

If money was no object it would be a Phantom or a Tomcat. I want to leave big greasy streaks in the sky.

My understanding on the F-104 Starfighter is that it was a fairly dangerous airplane. In fact, when the US sold some to the German Air Force, a part of the deal was that some of the systems had to be made in Germany and that gave rise to the company whose systems (one of which) I support. I find that interesting because one of the first model airplanes I ever built was an F-104C. I always thought it was the toughest looking jet ever. At any rate, the German F-104 program became quite controversial because it seemed to kill a pretty impressive number of German Air Force pilots.

I saw an F-104 take off at NAF Sigonella one day in about 1979, and holy mother of g*d, that thing wade the most impressive jet roar I have ever heard. The thing got airborne, pointed its nose at the sky, and was out of sight in about 30 seconds. MOST impressive!

If I could buy a Cold War era jet to fly around, I think it would be an A-4 Skyhawk. I saw one doing snap rolls at NAS Memphis back in 1976 and it made a lasting impression.

Truth is, I don't know [bleep] from shinola about flying any of them. I'd probably ask one of the naval aviators here if I inherited a few million dollars to do whatever I wanted with.

I think I learned more about operating around the ship in the Phantom than in all the others because we were always sweating gas on a 1 + 45 cycle (launch to land). We normally launched with 18,500 lbs of fuel and max landing weight was 3000-3500 lbs depending on our ordnance load which was usually 2 Sparrows and 2 ‘Winders. Max endurance fuel flow with that load was 6000 lbs per hour or 100 lbs/minute. At night if we were working blue water ops (meaning no divert available) we were “trick or treat on the ball” so if we boltered we went right up to the recovery tanker to take a little more gas and try again. If you didn’t learn all the little tricks to manage and save your gas you could get in trouble really quickly and have some rather unpleasant conversations with the captain of the ship and/or the CAG.

I flew as a Huey crew chief for almost 13 years. If we used 600 lbs an hour we had a hungry bird. It was usually closer to 550 lbs an hour and we could get 2.6 hours out of a 211 gallon bag of JP8. Our top gross weight was 9500 lbs. I have been as high as 10,000 feet MSL but we typically flew at 1000 fee AGL.
kwg

6000 lbs. of fuel an hour.......Wow, that’s hard for my feeble mind to comprehend.
Thanks to you guys for your service and your stories. Being a fan of military aviation, I’ve really enjoyed this thread.

And... in afterburner it’s 1400- 1500 pounds PER MINUTE.

BAE Hawk. Seems like a sensible plane for civilian ownership.

No pilot here, but, I always likes those A-6's. Lot of weapons and/or electronic stuff on those. Just look cool a heck. Someone got a pic of those? Warthog would be cool as fugk also.

Who mentioned sensible? We want fun!!!

I loved those things!

I always thought the Grumman Panther jets were pretty cool, as well as the Banshee.

For me the F-11F Tiger - a shape sketched in a 1000's of kids school notebooks.

F-105!! Nothing could touch it down low. Highest Vmo of any fighter from that era...capable of super sonic level flight at Sea Level. Comparable to a top fuel dragster..fast as he!! in straight line, but can’t turn worth a darn.

The Vigilante was no slouch either.

There were lots of great airframes designed in the 50s and built into the 70s that were plenty wicked. They just werent suited to the electronics and weapons systems that came along later.

My hunting buddy here flew em off the USS Independence back in the day. Loved that jet.

Flyable is a pretty vague criteria but my vote would be for the F-106, it was an absolute great design, well ahead of its time. Not just in look but also in performance, to this day it still holds the speed record that was set in 1959 as the fastest single engined fighter - 1525.95 mph,Mach 2.39. This was well in advance of any computer controlled systems, just good design and good old mechanical know-how.
https://www.f-106deltadart.com/speedrecord.htm

In this instance an F-106 landed itself with minimal damage and was returned to service afterwards - does that meet the flyable criteria?

https://www.historynet.com/the-cornfield-bomber.htm#:~:text=Gary%20Foust%20was%20flying%20this,landed%20in%20a%20Montana%20cornfield.

https://www.f-106deltadart.com/580787cornfieldbomber.htm

The Montana ANG flew F106 A and B models until 1987 before they transitioned to F-16's. The last two remaining were B-models (two seater trainers) they were sent to the boneyard in Tucson, I was lucky enough to be in the final one that left the field. A great airplane who lived and fought for nearly 30 years, quite a lifespan for a fighter aircraft.

As much as I liked the F-106 the F-16 that replaced them is a fantastic aircraft and a great replacement for the old girls.

drover

For me, the F16.

Obviously the tail end of the CW, but it’s the jet I used to draw in elementary school. That intake on the underside of the fuselage and the smooth lines are just bad azz.

Lots of interesting discussion here. Folks have brought up a few planes which I had not become familiar with.


Indeed a fine choice. She is a beauty. One which I was unfamiliar with.

I was expecting you to write eloquently of the A6. Another of my favorites since reading Stephen Coonts' novel 35 years ago. Although the craft would be prohibitively expensive to maintain and fuel in civilian hands.

DD, I can't seem to pull the link up. Love those A-6's! Just so bad ass!

I've never seen that, doubt I ever will. However, I've seen enough wild turkeys on the wing that I literally LOL'd when I got to where you wrote "The Turkey".

Rocky, thanks for your explanation on the F104. I've never "flown" any airplane. Dad's friend had a 172 that I "steered" for about 10Min one time on a pleasure cruise over the hinterlands. But, I could "feel" the "OH NO" in your description.

My father flew RF84-Fs, F86s, and finally the Phantom before getting out of the Air Force and going to the airlines. He has a ton of pics and stories from his time in. He said that the Sabre was his favorite for pure flying, and the Phantom was the most fun and fastest til you ran out of fuel. I was lucky enough as a kid to be able to sit in the cockpit of each of the aircraft he flew (unfortunately not flying in them though), which sparked my love for aviation. The old man is still around to tell the tale, but sadly slowing down too quickly with age. I’m trying to document as much as I can before he makes his final departure...

Was stationed at Whidbey Island in 1966-67 when our squadron (VAH 123 flying A3's A3B Link) acquired the first A6's. Looked like they started to build a Hell of plane and ran out of money before getting to the tail. Really high tech at the time. Makes one feel old to see them decommissioned several years back.

I stuck with the old A3's as I was familiar with and certified to crank them up for systems checks.

F4 launching off the Coral Sea filmed in Super 8 by my Uncle while he serverd.

I always thought the looks of the F16 made it the descendent of the P51 Mustang. Clear bubble canopy and the intake underneath. PS--I know the first Mustangs didn't have the bubble canopy. The first Thunderbolts didn't either, but most did.

You guys should look into R/C planes.

Way cheaper.

Mental masturbation........it's free.

The A7 either in Navy or AF attire..an all-round superb airframe for that time line..

Yes, it was. I had it as #1 on my "Dream Sheet" for my next assignment after being a FAC. Alas, I fell into the gap during which they were phasing out the A-7 and the A-10 had not yet been born. As a FAC, I was also an "asterisk" fighter pilot: although I had been to Ground Attack School and carried the full 1111 AFSC as a fighter pilot, the honchos above did not consider us to be one.

Explanation: During 'Nam, the US Army said that any FAC who was to work supporting our ground forces had to be a qualified fighter pilot so he fully understood the limitations of close air support. Except that every available fighter pilot was actually flying as a fighter pilot. So USAF came up with an "Instant FP program" to produce guys who met that Army dictate, but who had never been (and never would be) members of the elite FP club. I was one of those.

It was stupid on the AF's part. They'd take brand new guys right out of basic flight school and make them FPs, but not a combat veteran FAC? A pilot who knew more about ground attack than ANYbody? Believe me, a lot of us were bitter about that.

Rocky, that would seem to indicate that a good FAC was too damned valuable to waste in the cockpit as a jet jocky.

I was trying to keep it focused on cold war and transonic so the F-11F Tiger, barely supersonic in a shallow dive, filled that bill. As well, I had a professor at Navy PG school that flew them and he said it was a dream to fly with balanced controls, great visibility and pretty much no faults other than very short legs.

Coont's book, Flight of the Intruder, came out when I was in college and right after I had been accepted to AOCS so that clearly made me focus on it as where I wanted to go as an NFO. It was all going that way through flight school and I ended up in the right track as a Tactical Nav then came winging day. #1 guy got his first choice, Intruders in Oceana and the rest of us (13) got sent to Prowlers to fill a class at Whidbey (via three months at Corry station for basic EW training). Turned out to be a great platform and career but one can never say the Prowler was great flying airplane. The nose extension for two more crew for the mission as well as the ALQ-99 pods and such made it a nasty beast to bring aboard the ship (the Tomcat was perhaps worse) and if you flew it to the edge of it's envelope, especially high AoA los speed, it would bite. We lost a lot of them, almost half that were built, in various mishaps.

I heard some years ago that a pilot (or aviator for the Navy and Marines) has a 1 in 4 chance of dying in a flight accident during a typical 20 year career. I don't know if that is correct or not but flying high performance jets is definitely not for the faint of heart.

About as spot on dissertation on aerodynamics I've ever read here and spot on the F-100 issues.

I don't believe that stat. I doubt if it's worse than 1 of 10 and would bet that 1 of 20 is probably closer to truth. Maybe it is worse for Navy and Marines, but AF guys have a better survival record. That is not due to any perceived skill level, mind you. I hasten to say that the work environment of the aviators is far more dangerous.

Thanks Pugs.
Very interesting dissertation.

I seem to remember that during WWII, the non-combat deaths among pilots (mainly training) was a very high percentage of the total pilot deaths. Can anyone speak to the accuracy of that?

I always thought it would be cool to have a 4-seat A6 to fly around. My dad's time in 'nam probably had some influence on that

That's true about WW Deuce. Training accidents were about on a par with combat losses. Many factors contributed. Aircraft and instruments were pushing the state of art for the times but were still poor - especially navigation and instruments for weather flying. Training was very rushed and students came from all walks of life, many having little exposure to complicated machines. Infrastructure was limited and thrown together. Training aircraft were actually pretty challenging to fly well.

There was - I flew the station wagon variant the EA-6B. A pic I took of my lead with two CT-33's over San Clemente.

Cool Canadian T-33s! The Attack Trainer (AT) 33 I flew had the longer nose and twin .50s of the F-80 plus wing hard points for bombs/rockets, and the associated wiring and a gun/bomb sight. Note the ports for the guns on the nose on this one...

When my dad was stationed on Okinawa and spending most of his time at Cam Ranh Bay in Viet Nam I was either in Naha or Kadena AFB housing. the school I went to face the ocean and the recess yard was actually part of the beach. I saw a lot of F102's testing early air to air missiles and F4's trying to shoot target drags that looked like big wind flags with the add on 20 millimeter cannon pods. The missiles were junk in general in the mid 60's. The target drones they had back then were jet powered orange drones and so many of them survived the missile testing it was truly funny, they got a lot of miles out of them. They kept boats of various sizes to recover the spent missiles and any drones still floating out in the ocean from the school. One time an F4 cannon pod malfunctioned and the plane flew over the school while ejecting 20 millimeter cannon shells. I found three and took them home but my Dad turned me in and I had to give em back to the MP's when they came by. But at the time I thought the F102's were the coolest of them all. We had 104's and 105's on the base also.

CF-105 Arrow
Good resale value

That's awesome.

I love all variants of the A-6. Super cool plane.

If we want to roll into non-jets. The OV-10 Bronco would be an awesome backcountry plane that you could cover some decent distance in too @ 225 KTS

Wouldn't it though.

Maybe Canada never flew the Arrow. But Russia had the Mig 25 which appeared to fill the same niche.

Put some floats on that baby, and we will fish the Idaho back country.

Can't find it but a cool pic is a couple F4s in vertical chase along side of NASA rocket.

Sure is I used to see them all the time around Carswell AFB, man that is one loud jet!

I lost a great uncle that way. While training in England he crashed into the the estate where Downton Abby was filmed.

Downton Abby plane crash

I spent two years in VA-42 (Green Pawns) before I went to VA-85 (Black Falcons). When I saw the AB Blue Blasters one two pages back in regards to cool sleek Cold War Birds I was surprised. When I saw VA-42 I really was surprised. I liked the Kafirs that flew as the aggressor squadron at Oceana but I suspect the T-38s or something like that would be among the smarter for people to fly. The cutting edge envelope planes might best be served by those who had the REAL training.

You bet, I would like to learn to fly an A1 Skyraider though with the Warthog as second choice.

Long way from a transonic jet though.

Transonic?
My dad would have said, F-86 hands down. He kept a North American publicity shot of a D model in his den for 60 years, I have it now. Couple years before he died, he waxed rhapsodic on me about a couple of flights he took out of Wheelus (Libya) with a naked plane, no tanks or rockets. Bare-plane flights were a reward for high training scores. So he basically chose to do an air show over the base both times, as bare Sabres didn't have much range.

If I was a MULTI millionaire, I'd grab a Sabre, or more likely, an Douglas A-4 Scooter. Pilots' airplanes both, simple, durable, and a joy to just fly.

I noticed the Super Sabre and Delta Dart were mentioned here as well, those are supersonic. Dad flew both. Also flew 102s operationally, IP in TF102s, and T-birds. The Six was a "fcking great fcking airplane." The 102? Good enough. The Tub? "Dangerous fcker," he ejected from one, the first survivor from the command pilot seat in the first successful dual ejection, his buddy Gene Ihli was the first survivor ever after 13 consecutive fatalities. The 100? "Ground-seeking dog, with lousy control authority, easy to get behind quick." He felt like he could never really relax in a Hun. It's well known that Bob Hoover loved the Sabre, but the Super dang near killed him.

As for fighter pilots not being FACs, I guess my dad was an exception, mainly because he got promoted to major while training in the F-100s. He scored second in his class for the Goldwater Trophy by one point. Off he goes to RSVN and because he's ADC and therefore a new guy in TAC, he gets a ground control jeep. Basically, it was a chain of command thing, uncool to have majors flying wing to captains and first loots. Dumb, but that's the way it went, he never flew a Hun on a sortie. Finally, he's asked if he wants to be a FAC, and he's put in charge of an 0-1 detachment at Vinh Long for the last nine months of his tour. Rocky's point about having FACs who know the limits of tac air is a valid one, at least all that jet fuel and gunnery practice wasn't totally wasted.

That’s a bad deal about the FACs. I hate that for Rocky and others that were affected by those decisions. The bitterness is understandable.
On the other hand, we will never know how many lives the FACs saved in South-East Asia directing CAS.
I’ve read a great deal about MACVSOG and listened to several interviews and podcasts with these guys along with SF and LRRPs. You rarely hear a one of them relate their experiences or talk about a mission without them giving praise to FACs and TAC air, especially Skyraider’s or “Sandy’s”.
IMO, FACs had one of the most important jobs in Vietnam.
It’s a shame that Rocky and others were not given an opportunity in a fighter. They deserved it.

Thanks to all you pilots for the excellent first hand information. For me, this is what makes the Fire great.