Mil's Place: RABBIT HUNTING IN THE F-100

F-100'S

WYLIE’S FLIGHTS IN F-100F

by Wylie Dougherty, guest writer

From October 54 to October 64, I was a member of the NM Air National Guard. Another Clovis boy, Ellis Jones (CHS 53) suggested that I join to prevent being drafted into the Army. Ellis was the Maintenance Clerk and worked for the NMANG as a Technician (Full time employee).

After completing Aircraft maintenance school at Amarillo AFB, in early 1957, I became an Aircraft Mechanic and worked full time for the NMANG. The unit was the first ANG Squadron to receive F-100 fighters. After a year I was named Crew Chief of the F-100F, a two seat fighter which was used for pilot training and tow ship for air-to-air gunnery practice. As a result of crewing the F model, I was allowed to fly, back seat, a few times, allowing me to become a “Mach Buster” an award from North American who built the F-100s.

TRIP TO DALLAS

In July of 62 or 63, our unit was asked to run some short field take-offs and landings at Love Field in Dallas to see if the F-100 could handle the shorter runways and lower elevations. As Crew Chief, I was asked to crew the airplane and assist with the assessment. Naturally I was happy to fly over to Dallas. As we were flying VOR to Amarillo, around Tucumcari, I mentioned to Maj. Baldwin that I could see the ranch where I grew up, North of Clovis. He said "Let’s take a better look" and rolled over to look down at the scenery. Quite naturally I lost my bearings but enjoyed the sight from 30,000 ft.

Maj. Baldwin then said “I’m tired of flying, you fly it”. I said “I know how the controls work, but---" He said “feet on the rudder pedals, right hand on the stick and fly”. After a few minutes of wobbling all over the sky, he said “I’m getting sea-sick, quit moving the stick—just think the stick”. I guessed that meant let the plane fly itself, he was satisfied with my few minutes of stick time and took over.

When we landed at Love Field and putting the bird to bed, I was assigned to the Navy enlisted men’s barracks. Now if you have been in Dallas at the end of July, you know that the temperature and humidity race each other to 100 degrees. The barracks only had AC in the Recreation Room, so that’s where I stayed until time for bed. There was a vigorous series of ping pong games going on until one of the Squids said “ Hey Sarge, you play ping pong?”. I accepted the paddle and was able to beat all of the challengers; you have to understand that Crew Chiefs and Pilots had very serious games each month, so my skills were pretty sharp—or so I thought. One of the young sailors turned to the Chief Petty Officer and said “ Hey Chief, you might get a game out of this fly-boy”. A real challenge- I played the Chief 5 games and never got more than 7 points in a game, at the end the Chief just growled “that was pretty good, best I’ve had this year... I haven’t had any competition from these guys.” A humbling experience!

On the way back to Kirtland, after clearing the outer marker, Maj. Baldwin said “That’s enough straight and level, let’s get you through Mach and do some acro." So for a few minutes we tore up the sky and I watched the instrument needles twitch as we passed the speed of sound. Big deal? Yes it was..

CHASING RABBITS IN THE F-100F

Shortly after this trip, my bird developed an afterburner affliction which required the engine guys to fix the problem. After the bird was returned to the Flight line, one of our Senior Pilots, Major Dale Dodd came to me and asked if the bird was ready for the test flight, necessary after engine work. I said it was ready and he asked if I was ready for the test flight. When I appeared uncertain, he said “If you don’t trust your work and fly with me, I’m not going”. That settled it- I went to Personal Equipment and checked out flight suit, g-suit, helmet and parachute, all ready to go. Maj. Dodd handed me the knee clipboard and said you’re the secretary and do all the pencil work.

After we fired up the bird and taxied out, he asked if I was ready for a max-takeoff, which he explained was yanking up the wheels and pointing the nose up to see how quickly we could get to 35,000 ft. After kicking in the A/B he rolled the nose up and within 5 minutes we leveled at 35K. After running through all the test flight checks and a few engine tests he said “Ready to go rabbit hunting?” My response was, “You’re the driver”. After he flipped the bird over and started down, I noticed that we/I missed one check, so he flipped over, went back to 35 and we did a stall check to insure that the gravity operated wing slats operated correctly. After assuring him that we had finished the test portion of the flight, he said “Okay, hang on”.

We dropped down to a few feet above the earth almost as fast as we went up. Maj. Dodd pointed the nose at Ladrone Peak southwest of Belen and started to head there at about 350-400 knots. As the Peak kept getting bigger and filled the windscreen, I figured he wanted to show me how close to the peak he could fly. There is nothing that a pilot enjoys more than making the Crew Chief get sick in his own bird—no way! We pulled up through this canyon and I swear I could see rocks off each wingtip, then he said let’s go find some sheepherders. So we flew over the Rio Puerco and scared a couple of rabbits and sheepherders. My biggest thrill was as we were flying very low over this mesa, and I could see the shadow of the plane getting bigger and bigger, we crossed over the edge of the mesa and our shadow just dropped 500 ft. The sensation was all in my mind.

A great few years maintaining a great Warbird and enjoying some time in the sky. I may tell a couple of stories that happened in our air-to-air gunnery practice, with my bird as the tow-ship and target.