Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Danger Zone!*

While I'm eating breakfast, y'all watch this random bit of footage purporting to be from the 1980 William Tell competition:



I had forgotten that there were F-106 squadrons guarding CONUS airspace well into the '80s.

*Yes, Captain Pedant, I am aware that Top Gun was about naval aviation and William Tell is a USAF-hosted competition. Deal with it.
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23 comments:

Old NFO said...

Interesting little clip, and they run their exercise quite a bit differently than the Navy does... :-)

7:42 AM, May 07, 2013
Murphy's Law said...

Yep. The ANG kept them on until 1988, and NASA actually used a few for testing purposes until 1998. A great plane in it's day.

7:45 AM, May 07, 2013
pdb said...

Tam.

Tam.

Tam.

Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam.

...

Danger zone!

8:00 AM, May 07, 2013
Angus McThag said...

Duchess?

8:49 AM, May 07, 2013
the gripping hand said...

I also liked the Canadian Voodoo that showed up in a couple of the shots.

8:59 AM, May 07, 2013
BGMiller said...

Canadian Voodoo would be a great name for a band.

It also sounds like some sort of really polite witchcraft involving the sacrifice of a double double and some poutine.

BGM

9:24 AM, May 07, 2013
JohnnyCarcinogen said...

I can't be a military aviator.



Can't grow a mustache to save my life. :(

9:26 AM, May 07, 2013
Boat Guy said...

Moustaches stopped being de rigur about the time the Phantom went out.
There now are LOTS of military aviators who have NO facial hair. An example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Campbell_(pilot)

9:41 AM, May 07, 2013
Anonymous said...

They used to light up the Delta Darts in (mock) anger at Davis-Monthan AFB (Tucson) about once a week. We could hear them on campus 5 miles away across town. Definitely wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of one of their intercepts. They were hauling serious butt by the time the crossed the AFB boundary headed south.

Must have been a good deterrent - Mexico's AF never did try a sneak air attack.

Story was that they rotated down from the one of the Dakotas ANG units so they could actually fly year-round :-).

Tucson still has one of the tope two or three air forces - 32.140250, -110.867726 on google maps has the entire century series at Pima Air Museum. 32.16626, -110.85568 has the boneyard - I can't spot any 106's. (32.16147, -110.85889
has a CH-53 (?) in flight over the airbase just for fun.)

Karl

9:47 AM, May 07, 2013
Brad said...

Around 1994 or 1995 ESPN showed a William Tell competition complete with score graphics, announcer hype and everything.

10:28 AM, May 07, 2013
bluesun said...

Well, in terms of pure performance, the 60's interceptors aren't really outclassed by much of the newer stuff.

11:54 AM, May 07, 2013
Cincinnatus said...

The video's missile launch is of an AIM-4 Falcon. What a turkey of a missile. Quite a surprise that it even hit that target drone.

12:26 PM, May 07, 2013
Caleb said...

I miss seeing the F-4 Phantom overfly my house. Now the local jet jockeys play with the F-16, but it just doesn't have that awesome menace that the F-4 had.

12:42 PM, May 07, 2013
Stuart the Viking said...

I agree Caleb. The F-4 was a monster. I was sad to watch the last of them leave MCAS El Toro shortly after I arrived there as my first duty station. Sure, F/A-18s were cool and all, but there was just something about the F-4 really made you believe it was going out to blow stuff up and kill some shit. By comparison, the F/A-18 just seemed... well... polite.

s

3:20 PM, May 07, 2013
Steve Skubinna said...

The CA ANG flew 106's from Fresno at least through '84 while I was stationed at NAS Lemoore. The first I knew about it was when a pilot pickled a drop tank on approach and it went through some guy's roof.

3:45 PM, May 07, 2013
J.R.Shirley said...

I'd take the F4 over the 106.

4:49 PM, May 07, 2013
alex said...

At the ass-end of my enlistment I was an instructor at the NCO School at MCAS Kaneohe Bay. This was December 1987 through April 1988. The school was on the "wing side" of the base, as opposed to the "grunt side", where those of us lucky enough to be with 3rd Marines lived when in garrison. Anyway, one of the perks of the job was that, for the first time in enlistment, I had a room of my own. Granted, it was tiny, but it was mine. As a bonus, VMFA 212 was stationed at K-Bay, and they had F-4 Phantoms. I believe they were the last active duty Marine squadron to fly them. I loved to watch them fly, and at night they would chain them down and work on the engines. What a roar! Truly the sound of freedom, and a hell of a lullaby when dozing off after a long day.

6:35 PM, May 07, 2013
Anonymous said...

The 106's regularly woke us at 0 dark thirty when the Soviets came across the dateline in Alaska. Light the engines, 100 yard roll, quarter turn to the right, burner and gone.
Dad was stationed at Elmendorf AFB, outside Anchorage in the early 1960's.

7:42 PM, May 07, 2013
MSgt B said...

Man, they had everything it that video.

Sure miss those old Phantoms.

8:36 PM, May 07, 2013
Larry said...

Somewhere I once saw gun-camera video from either an F-102 or an F-106 at one these exercises intercepting a B-52 at low altitude in what looked like mountainous terrain. The way that B-52 was maneuvering was surprising for something that big, and as the interceptor pilot commented (as he failed yet another run at it), (paraphrase), "I can't get a lock, I can't get a lock! He's popping off flares like a motherf*****!" And he was, too. I'd love to find that again.

The AIM-4 Falcon missile was a real P.O.S., but the AIR-2 Genie would Get'R'Done...

word verification: Wednexi land : where Biggus Dickus' brother Cletus lives.

9:17 PM, May 07, 2013
Snowdog said...

one of the mods that were done to the 106 was the addition of a 20mm cannon in the weapons bay, taking the place of the Genie rocket. My father put in 20+ years working on those, then going on to turn them and later F-4s into drones down at Tyndall. Now he sits out back, watching F-22's taking off over his house.

11:47 PM, May 07, 2013
Jon said...

Purportedly, the Air Force stopped inviting the local band of ANG (The Happy Houligans) because they kept beating the pants off active units... with F-16Cs that were so old they should have been scrapped(and were, in every other unit).

Then our local General was adament his boys should get F15s that they got no new fighter jets at all, and instead got Lears.

Sad day.

7:51 PM, May 08, 2013
Ed said...

It used to be spectacular watching the Massachusetts ANG F-106's take off from Otis AFB/Camp Edwards on Cape Cod, Massachusetts to intercept Soviet aircraft flying the polar route down the East Coast to Cuba. The F-106's were replaced by F-15's, before they all were relocated to Westover AFB in Chicopee.

10:57 PM, May 09, 2013

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