What's wrong with this pic?

[Doug Sams]

I saw this pic in the Dallas paper Thursday, and immediately recognized the major error. Can you tell what it is? Bonus points for ID'ing all 3 errors. Double bonus for correcting the caption. Doug .

http://www.doug79.com/stuff/not-F-4-phantom2p.jpg

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[Bob H]

Well, its not an F-4 and it's landing... not taking off. It looks to me to be an F-8 Crusader.

[tbzep]

The Saratoga was sunk at Bikini Atoll with atomic bomb testing way before 1972. :eek:

[Chas Russell]

Actually it is an A-7 Coursair II and it is probably landing. A telescopic lens would make it look closer to the sailors.

Chas

[Der Red Max]

http://www.doug79.com/stuff/not-F-4-phantom2p.jpg
The Saratoga was sunk at Bikini Atoll with atomic bomb testing way before 1972. :eek:
The USS Saratoga CV-3 was sunk in 1946 long before jets were taking off or landing on any aircraft carrier - so this is obviously the USS Saratoga CV-60 which was decommissioned in 1994.

[CPMcGraw]

It actually looks like a "bolter", or a missed approach. The engine thrust appears to be throttle-high, like the pilot's already slammed it to the wall.

Depends on where the cameraman was standing at the time - ahead of, or to the rear of, the control tower...

[kurth]

It is an A-7 which appears to be landing, and an A-7 only had one piolot, not a two person Crew like an F-4, the caption indicates two people.

[tbzep]

- so this is obviously the USS Saratoga CV-60

Not necessarily obvious. They got the plane, the landing, and the number of people in it wrong. For all we know it could have been one of the other active carriers in 1972....assuming they got the date stamp correct. :p

[dlazarus6660]

It's an A-7 Corsair II, landing, not taking off, (catapult lanches) with one pilot. Also, they don't usally land with a missle attached. They land so hard the missle detaches itself from the plane and goes tumbling or sliding across the deck.

This is what you should see.

The A-7 makes a great rocket, I oughta know :chuckle: :D :p :cool:

[Doug Sams]

The original Saratoga, CV-3, went down at Bikini, as DRM indicated. So, if that part of the caption is correct, it'd have to be the second carrier Saratoga, CV-60 (Forrestal class). That said, so little in the caption is correct, it could be any one of 10 or more carriers :) . But I must assume it's CV-60, so that's not one of the three items I was looking for. The aircraft landing (A-7) only dates back to the mid-60's, well after the first Saratoga was expended.

1. Yes, it's not an F-4. Several have ID'd it as an A-7 Corsair II, which I tend to think is correct. Although the F-8 looks much the same. But would have its wing tilted up on approach, I think, so I conclude it's an A-7 (which lacked the tilting wing).

2. Yes, it's landing, not taking off. Navy planes on takeoff stay on the deck until they go over the edge - they're never hover over it on takeoff - and they don't have their tail hooks down on takeoff, either.

3. The third thing I was looking for was the ranks listed in the caption. Air Force pilots don't land on / takeoff from carriers, and the navy doesn't have any majors or colonels :)

Doug

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[jeffyjeep]

The guy in white isn't wearing pants.

[RandyT0001]

3. The third thing I was looking for was the ranks listed in the caption. Air Force pilots don't land on / takeoff from carriers, and the navy doesn't have any majors or colonels :)


Don't the Marines have colonels and majors? Didn't Marines fly the A7 in the final days of the Vietnam War in the ground support role?

[Doug Sams]

Don't the Marines have colonels and majors? Didn't Marines fly the A7 in the final days of the Vietnam War in the ground support role?I couldn't tell you that. I know Marines did fly off carriers in WW2. (That was depicted in the old Baa Baa Black Sheep show, and turned out to be true much to my surprise.)

That said, in Viet Nam, the marines flying A-7's coulda been land based, no?
...
When we bought our first house, in St Louis, in 1987, we had a lawyer review everything before we closed the deal. He had been a Navy Corsair pilot in the Pacific. He told a story of landing on an island, and being greeted by American service men there who told him they were very happy to see the Navy had arrived. Until late in the war, the Corsair had been limited to land (hence, Marine) use due to its difficult carrier landing challenges. So when Jack heard the guy say Navy, he asked how the guy could tell. There weren't any markings on the plane, or on Jack's uniform, which would confirm Navy. The guy's reply: "You only used the first 300 feet of a 2500' long runway to land." :D

Doug

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[Doug Sams]

Don't the Marines have colonels and majors? Didn't Marines fly the A7 in the final days of the Vietnam War in the ground support role?BTW, that was a good point. It's not obvious in my presentation, but in the original newspaper article, it was known they were Air Force. It was a story about returning home their remains after all these years. They were F-4 aviators, pilot and WSO.

If the pic had shown a Navy F-4, I coulda let that slide. But the newb/IROC journalist didn't have a clue when he/she inserted that picture. Wrong plane. Then, to make it worse, they described the wrong flight mode. So I figured I might as well gig 'em on wrong service branch , too :)

Doug

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[RandyT0001]

Doug I know that in earlier years Marines flew various aircraft from land bases in Vietnam during the war. I thought that by 1972 with the US withdrawal the Marines had been shifted to carrier based operations but looking up the CV-60 Saratoga the VA 105 squadron that flew A7's in the 1970's were naval aviators so I was mistaken in that assumption. So the pilots couldn't have been a colonel nor a major.

[GregGleason]

...
1. Yes, it's not an F-4. Several have ID'd it as an A-7 Corsair II, which I tend to think is correct. Although the F-8 looks much the same. But would have its wing tilted up on approach, I think, so I conclude it's an A-7 (which lacked the tilting wing) ...


The F-8 Crusader (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F-8_Crusader) and the A-7 Corsair II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_A-7_Corsair_II) (which is my vote for the aircraft depicted in the photo) do look similar since they essentially came from the same company, with the latter coming later from the stable. The Vought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought) aircraft company made Corsairs during WWII, and later Crusaders during the 1950s. John Glenn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glenn) set a transcontinental record flying an F-8 in 1957. The "V" in LTV is for Vought, Ling-Temco-Vought (who was the prime contractor for the LTV Scout) which became the corporate name in 1961.

[Paul Harvey]
And now you know the rest of the story.
[/Paul Harvey]

Greg

[Bravo52]

The F-8 Crusader (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F-8_Crusader) and the A-7 Corsair II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_A-7_Corsair_II) (which is my vote for the aircraft depicted in the photo) do look similar since they essentially came from the same company, with the latter coming later from the stable. Greg

It's and A7...typically the A8 would land with the wing in the extended position to increase the AOA and make the approach more manageable. This picture does not show that.

This is indicative of modern story writing....notice I didn't use the word "journalism"... I'm surprised they didn't try to put some kind of political slant on it while they were getting everything else wrong.....

[Doug Sams]

I'm surprised they didn't try to put some kind of political slant on it while they were getting everything else wrong.....:D:D:D

Doug

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[Chas Russell]

The F-8 Crusader had a longer fusalage and as mentioned had a wing that was raised for take-off and landing to increase lift. The A-7 was often referred to a the "SLUF" for (more or less) Short Little Ugly Fellow.
The two Air Force crew members were both from Michigan and the families decided to bury their remains in the same casket as they flew and died together. They were interned here in the DFW National Cemetery.

Chas

[Doug Sams]

It actually looks like a "bolter", or a missed approach. The engine thrust appears to be throttle-high, like the pilot's already slammed it to the wall.

Depends on where the cameraman was standing at the time - ahead of, or to the rear of, the control tower...I think you're right, Craig. I showed it elsewhere, and one of the aviation buffs there (and retired Air Force) thought it was a missed approach, too. So it's either that or the effects of a telephoto lens as Chas indicated.

Doug

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[Doug Sams]

The "V" in LTV is for Vought, Ling-Temco-Vought...One thing I got a kick out of was finding out that Temco was somebody's name. I always assumed it had been a synthesized company name - something like the concatenation of Temmons and Company - but later learned it's a real person's name.

No doubt about where the Vought comes from :)

Doug

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[jeffyjeep]

So it's either that or the effects of a telephoto lens as Chas indicated.

Doug

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......OR, it's a composite photo.

[jharding58]

Doug I know that in earlier years Marines flew various aircraft from land bases in Vietnam during the war. I thought that by 1972 with the US withdrawal the Marines had been shifted to carrier based operations but looking up the CV-60 Saratoga the VA 105 squadron that flew A7's in the 1970's were naval aviators so I was mistaken in that assumption. So the pilots couldn't have been a colonel nor a major.


Marine squadrons have "M" in 'em. Of course the pilots could have been TDY to a Navy squadron. Also, F-8 radomes are a lot more conical than the SLUF.

[tbzep]

Also, they don't usally land with a missle attached.

That's cause it ain't a "cheap" AIM-9. Looks like a more valuable AGM-45 Shrike to me. ;)

[GregGleason]

Here is the story (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-mia_15met.ART.State.Edition1.14aea7a.html).

http://photographyblog.dallasnews.com/assets_c/2011/01/burial-thumb-600x441-104121.jpg

The type of aircraft they flew:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2291/3733482403_2984886708.jpg

Greg