Not many got to fly the skyraider "clean" of it's 3,237 drag inducing hardpoints but dad said every skyraider pilot contemplated risking his career if one happened to be around "clean" because it flew like a fighter.
Here's a story of skyraider vs F8F bearcat as told here.....
http://skyraider.org/skyassn/warstor/Grishamwarstor.htmHaving not been able to do any aerobatic flying since the days of flying the SNJ, every AD pilot desired to spend a little time having fun and diversion from restricted flying such as was required in the TBM. So at the end of each instrument flight, it was common practice to do a little "Blue Angel" flying in close formation, performing smooth aerobatic maneuvers. This actually was just a "tail chase" with the wingman holding a close position behind and under the leader.
Ensign Grisham, having been the safety plane pilot, became the wingman. He positioned himself behind and below Ensign Earl's plane with his propeller about a three-foot clearance from Earl's tail hook. Ensign Earl happened to be older than the skipper but he acted as if he were still nineteen very aggressive and fearless.
During the tail chase exercise, Grisham was so focused on the lead plane, that he had no idea if he was upside down, right side up, or vertical going up or down. He maintained constant vigilance on maintaining his formation position.
SUDDENLY Grisham detected a closure on his leader's plane and jammed the stick forward to avoid a mid-air collision. To this day he does not understand how his vertical stabilizer did not strike Earl's propeller as he sped forward and under his leader's plane. Grisham pulled out to one side and attempted to execute a rendezvous with his leader. When he approached Earl's plane, and to remain behind him, he had to swing wide on each side to kill speed and realized that Earl's plane had no power, as Grisham had to keep his throttle at idle just to remain anywhere near behind his leader. Grisham immediately thought Earl's plane had experienced an engine failure, but he recounted that he had not seen any smoke from the engine which was a common factor with an engine failure either black smoke or blue smoke. (Unknown to Grisham, Earl had pulled off his power, and Earl never explained why he had to do so.)
As he was deciphering all these factors, and attempting to join formation, and was just about to press his microphone button to ask about any problems, Grisham saw an F8F flash by. Immediately, Grisham thought, "We have been jumped by a "Bear Cat" and he wants to dog fight. Ensign Grisham happened to be in the right position as the two Skyraiders turned toward the attacking F8F and began weaving as in a one-on-one dog fight. Ensign Earl dropped back on Grisham's tail and maintained formation during the next four-fighter weaves.
As things seemed to be pretty even, Grisham deducted that if he should make a sloppy or slow turn, and if Earl is on the ball" he could make a quick maneuver and get on the opponent's tail before the opponent could get his guns bearing on Grisham with any good tail or deflection shot. Earl was on the ball, and as Grisham executed his sloppy turn, he called out on the radio, "Get him Earl!" Earl immediately responded, "I got him."
Earl had pulled up in a Chandelle, rolled over, split his large dive brakes and completed the last part of a "Split-S." He was immediately on the tail of the Bear Cat to the total surprise of the F8F pilot.
The Bear Cat pilot had been sold a "bill of goods" in that he was flying the aircraft that held the world's climb record from sea level to 10,000 feet in 90 seconds. So he calculated that he could out climb this large 50-foot wing span dive/torpedo bomber in order to get away from him.
So beginning at about 8,000 feet, the F8F pilot applied full throttle and pointed his nose for open sky, envisioning that his little aircraft was climbing like a "home sick angel." When he reached 18,000 feet he thought that he had left the AD far behind in his "wake," so he turned with the idea of going back and fight the Skyraider. But to the F8F pilot's surprise, the AD was tucked neatly under his tail, and had no problem staying with the 36-foot wing span scooter. For the next fifteen minutes, the F8F pilot attempted every maneuver in the book to "shake" the AD, but to no avail.
In the mean time, Grisham was all by himself at 8,000 feet. His immediate thought was that these guys don't go around by themselves, so there had to be another F8F some place nearby. With a swivel neck, Grisham looked for that second F8F. Finally he saw him diving toward him. Either the other F8F pilot knew what he was doing or he was lucky in that he was diving out of the sun.
Ensign Grisham applied full throttle and pulled the nose of his AD toward the attacker. They passed each other in a flash the F8F was doing at least 450 knots, while the AD was doing about 80 knots.
At this point it is interesting to note that Ensign Earl had had only two dog fight lessons in an SNJ almost two years previously, while Ensign Grisham had had only one dog fight lesson at that same time. They were far from being trained "dog fighters."
Grisham immediately turn toward his attacker, and immediately knew that the F8F pilot had made his first mistake. He had failed to convert his high airspeed into altitude, thus Ensign Grisham maintained altitude advantage and could press the fight to his advantage.
The two adversaries, the AD and the F8F began their dog fight weaving, which seemed to remain on an equal level of performance for about eight weaves. At about this time Grisham was about to call it a draw, until Grisham noticed he was gradually out turning the F8F, so he continued to press the fight until he was on the tail of the F8F.
The F8F pilot rocked his wings in acknowledgement that he had been "shot" down, and the fight was over.
Ensign Grisham called to Ensign Earl. "It's time to go home, Earl. Join up." In a matter seconds, Earl swooped into place on Grisham's wing and they dove for home NAS Alameda. As they entered the "break" over the end of the duty runway, an F8F flew by and pulled up into a victory roll. In the traffic pattern, he had made a gunnery run on the two Skyraiders.
As the two AD drivers walked to the hanger, they conversed about the incident, and agreed they would not mention it to anyone. They were fearful that they may have encountered some senior officers in the fighter squadron, and they didn't want any trouble to fall their way. It was during this little talk that Grisham discovered that Ensign Earl had actually initiated the dog fight, and Grisham never saw them during their "Blue Angel" act he was concentrating on his leader's plane too much to see anything else.
After lunch, a couple of other AD driver "nuggets" asked how our flight went. We casually respond, "Pretty good. If you have been on one instrument hop you have been on any another." Then Midshipman Ed, a Holloway Plan aviator, said that an F8F pilot, a Lieutenant Junior Grade from VF-193, was bragging at the BOQ dinning hall that he had shot down a couple of ADs that morning. Adding "It took me fifteen minutes to shake the first one off my tail, but" At this time the room roared with laughter, and he was reminded, "Man, you had been dead for fifteen minutes." Midshipman Ed reported that the other Lieutenant Junior Grade confessed that he had a real fight on his hands and that he gotten shot down by an AD.
This was all good news to all the frustrated fighter pilots that had been "Shanghaied" to a "lousy" torpedo squadron. Some inexperienced Ensigns had proven that they had a real airplane to fly and not some old lumbering torpedo/dive bomber, like the TBM or SB2C.
The irony of this event was that the two LTJGs had been trained as fighter pilots, now assigned to the, supposedly, newest, most maneuverable plane in the Navy's inventory, and the two nuggets had been trained as torpedo pilots.
After this incident, all the no longer frustrated fighter pilots in VA-195 felt that any F8F in the air was fair game for a dog fight. This severely curtailed the fighter squadrons training as they were constantly "jumped" whenever they placed their landing gear in the wheel wells.
Interesting enough, the bragging LTJG only attained the rank of commander, while the honest, confessing LTJG attained the rank of Rear Admiral. Did integrity have something to do with a couple of careers?
