Better airplane? When I was flying 86s out of Naha on Oki-knock-knock
the Navy was flying Panthers - and the Gutless. Even when we switched
to F86Ds we could eat both of those beasts alive. During my career the
only Navy fighter we respected was the Crusader - everything else was
toast to our 104s. Then when we got the Dash 19 engine and a 25%
thrust increase there weren't any more Crusaders around! Damn, that
F8 was one fine machine. I had four friends flew it on exchange - 2
Marine and 2 Navy. I also had 2 friends fly the Demon on exchange -
the less said about that the better. One of them (Larry Davis) had a
ramp strike but his part of the Drut slid up the flight deck and he
was okay. I always wondered if he got a medal for reducing the
inventory of Demons by one.
Walt BJ