Pictures of Cold War aircraft. (2 Viewers)

Nice I especially like the TA-4 of the Navel evaluation squadron, very nice, I don't remember seeing one in those colors. And we saw alot of TA-4's on the Midway in the late 1970's.

This is a CT-39E Sabreliner. The one in the photo ditched in the China Sea in 1988, crew was safe.

grunt said:

This is a CT-39E Sabreliner. The one in the photo ditched in the China Sea in 1988, crew was safe.

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Any background on why they ditched?

BiffF15 said:

Any background on why they ditched?

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Fuel starvation. The full report can be read here. Cheers!

grunt said:

Fuel starvation. The full report can be read here. Cheers!

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I don't see the full report there: is there a link?

The Link is on the reply, just click on the work "here". It looks like they had some sort of navigational error, doesn't say if it was equipment failure or Human error? I copied the test below.

A U.S. Navy North American Rockwell CT-39E Sabreliner jet was ditched in the South China Sea off the Spratly Islands. All three crew members entered a life raft and were later rescued by a Vietnamese navy vessel.
The airplane, from the Navy's Fleet Logistics Support Squadron at Cubi Point, suffered problems with the navigation system, forcing the crew to ditch the plane when it ran out of fuel.

cammerjeff said:

The Link is on the reply, just click on the work "here". It looks like they had some sort of navigational error, doesn't say if it was equipment failure or Human error? I copied the test below.

A U.S. Navy North American Rockwell CT-39E Sabreliner jet was ditched in the South China Sea off the Spratly Islands. All three crew members entered a life raft and were later rescued by a Vietnamese navy vessel.
The airplane, from the Navy's Fleet Logistics Support Squadron at Cubi Point, suffered problems with the navigation system, forcing the crew to ditch the plane when it ran out of fuel.

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Yes the link works but I just see the text above. Where is the full report shown?

A few more... 2x F-14A, RH-53D, F-20, YF-17.

grunt said:

Not an avid poster here, but regular reader. Time to post some of my collection. As a kid I wrote USN and USAF squadrons asking for pictures, and many replied sending photos and sometimes even patches. These will end up in the bin when I die, so better share them now while I still can.

More to follow.

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Wish I thought of that.

DBII said:

Wish I thought of that.

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When I was in high school in the 70's I wrote to the various manufacturers like Boeing, MD, Martin, etc and got a bunch of swag. I also got posters of Soviet block aircraft from a 'KNOW YOUR ENEMY' series but I do not remember how I obtained them. I donated all of it to my NJROTC company and CAP squadron. As its been forty years I have no idea if any of it still exists or not.

Forty years ago today, a young Royal Navy sublieutenant with only 75% of his training completed performed an aeronautical feat that saved his aircraft, nearly caused an international incident and cost him his pilot's job, at least for a while.

This is the story behind these photographs.




On 6 June 1983, Sublieutenant Ian Watson took off from HMS Illustrious with Sea Harrier FRS.1 ZA176 on a NATO exercise under radio silence and with radar off.

At dusk, disoriented, unable to locate the aircraft carrier to return, with radio technical problems, 120 miles southwest of Porto and with only 7 minutes of fuel left, he located the Spanish container ship Alraigo.

93 metres long and 13.5 metres wide seemed good enough for him to attempt a landing and try to save himself and the plane.

After a couple of turns on the ship, the landing manoeuvre began. The ship's captain ordered the engines to stop and Sublieutenant Watson managed to land the Sea Harrier, avoiding collision with the crane and the bridge, on containers and the ship's deck.

There was British pressure for the Alraigo to divert to Lisbon or Gibraltar, but with the aircraft secured on deck, the captain decided to stubbornly continue on to its original destination, the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (yes, the same place where Horatio Nelson lost his right arm in 1797), where it would arrive on 9 June.

The owners and crew of the Alragio opposed the return of the aircraft until they were compensated for its salvage according to Spanish law (⅔ of the value of what was salvaged) but, as it was a state asset, there was no room for this, although the crew and owner were compensated by the MoD with a total of some 570,000 pounds to be divided between all of them at the end

On 15 June, the ZA176 left Santa Cruz de Tenerife on the tanker British Tay for Portland, UK, after being unloaded by unemployed workers recruited to do so, as the dockers at the port refused to do so in solidarity with the ship's crew claim for a higher compensation.

Today, ZA176 can be seen at the Newark Air Museum, Nottinghamshire, England in FA.2 configuration.

The Alraigo was scrapped at the Turkish Aliaga shipyard as Golden Fox.



Second Lieutenant Ian Watson recovered its wings and flew it again until retiring in 1996 with almost 3,000 flying hours.

This wasn't the first FAA plane that ended in Santa Cruz de Tenerife after a sea rescue. But is a history for another day and another thread.

And FAA are always saying "Fly Navy."

Vic Balshaw said:

And FAA are always saying "Fly Navy."

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And now you know why: no wet feet.

Don't know why the claim of salvage rights. It did not sink or crash ana was not abandoned.

DBII said:

Don't know why the claim of salvage rights. It did not sink or crash ana was not abandoned.

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In spanish we say: quien no llora no mama which means (roughly) the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I guess the ship owner lawyer told him to log a claim, just in the case.

DBII said:

Don't know why the claim of salvage rights. It did not sink or crash and was not abandoned.

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Salvage does not need to comply with these requirements: a salvor can claim rights merely by providing a tow for a disabled vessel. There are similarities between that scenario and this.

And a few more for today:

Great Shots! I really like the picture of the sad looking TA-7C, you don't see to many pictures of 2 seat A-7's!

A Dutch Air Force F-104 Starfighter made a belly landing at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, due to defective landing gear, June 7, 1963.