- Joined
- Feb 26, 2019
Note the nice bullet hole right between Philips' eyes on his mask.... he truly got what was coming to him.
The amazing thing that makes that shoot out destined to become part of American lore was the fact that those 2 deaths, were the 2 robbers.
There were injuries aplenty, but, when the smoke cleared, the only ones dead were the robbers. It's a story you just kinda have to hear every now and again when the world seems to be falling apart around you that reminds you, we are not, on the whole, bad people. The good guys do, occasionally, win and win gloriously.
The J10 full-size Jeep pickup that got ventilated during the final shootout is also somewhat of a celebrity item among FSJ spergs; if I recall, the owner was swamped by offers to buy that Jeep (it still ran too).
I don't know if it ever was sold, but I know some of a few Jeep collectors offered stupid money for that truck.
On a much happier note - the "Cornfield Bomber"
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February 2nd, 1970. While on routine training maneuvers, Air Force Capt. Gary Faust's F-106 Delta Dart fighter entered into a deadly flat spin. Despite all attempts to recover, including cutting the throttle to idle and throwing out the plane's landing drag chute, he had no choice but to eject as he fell below 15,000 feet. Amazingly, the force of the ejection seat firing, and subsequent loss of weight, shoved the aircraft's nose down hard enough that it recovered from the spin on it's own. With the throttle set all the way back, and trimmed for landing, it made a relatively soft belly-flop on the Montana prairie below. An incredulous farmer stumbled upon the surreal scene: a pilot-less jet, with it's engine still idling, slowly pushing itself across his fields. He called the Sheriff, who in turn called the Air Force who advised him to just stay back and let it run out of fuel, which it did some time later. Faust was picked up unharmed when he reached the ground, and a team sent out to recover his plane found it nearly undamaged. After light repairs, it returned to service and would continue to fly until being retired in 1988, whereupon it was enshrined at the Air Force museum in Dayton.
I have a close family member who was an AF maintenance chief that transitioned to F-106s after B-52s in 'Nam. And from those, to F-16s. He still likes the 106 better.
One of my earliest memories is of being set in the cockpit of a 106. Good times.