F-8 flew while wings folded

[Teeradej]

Just saw below pic with a short description related with talking about Aerea 88 animation charactor Kasama Shin fold both wings of his Crusader during flight. What is a story behind this pic in reality?

[aaronacw]

Its true, the F-8 can take off with wings folded. AFAIK it happened multiple times in Vietnam with the marine corps. The aircraft has no aileron I think in that configuration, but dont quote me on that.

HTH

Aaron

[Silverback]

At MCAS Cherry Point, I saw an F-4J student pilot with VMFAT-201 pull just that same trick. The instructor cooly took command and landed safely. Old hands (this was around 1968) recalled the same thing happening with F-8s on more than one occasion. Since the folding panels held no control surfaces, it was just a matter of decreased wing surface.

Phil

[Rex]

since there are only about 6 or so pics of this happening with F-8's and F-4's,,,,it does make you wonder how many more times it happened when no camera was around

[TaiidanTomcat]

Cool pic

[Jennings]

My high school Spanish teacher was an airedale aboard the FDR in the late 1960s. He witnessed an F-8 cat shot with wings folded. No pics, but I have no reason not to believe him.

J

[Wayne S]

My high school Spanish teacher was an airedale aboard the FDR in the late 1960s. He witnessed an F-8 cat shot with wings folded. No pics, but I have no reason not to believe him.

J

They wanted to do it that way? If not all them people around and no one took notice of it

Edited May 25, 2009 by Wayne S

[Spook498]

They wanted to do it that way? If not all them people around and no one took notice of it

And the first one to be fired would be the shooter.....

[jiawei_91]

There were 7 folded wing flight incidents. The first was on 2 August 1960, by a VF-11 F8U-1 taking off from Naples, Italy. The flight lasted 24 minutes.

5 F-8E's did the same thing, during 1964,1966,1967(2 flights) and 1968.

The last incident involved an F-8J on a carrier-landing practice in 1969.

I think the picture should be of a VMF(AW)-235 F-8E in 1967. It was fully loaded with 2x2000 bombs and 6 zunis. The weapons were jettisoned, and the aircraft was recovered. The other incident involving the same squadron in 1966 ended up with the pilot forgetting to lower the landing gear, so this shouldn't be it.

(source: Wings of Fame, vol.5)

Lim

Edited May 25, 2009 by jiawei_91

[Jennings]

They wanted to do it that way? If not all them people around and no one took notice of it

Hard to believe, but true. Everybody is so intent on doing his job, nobody remembers to check for the obvious. Just like any other aviation "accident" - there's no such thing as an accident. It's a series of mistakes that compound upon each other than end up in a tragedy.

J

[Jay Chladek]

The main reason why a Crusader can do it is because the outer wing panels have no control surfaces on them, so pilot control wouldn't be affected adversely. So they still have ailerons on the wings even if the outer panels are folded. In pretty much every occassion, the planes had their wings still folded on the ground (at a land base) when they took off (usually at night, hence no visual indication of folded wings) and for the first few incidents, they landed somewhat hot with the wings still folded. On one of the incidents, the pilot did manage to unfold the wings in flight, which was a tricky proposition since they had to be lowered one at a time rather then together and the asymetric wing loading was feared to potentially put a Crusader out of control until it was tried. But it was done successfully and I believe this was done on the successive incidents. To my knowledge, NOBODY has ever tried to fold the wings in flight like what was done in Area 88.

This is the first I've heard of F-4s taking off with the wings folded and not crashing horribly. Unlike the F-8, there are control surfaces on the outer wing panels of the F-4.

[Rex]

heh, Jay

I was actually hoping someone would remember which books those F-4 incidents were mentioned in,,,I only remember seeing two different photos,,,,but, at least one of the incidents is described in the VMFA-314's CO's book (and I gave my copy to my Uncle a couple of years ago)

if it was -314, it happened from a land base in Vietnam

hah, one of the bad parts of reading these threads,,,it gets me to digging through old books looking for a pic I remember seeing long ago

I'll post a location when I find it, though

Rex

is my thinking right,,,I seem to recall that only two of the F-8 incidents were photographed?

[David Hingtgen]

I've got an F-4 pic on my hard drive:

[Rex]

cool, that photo wins a decades old bet with my Air Force brother (I hope right click save is okay with you)

I'll be building an E or G, I can't really tell which, with the wings folded and drag that photo out to back it up.

[sv51macross]

I've got an F-4 pic on my hard drive:

IIRC, wasn't this photo picked over and concluded fake in another long necro-ed thread? Look at the folded wing portions. The TE sweep is inconsistent with the inboard portion sweep and there are the anti-flutter/ballast weights on the ends. Sorry, that's photoshop.

{edit spelling]

Edited May 25, 2009 by sv51macross

[Graham T]

IIRC, wasn't this photo picked over and concluded fake in another long necro-ed thread? Look at the folded wing portions. The TE sweep is inconsistent with the inboard portion sweep and there are the anti-flutter/ballast weights on the ends. Sorry, that's photoshop.

{edit spelling]

Now you mention it yes, they look like the fins of an F-15!

[LanceB]

This is also the first I've heard of an F-4 taking off with wings folded. I have heard that supposedly a Skyraider once did it, and made it back despite a whole lot of control problems (inherent when you've made the ailerons into rudders)...

[spike7451]

This is also the first I've heard of an F-4 taking off with wings folded. I have heard that supposedly a Skyraider once did it, and made it back despite a whole lot of control problems (inherent when you've made the ailerons into rudders)...

It happened to an RAF FGR2 Ser XV431 of 31Sqn RAF Bruggen on 11Oct 1974, Flight Lieutenant Ray Pillet & Flight Lieutenant Kevin Toal both ejected.We saw this on a Flight safety film during training.

http://www.ejection-history.org.uk

The Loss of XV431

An Accident Waiting to Happen

"If ever there was an accident waiting to happen it was this one. Having bought the Phantom as a stop gap measure the Brits managed to double the price and make it go slower. Principally this feat was achieved by cramming into the fuselage the Rolls Royce Spey engine.

One other way was to make the wings fold manually so there existed a situation where the wings were down but needed locking by an engineer with a brace and socket. A really nice added touch was to remove the wing pin warning lights in the cockpit so that not only could the wings be down and unlocked but there was nothing to warn a pilot as he lined up for take off.

All the warning lights were out.!

In the case of XV 431 the tiny wing spigots had been oversprayed green which blended in perfectly with the camouflaged wing."

The Ejection

"The ejection was interesting. The aircraft became airborne but immediately pitched to the vertical and I was sure it was going over on its back. Full forward pressure on the stick did nothing and at about a hundred feet rolling slightly to port I ordered my navigator to eject.

In the event I left the aircraft about 0.6 of a second ahead of him which in the event saved both our lives.

In those days there were no explosive bolts on the canopies and the seat would not fire until the canopy interlock had been removed. My canopy went over Kevin's canopy just as his was leaving, and I passed over Kevin just as he was rising up the rails.

My rocket motor lit at the advertised 6 feet and lightly toasted Kevin.

No time to lower the personal survival pack and without a full parachute we both hit the ground very hard just as XV431 blew up 100 feet from the QRA pen housing 4 nuclear loaded F4's.

Shortly afterwards the canopies were fitted with explosive bolts and the operating procedure in a time critical situation was changed so that the pilot left without warning, save for a loud bang, which would catch the attention of the most docile navigator.

Alas nothing was done about those little old warning lights and eight years later only the sharp eyes of a caravan controller saved yet another one of Her Majesty"s precious Phantoms."

Ray Pilley

July 2008

http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/Aircraf...Phantom_RAF.htm

Edited May 25, 2009 by spike7451

[kenlilly106]

Ever seen a Skyraider with the wings folded?

To get the attention of the pilot or ground/deck crew that the wings are folded, there is a large, bright red "beer can" that protrude from the leading edge of each wing to indicate the wings are folded.

Ken

[David Hingtgen]

I remember there was a lot of discussion over that photo---but I also rememember that even more people were certain the F-8 photo in this thread was a fake as well. And I'm not good enough with the F-4 to have an opinion of how one should look at such an unusual angle.

[Silverback]

This is the first I've heard of F-4s taking off with the wings folded and not crashing horribly. Unlike the F-8, there are control surfaces on the outer wing panels of the F-4.

Au contraire

For the fixed portion of the wing, the inboard control section is the flap, the outboard section is a combination flap/aileron (operates in conjunction with the spoiler). The folding section have various versions of leading edge slat, but no other control surface.

Phil - just setting the record straight

[Bulldog 09]

The story behind that picture which took place in 1967 in Da Nang with VMF(AW)-235 "Death Angels" can be found here. http://mofak.com/Night_Infamy.htm

Dave Fassett

[boom175]

At MCAS Cherry Point, I saw an F-4J student pilot with VMFAT-201 pull just that same trick. The instructor cooly took command and landed safely. Old hands (this was around 1968) recalled the same thing happening with F-8s on more than one occasion. Since the folding panels held no control surfaces, it was just a matter of decreased wing surface.

Phil

How did the instructor do that?? Navy Marine F-4's don't have back seat flight controls??

Just curious

[Jay Chladek]

How did the instructor do that?? Navy Marine F-4's don't have back seat flight controls??

Just curious

I would think that as well. But there are some Navy QF-4s out there with rear pit controls. To my knowledge though, that was something added when the planes were converted to drones and it was never done when they were operational in fighter or training squadrons.

[LanceB]

Ever seen a Skyraider with the wings folded?

To get the attention of the pilot or ground/deck crew that the wings are folded, there is a large, bright red "beer can" that protrude from the leading edge of each wing to indicate the wings are folded.

Ken

Forget about that - if the pilot looks left or right, he's going to see nothing but wing. If he looks up, he's going to see the wingtips over his head - and if it is at night, he's going to notice a red light over his left ear and a green one over his right.

If the story I read about the Skyraider taking off with wings folded is true (and considering the things I personally have witnessed (after the fact) being missed on pre-flight checks I could almost see it happening), some folks missed a whole lot more than a red "beer can" - and its presence probably didn't make any difference.