The Quarterly Newsletter of the Hickory Aviation Museum “It All Started with a Fury”
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Volume One Number One July 1, 2010 The Fury The Quarterly newsletter of The Hickory aviation Museum “It All Started With a Fury” History In Your Hands! In This Issue: History In Your Hands! ………………………….. 1 Welcome to Volume 1, Number 1 of The Fury, VA-37 On Deck …………………………………… 1 Quarterly Newsletter of the Hickory Aviation Newton Native Charles McCorkle ………………. 1 Museum! Since the Museum opened in April 2007 Morgan’s Corner …………………………………. 2 we have made a lot of changes and a tremendous Aircraft Recognition ……………………………… 3 The Timeline ……………………………………… 3 amount of progress. This has all been possible On the Inside ……………………………………… 4 through the dedication and hard work of many Prop Wash ………………………………………… 4 people, most of whom you will meet over time in Volunteers & Projects …………………………….. 5 these pages. (continued on p 2 ) Newton Native Charles McCorkle, Maj. Gen., USAF (Ret.) By Kyle Kirby VA-37 On Deck The first installment of Charles Milton McCorkle's By Kyle Kirby history has arrived! "Sandy" McCorkle was born in On Friday, June 4th, a group of former Naval Newton, NC on Jan. 29th, 1915. He passed away Aviators will arrive at the Hickory Aviation last August. McCorkle is a graduate of Newton Museum from Memphis. The reason they have High School and attended West Point (class of chosen Hickory is that there is a cornerstone of their 1936). He received his wings at Kelly Field in lives based here: An aircraft that used to take them October of 1936. Sandy served in the USAAF into the skies over Vietnam. That great aircraft is during World War II and was one of 17 American our little A-7A that just continues to bring people Spitfire aces, finishing the war with 11 aerial together! victories. He commanded the 54th FG in the One of the group is John "Hondo" Johnson. Now Aleutians in 1942 and then the 31st FG in the MTO a retired FedEx Captain, in 1972 he flew with the in 1943. Following WW II, he served in a variety Bulls of VA-37, during the WestPac cruise of USS of command and staff assignments. He was chief of Saratoga, CV-60. After reading our article about flight test engineering at Wright-Patterson AFB, our A-7’s service with VA-82 in The Hook, Hondo and Commander, Air Force Special Weapons (continued on p2, “VA-37” ) (continued on p6, “Charles McCorkle”) “THE FURY” Volume 1 Number 1 July 1, 2010 History In Your Hands (cont.) and HAM is proud to have a unique hand in helping This Museum is about history, but history is all make this event possible. about people, and that is the theme of the Museum. An aircraft is nothing without the people who make it fly or worked to bring it into existence in the first place. Collecting the stories of those people as well as the artifacts of their work is the purpose of the Museum. You can see those artifacts on display at our Museum. Some of the stories will be in this Newsletter, but the very source of those stories can often be found at the Museum itself, where “hangar flying” in the time-honored tradition of aviation is at its best. Our exhibits at present include the FJ Fury that started it all, “Felix 107,” the last flying F-14D Tomcat, the FedEx F-27 cargo plane, DeHavilland Vampire, A4 Skyhawk, our combat veteran A7A The Wild Bulls – (l to r) John Gurley, Chris Stoner, Corsair II, F4B Phantom II, Lockheed T33 jet Bart Auer, Norm Green and John Johnson trainer, Northrop F5E “Aggressor,” Republic F- 105B Thunderchief and, by the time this goes to press, a Navy SH-3 Sea King helicopter. We have MORGAN’S CORNER hopes for other acquisitions that include an EA-6B By Robert S. Morgan Prowler, S-3A Viking and possibly an F/A-18A I have been honored by my cohorts with the Hornet. mission to write this column. “Morgan’s Corner” Remember too that since history is in your hands will cover the Golden Days of Aviation, from the that gives you an opportunity to make some history end of World War II to the beginning of the jet age of your own. Volunteer now to work at the of commercial flying. I was fortunate to be very Museum! You don’t have to be a pilot or an A&P involved in this era. mechanic – a cheerful attitude and a willingness to Father Time, a common acquaintance to us all, has work are far more important. upon occasion managed inadvertently to mess up Come on out and visit! Museum Hours are the facts. It will be my mission in this inaugural Saturdays 10-5 and Sundays 1-5. Weekday tours by and subsequent columns to correct these untruths appointment. with the assistance of my aviation buddies. This will be accomplished by telling “stories,” at which I VA-37 (continued from p1) am very adept. Many of these “stories” are checked his log books and saw that he had flown humorous and some will be thought provoking. All our A-7A on that tour. I wasn't aware that any will have one thing in common: TO SET THE Alpha model A-7s even participated in combat RECORD STRAIGHT! during this period!! Shiny new A-7Es were filling When those of us of the World War II generation the decks and supplementing the B and C models. get together we tell “stories.” We never know what Hondo told me his squadron received E models but we will discuss. Many speak little of their war had major problems with the new TF-41 engines. days, but when we get together all traces of Father After grounding the E models, they pulled old A Time disappear due to a common bond, for as one models from reserve units. of us stated, “When we get together we are twenty Other former Bull pilots are being invited from years old again.” Jacksonville, FL and other places including a To start off, then, here’s a favorite story of mine. former POW who flew our A-7 just two days before In the late 1970s I flew a charter flight from New his shoot down. This will be a huge weekend for us (continued on p. 3, “Morgan’s Corner”) 2 “THE FURY” Volume 1 Number 1 July 1, 2010 (“Morgan’s Corner” cont. from p. 2) Then we asked Traffic Control to resume our York to Athens in a DC-8-63, a large four-engine course to Athens and for a higher cruising altitude jet with tremendous range. It was normal to carry of 37,000 feet. This request was granted. Jet 255 passengers and a crew of nine. aircraft operate more economically at higher Most flights left the US East Coast for Europe in altitudes, and because of our descent and course the late evening to arrive at their destination in the deviation, more fuel was consumed. The DC-8-63 morning. The Atlantic crossing usually takes about goes through 2000 gallons an hour. Nonetheless we six hours. Roughly two hours into this flight my had the latest navigational equipment on board and senior flight attendant informed me we had an so we were able to cut off mileage and time to interesting group among the passengers: a reunion arrive in Athens on schedule. party of glider pilots who “hit the beach” at Some might question why passengers were Normandy on June 6, 1944. allowed in the cockpit at all, but this was long I had my flight attendant bring the leader of the before 9/11 and security was more lenient. Besides, group to the cockpit. The ex-glider pilot was it was during the Golden Days of Aviation when slightly overwhelmed by the size of the aircraft but flying was pure pleasure. more so by the numerous dials and gauges on the (a version of this article appeared in the Lenoir instrument panels. Few of the glider pilots entered News-Topic on June 5, 2010) commercial aviation after World War II and were unfamiliar with the advances made since then. I instructed my cabin crew to leave the cockpit door open during the crossing and the former glider pilots were welcomed to the cockpit three at a time. The visits went smoothly, especially with the Aircraft Recognition assistance of my flight engineer, who would have made a first-class public relations man and did a North American FJ-3 Fury. The first aircraft beautiful job answering questions. My First Officer acquired by the Hickory Aviation Museum. The and I chipped in when we had a break. Fury was the navalised version of the F-86 Sabrejet. At the completion of the ocean crossing Oceanic The development of the Fury dates to 1944, when Traffic Control instructed us to switch over to both the US Navy and the Army Air Force French traffic control at an entry point called contracted for a jet fighter with North American “Cork.” Our flight route took us over northern Aviation. This contract resulted in the FJ-1, a France. The weather was sensational that morning, straight-wing jet fighter used only by the Navy. not a cloud in the sky. We flew at 33,000 feet and The FJ-1 Fury was the first jet aircraft to complete you could see forever. Off to the left of our course an operational tour with the US Navy and for a brief about fifty miles of the Normandy shoreline was time was the fastest fighter in naval service.