BOTSWANA F-5A

[FLYBOYJ]

they're great stories

and does anyone else find this funny??

they purchased from Canada

Yea - its funny, those F-5s had the same avionics as Canadian F-18s! They were in great shape, it makes me wonder why Canada gave them up. The Canadians built a whole bunch of F-5s.

 

[plan_D]

I've got quite a few stories from my dad's time with Lightnings;

An example of pilot's thinking they're gods, one had been trained in a F.3 Lightning and thought that he could fly a F.6. Somehow he got flight time in a F.6 without being trained in it, ended up having to eject over the Med.

Another one, a tech left a screwdriver in the engine. Came back into the crew quarters ...and discovered he was missing a screwdriver. They all looked up to see the Lightning he'd just finished with lifting off the runway. Panic, of course! Air traffic called it back in and lucky, the screw driver had gone in sideways..lodging it against the blades instead of going through them into the engine.

Story of great pilot skill, the control pin in one of the Lightnings came out...the pilot had NO control over the aircraft except by trim. The pilot landed without a hitch on trim alone...on an aircraft with a landing speed of 190 mph!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

My God!

 

[plan_D]

I know some of them are just amazing and scary.

The RAF were used to stop drug smugglers too, at least...you could say they were. One night they picked up an aircraft flying in with identification. Naturally they believed it to be Soviets playing their game, so they scrambled a Lightning to go intercept. They picked up Lightning as being right above the spot where they had the aircraft, but there was nothing there. Being the middle of the night, the pilot radioed back as there being nothing present.
While circling the area, he felt a huge bang and the aircraft shook violently. He reported it and headed home, landing without incident...


...the next morning the crew went out to check the aircraft. Nothing was wrong except a massive scar under the fuselage. They assumed it might have been a bird...or...a plane. Later that day the local news reports a Cessna 150 had crashed in the very same region he'd been circling that night.

In conclusion, they were drug smuggling. No lights, no IFF. And the Lightning had smashed into the top of them, luckily for the Lightning he only scrapped them, any higher and bits would have been flung into the intake. The Cessna, however, felt the wrath of 50,000 lbs of EE Lightning and fell out of the sky.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

My old Naval Reserve squadron (VP-65) busted a boat with 47 tons of cocaine in the Gulf of Mexico in 1998. When the plane spotted the suspicious boat, they flew around it and then came in real low with the bomb bay doors opened (there was nothing in them) the smugglers saw this P-3 bearing down on them at 200 knots with the bomb bay doors opened, they surrendered right there. It took an hour for the Coast guard to get on station. In the mean time the smugglers basically surrendered to the airplane all standing on deck with their hands up hoping this big grey airplane won't drop something on them!

 

[plan_D]

Haha, brilliant. I wonder what the Lightning pilot would have done if he'd have seen them though...shot the Cessna down with his red tops...hahaha

 

[FLYBOYJ]

If a red top hit a cessna I think it would go right through and not even set the warhead off!

 

[plan_D]

Probably but you know you'd enjoy shooting a Red Top up one's arse. Or unleash the fury of two 30 mm Aden cannon.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I said it before, you're a sick man!

 

[plan_D]

I heard a few more stories from my dad again today so, it's story time!

The chaff on the Lightning was the most crude system in the world. They used to hydraulically open the airbrakes and put into them an open box full of aluminium strips. When the Lightning opened his airbrakes, these would come out.
One time they did this and the person pumping (to get hydraulic power) forgot to take the pump handle out and stow it properly. Later that day the Lightning got scrambled - and in the air he noticed the Soviet crews going nuts, taking pictures and calling to each other. He landed and reported the incident only to have one of the crew point out the bright red hydraulic pump on the side of his aircraft.

Soviet Thinking: "NEW SENSOR OR RADAR - TAKE PICTURES!"

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I might of mentioned this before....

During the good ole cold war days when P-3 crews found Russian Trawlers close to the 3 mile limit, they would collect all the trash in the aircraft and put it in the "Freefall Chute." The chute would be used to manualy launch sono bouys. Anyway they would fly over the boat and launch all the trash on the deck of the trawlers!

 

[evangilder]

hehe Ah the good old days!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

More Photos! The fellow with me was known as "four-four." He was a Warrant Officer in charge of the maintenance dept, great guy, he's probably retired today.

 

[Nonskimmer]

Nice pics. Here's how the rest of the CF-5's ended up. Chopped and lined up in a hangar in North Bay, Ontario.

 

[Pisis]

..........

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Nice pics. Here's how the rest of the CF-5's ended up. Chopped and lined up in a hangar in North Bay, Ontario.

Arrow mentality?

 

[Nonskimmer]

No, just the usual tight-fisted, short-sighted mentality.

 

[evangilder]

Shame, did they get turned into Molson cans?

Nice shots, Joe!

 

[Pisis]

Nice shots, Joe!

Oh, yeah!