Sounds like my kinda pilot
US presidential hopeful John McCain was prone to mistakes during his time as a Navy pilot, and if today's standards were applied, his career may have ended in a hard landing, according to a report Monday by The Los Angeles Times.
The newspaper said that when McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider in Texas in 1960, he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane's wings.
In his autobiography, McCain said the crash had occurred because "the engine quit," but an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure, the report said.
Instead investigators concluded that the 23-year-old junior lieutenant was not paying attention and erred in using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn."
The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials, The Times said.
In another incident, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout in the area, the paper noted.
In 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia, and after he was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967, the report said.
Three months later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken prisoner.
The Times said it had interviewed men who served with McCain and located the 1960s-era accident reports and professional evaluations.
"This examination of his record revealed a pilot who early in his career was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits," the paper concluded.
It reminded that in today's military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a pilot's career.
From http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081006/ts_alt_afp/usvotem...5Weo30OJv0XKpNipg9IF
If I remember correctly, ol' Chuckie Yeager flew a P-39s wing into a tree of some sort to help remove the stubborn tree from the ground. Messed up the wing but no crash.
I read that in Yeager's autobiography years ago and my memory may be a bit sketchy.
Times were different compared to now, for sure.
Yup Mc C was sitting in the a/c in preparation for a strike on N Vietnam when a Zuni rocket was launched from another a/c and struck his a/c. The following holocaust killed 134 and wounding 161 men, with 21 aircraft destroyed on the USS FORESTALLafter he was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967
Yep, and when he landed he claimed to have 'hit a bird'Originally posted by han freak solo:
If I remember correctly, ol' Chuckie Yeager flew a P-39s wing into a tree of some sort to help remove the stubborn tree from the ground. Messed up the wing but no crash.
I read that in Yeager's autobiography years ago and my memory may be a bit sketchy.
Times were different compared to now, for sure.
His mechanice said it 'must have been sitting in a helluva nest!'
I love the spin they put on the above statement. As if getting hit by a rocket fired from another aircraft due to a static discharge is somehow his fault. What a crock of crap.Originally posted by triad773:
...and after he was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967, the report said...
--Outlaw.
I love the spin they put on the above statement. As if getting hit by a rocket fired from another aircraft due to a static discharge is somehow his fault. What a crock of crap.Originally posted by Outlaw---:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by triad773:
...and after he was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967, the report said...
--Outlaw. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
True... and they didn't even say McCain did anything to cause the explosion. I picked up on that right away. It's like saying the dinosaurs were killed off by a comet, then man appeared![]()
Well that's the LA Times. They should have left that out in order to be responsible journalists, be sure- but everything else smacks of direct causality in some way.