After a long and successful career as an active fighter,
#774 was sealed up for future use at the Boneyard at
Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. From there it went to Tyndall AFB
to fly as a drone target for a while. After suviving there, it was
dissasembled and sent by truck truck to Hill AFB where it was restored
as a static display in their aerospace museum. this was my favorite
F-106 to fly and I'm glad that it finally found a good home.
58-0774 Restoration Project
58-0774 Restoration Project |
My second cross-country was a trip to Del Rio on the weekend of 18-20 Jun
1982. It was a three-ship with Willy Benton #790, Ron Yelton in #774, And
Jim McNab in the B-model with crew chief Jim Corrigan. The trip was an
attitude check for Jack "Lightning" Bolt and Mark "Mork" Taylor. As we
taxiied out I was supposed to be Blue-Three. But when we got out to Last
Chance Willie said his TACAN was out so he moved to #3 and I moved up to
#2. In the climb going by Bakersfield B.O.B. passed me the lead. Crap! I
didn't even check to see if I had any charts. Whew! They were in the cubby
hole. I suspected that the lead changes were planned. Throw the new guy
right into the fire :) Logged 2.5 hrs FAT-DLF |
Climbing to altitude over Bakersfield. Ron Yelton, Willie Benton |
Same again - Willie and me |
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| There's a nice close-up of me waving "Hi." Next to the Viper this was a really
comfortable cockpit. Well, O.K., the left seat of the Super 80 was damn
comfy, too |
I'll say it again - this is a beautiful airplane! |
If I remember right, we were cruising around FL350 - a day in the park for
this plane - it wasn't even trying. Willy and Jim just took their sides and
enjoyed themselves all the way down to Texas. First ride for Crew Chief Jim
Corrigan and he smiled the whole weekend. Swapped sides a couple of times to give everybody's neck a brake |
Somewhere over Arizona |
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| The cool thing about the F-106 was that if you needed to you could just
climb over the thunderstorms |
Another great thing about the F-106 was that when you got up into the 40s
you could get a direct vector to anywhere. I think just the Blackbirds would
go up there with us |
Formation flying was actually pretty easy. This was a very stable airplane,
especially on an ILS. You could actually do 30 degrees of bank at FL410
without the burner. Do you guys miss keeping the wingtip light right next to
your head bouncing around in the weather at night? |
I remember being RTB with John Kaser one time. We were coming up on
some weather at Bumpi on the South Recovery and John got us a flight
breakup. With me 10 miles behind he popped into the clouds. Didn't hear
anything from him at the time but about ten seconds after I hit the clouds
I was upside down. I had found an embedded thunderstorm. Nothing on the
radar. That got my attention |
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| "Hi" again |
Check out the size of that... tail! We had a huge vertical stabilizer and a very
large rudder. That gave us fantastic control at low airspeed / hi AOA. Howdy
loved to stand it up on its tail during BFM engagements, get slow, stomp on the
rudder, come back down gaining smash and then gun you |
Nice shot - route formation |
Willy Benton - right wing |
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| Nice picture of the bottom of the airplane. Speed brakes and drag chute just
above the engine exhaust, two external drop tanks (230 gal. ea.) and the red
hook. Jan Pedersen and I were flying together once and he had some sort of
problem and ended up landing after me and taking the cable in the F-106. It
worked like a champ. The missle bay doors just forward of the lower beacon.
Hold the trigger down until the circle collapsed, keeping the dot centered. At
firing time the doors opened and the rails would extend. Two AIM-4 Falcon
missles would fire and the doors snap shut. BAM! Then breakaway. All on
instruments |
Starting the descent. "PN flight request enroute descent to visual straight-in,
will cancel below 18." As Larry Baker would say at Western Airlines - "The
oooooonly way to fly" |
Coming down final. I have to say, it was pretty darn cool to do an ILS
leading a three-ship. This was a great airplane to fly instruments in.
Most everything we did in training was either actual weather or simulated. You got
pretty good! |
Lightning, Mork, does the terrain look familiar? |
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| Laughlin has three runways. We shot a visual approach to the Center and on
the go-around Willy and B.O.B went closed in opposite directions while I
went straight out. We all ended up beating up the pattern for a while. We still
had tons of gas left for burner closed. When we all taxiied in to Transient
Parking it seemed like every student on base was there to greet us - with
Mark and Jack right in the front. Active duty guys had to fly the T-33 for a
year before they could updrade to the F-106. It was pretty satisfying to jump
out of the plane at a UPT base as a Butterbar |
Here's Jack "Lightning" Bolt and his wife, Pam. We were all on our way out
to Amistad Lake for a picnic. Jack had broken something - an arm or a leg -
and got set back a class. That didn't slow down his beer drinking performance,
though |
Mark "Mork" Taylor, AKA "The Doctor," and his wife Pam heading for the
lake. First night we were there we ended up at the club and the guys wanted
us to play a drinking game with them. We thought we would shake them up
a bit so we hightailed it over to the Taylors and cleaned them out of eggs.
When we got back to the club we showed them how to eat raw eggs. A
couple chickened out and a few had some serious gagging issues but quite a
few got them down. Just can't look like a weak-dick in front of the fighter
guys:) Secret: I hated eating them, too. It was always fun watching Jamie
trying to keep one down :) |
Here's Jim on the left drinking beer through his ear. He had us all laughing all
day. Jim can throw one-liners non-stop for hours. Mork in the middle.
Strange how we looked like we were barely old enough to shave let alone fly
multi-million dollar jets. Mark and Jack - remember any of these guys? |
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| I really hate to have to do this - but here is shot of #774 in the Boneyard at
Davis-Monthan AFB. This is the jet I flew on this cross-country and on a
number of other sorties. Really sad to see an old friend put out to pasture.
Red tail of a "Q" bird. Photo credit: Jim McNab |
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