Fabulous and Funky Fifties Fighters

fightingirish

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:eek:, OMG, haven't seen this AWESOME video of many of the Navy's 1950s jet fighters & attack aircraft conducting carrier trials before. B)
Fabulous (and not) U.S. Navy fighters undergo carrier suitability trials. Featuring the McDonnell F3H "Demon", Vought F7U "Cutlass", Douglas F4D "Skyray" and A4D "Skyhawk" aboard the USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) in September, 1955.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXyrnvkxrPw

If this video has been posted or discussed before, please let me know via PM.
 
OMG!!! Thank you for taking me back to my days back on Truman. The planes may have changed. The ships may have changed. But a 3-week CQ along the VACAPES is still a 3-week CQ along the VACAPES!

I will admit it was good to see the Skyray in action. I'm a Skyray nut.

Moonbat
 
A couple of bits of trivia. Note that the F3H had to be severely angled to fit on the forward elevator. This was considered a deficiency back when the XF3H-1 went aboard for initial carrier trials, (http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2009/06/missed-it-by-that-much-iii.html) because it increased the time to position the airplane for clearance and time was of the essence, particularly since the forward elevator often had to be used to strike an airplane below if it became a dud during the launch cycle. Nothing could be done about the Demon's length but as a result, the F4H designers were originally limited to an overall length of 56 feet so there was the requisite foot of clearance fore and aft when it was pulled straight onto the forward elevator.

The Tico was an axial deck carrier at the time. I'm not sure why the voice over states that the pilots were using the "power-on landing technique", since that's normally associated with an angled deck landing - constant angle of attack and power to touchdown. The pilots are clearly using a flat approach to a power cut, which was the standard technique at the time for axial deck carriers.
 

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