cursed Cutlass: The USN's Ensign eliminator, The

Flight Journal, Oct 2003 by Tegler, Jan

"On the downside, on almost every flight, we lost the hydraulic boost and ended up flying on the mechanical backup system. It took 11 seconds to engage the mechanical system, and you can't imagine how long that seemed. We had constant hydraulic problems. I probably had 370 hours in the F7U-1 and I can't ever remember once writing 'OK' for the hydraulics on the yellow post-flight evaluation sheet. Something was always wrong. The Vought engineers practically rebuilt the Dash-One. They were wizards at coming up with fixes, but the Cutlass sure taxed them."

SPINS

The Cutlass often had a Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde personality. On one hand, its ambitious airframe design gave it tremendous stability. On the other hand, that stability changed the way the F7U stalled and then spun. The modern term, "departure," might more aptly describe the Cutlass's tendencies. Post-stall, the aircraft was uncontrollable in pitch, yaw and roll, and it would fall into a tumbling maneuver. If this occurred below 10,000 feet, the Navy's best advice was "... to get the hell out." Whitey and others had experienced both extremes of the Cutlass's personality.

"We had to demonstrate the Cutlass's spin characteristics. I had a terrible time with that. The airplane was so stable it just wouldn't spin. It almost cost Paul Thayer his life. We had invited all the Pentagon brass to come to Pax for a demonstration of the airplane. I was to fly a Bearcat and Paul the F7U-1. We demonstrated a bunch of other airplanes in the show-making high-speed passes and whistling by one after another. I went screaming by in the Bearcat, pulled up, went vertical and then rolled out inverted. As I began to turn back toward the field, I heard the tower say something to Thayer. Coming around, I looked over my shoulder, and there he was-just a ball of flame coming at me! I immediately formed on his wing. He decided it was time to eject but chose not to use the ejection seat because we were all afraid there wasn't enough clearance for us to shoot out of that cockpit without losing our feet. If we had to leave the airplane, our policy was to roll inverted and drop out. Thayer rolled over and tried that, but before he was able to get out of the airplane, it whipped around right-side up, then went into a falling-leaf motion. At the same time, it started to turn back toward the field and was headed right for the bleachers-right for the brass. He was down to about 1,500 feet, and his headphones had become disconnected. I finally got my Bearcat out in front of him where he could see me and gave him the 'Eject! Eject!' signal. At last he ejected, but he was so low already that he went into the woods just off the field. His chute popped open just as he hit the trees. I thought he was gone! Fortunately, he hit the swamp and went in up to his waist.

"When Thayer ejected, he wasn't strapped in (having decided to try and fall out). He was kicked around in the cockpit, and when the seat fired, it broke his tailbone about three inches up. I still vividly see it in my mind. The pilot chute on the ejection seat deployed right away and separated the seat from him. But the pilot chute on his parachute didn't work, and his main chute opened just as he hit the trees. Fortunately, when he ejected, the airplane tipped over and went straight down just missing the field. Boy, they evacuated the stands at that point! The tower was jabbering at me, 'What's going on? What's going on?'