Best damn or luciest pilot

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
ups.com...
The special about it on History channel (about 2 years ago) said that
at first Boeing didn't believe it really happened until they sent their
engineers out. They explaination is that the body itself generates so
much lift it could still fly. If you think about the amount of G's
those planes can pull and the amount of load (bombs , etc) they can
carry they must have an enormous amount of excess lift.

One such Navy/Marine Corps airplane was the AD-1 Skyraider which, if memory
serves me, weighed less than the 3 tons of ordnance you could hang under its
wings.
Somewhere in the Naval Aviation archives resides a set of photos of an
AD-1 Skyraider on base and short final to the USS Bon Homme Richard ("Bonnie
Dick") with one wing folded over the cockpit. Contrary to engineering specs,
both locking pins inthe left wing sheared when the pilot pulled the airplane
off the deck during takeoff.
The airplane was THE airplane of VMA-212 for the 1st Provisional Marine
Air/Ground Task Force (later the 1st Marine Brigade) in early 1955.
Oh yeah, the plane caught the #3 wire and landed without any further
damage. Gung Ho!