I think this happened back in the day, so to speak, had a routine training flight with 2 other "ponies", mission profile was to intercept a MATS flight from Macdill AFB out of Tampa OTW to Barksdale, a C-124 "shakey jake".
Took off in the predawn hours, climbing 240 degrees, 200Knts IAS, we 3 were assigned grid "battery" sector at 17 thousand feet. Its about 50 minutes to assigned area!
After dodging around some left over CB's from night before, gulf is famous for night time TS and CB's, we finally broke out into the clear just as we entered "Battery". Mission profile was a 15 mile wide search pattern, all of us in the standard "Z" search pattern, with base of 210 degress, 1 min legs.
Uh, oh, all of sudden, headset awfully quiet! Try to raise "Blackjack 1 and 3, but no dice! Well now, have to tune up "no comms' on the IFF, so controllers will know what is going on and hand signals to 1 and 3, we break apart into our search pattern. About 15 minutes into search, there he is, 2 O'clock to me, low, about 15K, so I set up my approach for a "trail" shot, with a zoom to vertical, with split S at top and gun camera pass again on way down, then head for home. Don't know where 1 and 3 are, not in sight anywhere, but can't call them, so they just have to find it, the 124, themselves. Felt pretty good about both passes, about a 20 degree deflection on the trail shot and a full 3 seconds on downward pass, think I got some good camera shots.
Oh, see one of the guys at my 2 O'clock, head over that way and join up. Uh, oh, its not one of the guys after all, its a A1H Navy Skyraider!
Supposed to be a fairly nimble hog, as they were sometimes called, so i'll just make a friendly pass, give him a single fingered salute, like they do us at times. Now he wants to play because he is turning into me and about 1000 feet above me, 2 miles now and closing, so I set up a slight climb, 20 degrees off his nose. Want to stay away from that nose if he has gun camera's rolling, as I don't want to be the butt of laughter back in his ready room. It was not uncommon back in those days for units to exchange gun camera footage for critiquing each other. We pass about a 100 feet from each other and sure enough, the old single fingered salute, of course I was giving him one to! Pulled my nose up in about a 30 degree angle, speed down to about 280IAS, but still plenty for my surprise for him! He's at my 5 O'clock now climbing, looks like he is going to loop back on me, so I pull up into the top of the loop myself, roll 90 degrees to right, hold for about 3 seconds, then hard left turn and lo and behold, their he is, on the way down, back side of his loop, and as I roll in on him, something caught my eye to the right and wow, 2 more of these "swabbies" diving towards me from about 2000 feet above me and about 2 miles away! Now, "earlytango", you better get your thinking cap on, cause you about to be "dead" meat to these 3 guys. Rolled right, then left, just to confuse them about my intentions, turned right between the two and we passed about 100 feet I guess, right between both of them! They got tons of e, going downhill and me climbing, I am back to about 240, so gotta get this thing level, break the wire, engage WEP and run like a scared rabbit for home.
Boogie #1 is no where to be seen, but 2 and 3 are making hard left turns behind me about a mile away, so get my nose down, with WEP, and I know I can out run these guys straight and level, but I would be dead meat in a climb or dive to those big radials, so only chance I have is stay in slight dive till I get to about 375, then level out and boogie home.
As I look back, something caught my eye low and about 4 O'clock and it is my #3, found out later, with boogie #1 about a mile back. Gosh, I gotta go show this guy my nose to get him off of 3, so roll 120 degrees right and start down on them and all most at once, the boogie turns towards me, breaking off of #3. Uh oh, boogies 2 and 3 are now my 5 O'clock, closing fast and I am now in trouble, big time. I turn into them, roll inverted like I am going to split S, but push the stick forward and nose up and roll right side up and sure enough, both had rolled inverted to go after me! Now I had the advantage, as boogie 1 was losing all his e and 2 and 3 were going downhill fast. Got to get my nose pointed home as down to about 45 min fuel. Trouble was, boogies 2 and 3 are between me and home! Now what "tater" as I use to call myself when I did something dumb, you gotta pull a end run someway and stay out of these guys way. Showing them my 7 O'clock, re-engaged WEP headed 090 and wasn't long before I could tell, I was leaving them, so disengaged WEP,, turned to 020 degrees and headed for home.
Had just settled down and noticed a wisp of smoke out of right bank of exhaust stacks, looked back and sure enough, a thin trail of black smoke! Crap! still about 50 miles from shoreline, but down at 8k, so set up slight climb, came back to 40 inches and 2400 to see if that might help any! I knew Lake city was somewhere to my east and Gainsville, but need to get this thing home. Settling down now, engine running smooth, about 15 min to home. Made a nice 360 overhead approach, nailed the landing and taxied in shut it down and #'s 1&3 are in pattern now, so waited until they shut down and we went in for debrief and they wanted to know where in the heck did I go? Turns out #3 never saw the skyraider closing in on his 6 and #1 never saw anything. I just replied, "I just went dancing with 3 Blue Angel wannabes and it was fun!
The thin trail of smoke was from a broke oil ring on a piston, I was told later!
