Category: Military Flying

On May 17, 1943, Capt. Robert K. Morgan flew the Memphis Belle against a target in Lorient, France, on his 25th officially credited mission (it was the Belle’s 24th combat mission). Two days later, on May 19, 1943, Lt. C. Anderson and his crew flew the Memphis Belle on its 25th officially credited mission to Keil, Germany.

Now, this is no ****! Towards the end of the AIM/ACE — EVAL, things had heated up between the Eagle and Turkey pilots. At the Nellis O’club many innuendoes and challenges had been thrown out as a result of the high profile dog fights between the Tomcat/Eagle Blue Force and the F-5Es. The Blue Force F-15 drivers were threatened with a court martial, flying rubber dog **** outta Hong Kong and having their birthday taken away if they even thought about locking horns with ACEVAL Tomcats. When the test sorties were finally over, a couple of F-15 instructors in the 415th training squadron took the bait. “Turk” Pentecost and I were a section. Turk was not nearly as cocky, arrogant and boisterous as D-Hose, but just as aggressive, smart, devious and just as good a stick. We briefed a very wide hook, an altitude split of 10k ft. and a radar sort @ 25nm by Bill “Hill Billy” Hill and “Fearless” Frank Schumacher. All pre-merge heat and radar missiles didn’t count. It was GUNS only at the merge. The wide hook enabled Turk and D-Hose to split the fight into (2)1v1’s, with one Turkey high, one low and lots of lateral separation. As Hill Billy and D-hose closed for a 250ft, guns kill on their Eagle, the comm went like this: D-hose: “Where are you Turk?” Fearless: “Right above you Hoser” D-hose: “We got two cons! Who’s out front?” Turk (mildly offended): “Who do ya think?” Both Eagles were gunned, “knock it off” was called, and the Tomcats RTB’d with a 500 knot, 6.5g, half second break at Nellis…cuz that was our salute and tribute to our fine VX-4 maintenance personnel.

 

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HT/Jeff H

An interesting, sort of, account of how they moved the A-12 Blackbirds to area 51 for flight testing.

Foreword:

This piece of the History of the Lockheed A-12 is dedicated to the memory of Dorsey G. Kammerer. Dorsey was a part of the Lockheed SkunkWorks from its inception. He was an “inside” man on the team that built the P-38 Lightning, the P-80 Shooting Star, the F-104 Starfighter, the U-2 Angel and the A-12 Archangel and the other versions, the YF-12 and the SR-71.

Dorsey that had the foresight to save the photos that help document this story. Dorsey’s family found these gems and made them available for this story. This story has never really been told in much detail before. I have collected the pictures for display as an addendum to the text.

This re-do of the original “Challenge of Transporting the A-12s to Area 51” does not change the compass of the original, only expands on a good story, made even better.

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Watch it full screen.