Douglas Skyray

FWIW I engaged Fords twice flying the Deuce out of R-G AFB, KC MO. The
Navy/USMC Reserves (2 sqdns each) at NAS Olathe (15 w of RG) shared
our flying area. They flew F9F8 Cougars first and quickly learned to
leave the 102 alone. Then they got Fords and started hunting. I was in
my MC4 p-suit flying a 54000 foot M 1.1 target for 4 of my friends to
execute front snaps on. We were about 75 SE of KC - I was dragging a
contrail - and my buds were doing the half roll and dive back down
recovery from their attacks when 4 Fords showed up. Some of our guys
had had no rpt no ACM training - they were ADC school products and ACM
was bad - it could hurt the radar and the high performance maneuvering
was dangerous! But I had come out of Nellis and F86 Sabres and the 25
FIS via Dogs to the Deuce and ADC and so psuit or no psuit I joined
the fun. I was hanging off one Ford's wing as he chased one of the
no-ACM guys up and down and around - the Ford driver never did see me
desopite being about 60 back and a hundred yards away. Pretty quick I
had to break off for fuel and split for home. But the Ford was easy to
hang onto. Later on I was finishing a test hop for engine change when
2 Fords ahowed up at about 35000. I let them come on in to where they
were in long gun range and as they started to pull lead I lit the
burner and began low-speed yo-yoing, keeping up the turn while pulling
up, trading IAS for altitude and then easing back down to regain IAS
while tightening the turn slightly each time. ISTR I was oscillating
between 175 and 135 KIAS. In about three cycles I was sliding back
above them - the poor old Ford couldn't equal the Deuce's capability
in that maneuver, and coudn't raise the nose enough to ever point at
me. About 150 seemed their minimum. But then the Deuce had about 740
sq ft of wing area and I was light, down to about 1500 pounds of fuel,
so the airframe weight must have been below 21000. Anyway the Deuce
had no evil quirks at any reasonable airspeed. The Flight Manual says
'picking up a wing with rudder below 95 KIAS may result in a spin' but
hey, spin recovery was simple - let go of the stick. Of course 95 KIAS
is well below level flight minimum airspeed and the VVI is pegged down
- but the beast still handled nicely, as long as you had some sky left
below you to accelerate in, cause it sure wasn't going to do it in
level 1-G flight.
Cheers - Walt BJ