My adventures witht he bent wing bird

Air Classics, Jul 2001 by Cantrell, Richard A

Once again the standard emergency procedure called for me to climb to 6000 feet and test the slow flight characteristics before I tried to land. But this time, I had an extra and frightening problem. Another rule said that during FCLP you kept your parachute leg straps unhooked to allow you to get out quickly in case of a crash, on the assumption you would be so low you would not be able to use the chute. If I was going to climb to altitude in a plane with a wing about to come off, I certainly wanted my parachute leg straps fastened! But since I could not trim the plane, I had to keep one hand on the stick. And it took two hands to fasten the leg straps. So I called the tower, explained my situation, and got permission to land at once without testing the slow flight characteristics.

"Oh, and by the way," said the tower, "make a wheels landing." Well, I did, and sure enough it porpoised a little and I let the plane correct itself, but this one turned out to be only a "good landing." I walked away, but the plane, F4U-4 Bureau Number 81305, was stricken from the books.

My last scrape in the F4U occurred on the "Ides of March" (the 15th), 1950, during carrier qualifications on the USS Cabot. The last thing each single engine pilot had to do in order to graduate from Naval flight training and receive his wings as a "designated Naval Aviator" was to make seven successful carrier landings. A flight of students would fly out to the carrier, land and takeoff seven times in "round robin," and then fly back to Corry Field. The LSO always kept a notebook on every pilot's landings. Normally, he debriefed pilots afterwards to give them a chance to learn from their mistakes. But in the case of carrier qualifications since you flew back to the shore and then graduated the next day, there was no opportunity for that. So I did not know what the LSO had written about my performance. I did know, however, that I had gotten one wave-off. Some time later a friend gave me a photo which had been taken of that wave-off. On the back of that photo was written:

Dick Cantrell 15 March 1950 Advance Carrier Qualification in Gulf of Mexico aboard USS Cabot. "Close Wave-off."

Note absence of background screen and Landing Signal Officer who was probably in mid-air at this moment in attempt to save his life.

DNKUA*

*In LSO language "Damned near killed us all!"

The next day I got my wings and went to Norfolk to await assignment to a squadron. I was assigned to VA-15, NAS Jacksonville, Florida, where I flew AD-4s. Three months later, in June, I received my commission as an Ensign, USN. The Korean War started that same month. A number of us junior pilots from VA-15 were transferred to VA-35 on the USS Leyte,CV-32, which had been rushed back from a cruise in the Mediterranean to go through the Panama Canal to Korea.