Two F-8 Crusaders on the Civil Registry

[StangStung]

I am Larry Higgins, I owned and operated the F-8s, yes they were at Deer valley and yes 19Tb flew up to 1998 the aircraft were sold to Air Capital Warbirds , unfortunately it may never fly again. They did not have a qualified mechanic and when they tried to take the wing b off they destroyed the aircraft. It wss my father's dream to fly it but unfortunately he was killed in 1986
He never got to see it fly. You in cancheck you tube there is a video of it at Edwards Afb in 1997

Thanks for sharing this info. Always great to have people with first hand knowledge posting here.

[Matt Gunsch]

Good to see you on here Larry, and I verify what Larry says, I watched them load the F-8s on trucks and I was amazed that they did not break their backs.

[Warbird Kid]

Nooooo. How will this damage be undone!?

[eze240]

Ok, lets not panic....
Anything can be rebuilt....its just a matter of how much one is willing to spend on it.
Some questions I have are:
1 Does anyone know what happened to the 18 F-8's that were for sale from the Philippines?
2 Are there any left in the scrap yards in Tucson?

I remember seeing at least one back in 2009, same yard had a bunch of S-2's....

[Matt Gunsch]

All the F-8s in Tucson had the wings cut, other than the French and Filipino F-8s, the 2 F-8s that Larry had were the only ones in with un cut wings.

[Rajay]

Ryan, I'll let Joe Baugher, give you the differences. I edited some of his explanation for the sake of brevity.

F-8
The F8U-1 was the initial production version of the Crusader. The Crusader test flight program had gone so smoothly that the production F8U-1 was almost identical to the XF8U-1 prototypes. The first production F8U-1 (BuNo 140444) flew for the first time on September 30, 1955, the same day as the maiden flight of the second XF8U-1.

The engine powering the F8U-1 was the J57-P-12A engine, which, after the delivery of the first few dozen aircraft, was supplanted by the J57-P-4A offering an afterburning thrust of 16,200 pounds. The F8U-1 carried an APG-30 gun-ranging fire control radar.

In order to show off its new fighter, the Navy decided to use the Crusader to capture the World's air speed record, held at that time by the F-100C Super Sabre at 825 mph. The Navy felt that the Crusader could beat that record by a substantial margin, perhaps even giving the Crusader the distinction of being the first aircraft to set a record that exceeded 1000 mph.On August 21, 1956, Cdr "Duke" Windsor in F8U-1 BuNo 141345 (the twelfth production machine) hit an average speed of 1015.428 mph in two speed runs in opposite directions over a 15-kilometer course at an altitude of 40,000 feet over China Lake, California.

On June 6, 1957, two F8U-1s, piloted by Capt Robert G. Dose and LtCdr Paul Miller took off from the USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31) steaming off the California coast and flew to the USS Saratoga (CVA-60) waiting off the Florida coast. With one midair refuelling over Texas, the planes made the trip in 3 hours and 28 minutes. President Dwight Eisenhower was aboard the Saratoga to greet the crew as they landed.

Fulltext :http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f8_2.html



A-7

The Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II was the result of a May 17, 1963 Navy design competition named VAL, which stood for Light Attack Aircraft. The VAL aircraft was to replace the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, and was to have as its primary mission the delivery of conventional ordnance as opposed to nuclear weapons. The aircraft was to have a single seat, and the requirement specified that the aircraft would have to be in service no later than 1967. The Navy was interested in low cost, and specified that the aircraft would have to be based on an existing design. In addition, in order to save even more money, the requirement did not call for supersonic performance. A maximum bombload of 15,000 pounds was called for. One of the more important features of the V-463 was the presence of no less than eight external stores positions. Two of the hardpoints were on the fuselage sides just ahead of the wing leading edge, and were each capable of carrying 500 pounds. There were two inner underwing pylons, each capable of carrying 2500 pounds, and four outer underwing pylons each capable of carrying 3500 pounds. The aircraft could carry virtually any of the offensive weapons in the Navy's armoury. The aircraft was also armed with a pair of 20-mm Mk 12 cannon with 600 rpg, one gun on each side of the air intake.

The engine used was a non-afterburning 11,350 lb.s.t Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-6 turbofan. No afterburner was needed, since supersonic performance was not called for in the requirement.

For full text see: http://home.att.net/~jbaugher4/newa7_1.html

I don't think bad about you for asking this, Ryan. I didn't even go to the gun cabinet ! And Ryan, come on, nobody hunts in the dining room, you hunt from the comfort of your living room couch !

Probably significant to point out the early A-7's were considered to be under-powered with the TF30 engine and for the Air Force's A-7D it was subsequently re-engined with a more powerful TF41 engine (license-built Rolls Royce Spey) that was adopted as well for Navy's A-7E too.

[Chris Brame]

Thread from the dead! Anyone have photos/current disposition of these two?

[C VEICH]

Or how about info on this A-7 that I photographed at Glendale airport (Arizona) some years back. I did not record the date unfortunately but it had to be 8-10 years ago I think.

[airnutz]

Thread from the dead! Anyone have photos/current disposition of these two?

Went back and read page 1 to remember whut I forgot. Nope...
EDIT
Dug out the vid Larry was talking about...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCa52bzGsbg

[Lynn Allen]

What about the pair at KLNC, buried in a hangar. Every year at the Warbird Fly-in, I ask if they could come out.

[Warbirdnerd]

Looks like the earlier pic links are bad. Here are the F-8s from 2000. I think I took these at Deer Valley Airport-

18_15A by Bryan Darnell, on Flickr

19_16A by Bryan Darnell, on Flickr

[Scott Rose]

Looks like the earlier pic links are bad. Here are the F-8s from 2000. I think I took these at Deer Valley Airport

Thanks Bryan

[C VEICH]

Looks like the earlier pic links are bad. Here are the F-8s from 2000. I think I took these at Deer Valley Airport

I can confirm that is most definitely Deer Valley airport.

[Scott Rose]

Obviously in need of updating, this is what I have in the registry on these two aircraft
F-8 Crusader/Bu. 145527/N37TB
F-8 Crusader/Bu. 145592/N19TB