Bentwaters Open House 1965 Voodoo Photograph.

Sweet!

We did not have Voodoos based anywhere near Sacramento in the late-70s to early-80s timeframe that my dad was working there. However, once in a while I would see CAF or the occasional ANG F-101B fly in. I remember one afternoon when I was in high school, probably about 1981, when I had seen a couple of them fly in. (We lived about 3 1/2 miles directly north of the runway in a mostly rural area.) I remember being woken up out of a dead sleep at about 3:30 AM and the whole house was shaking, the front room window was rattling so violently that I thought it was going to break, and it was so loud that I literally could not hear myself yell. Through the front window, I could see lights and afterburners streaking upwards low over the house. I am convinced that it was the Voodoos blasting out of McClellan AFB and having a little fun at our expense! :diablo:

Anyway, that is the closest that I have come to seeing a Voodoo airshow. I hope that you are able to find the film or VHS transfer, and to be able to see it sometime in the future. It must have been just an awe-inspiring performance!

Cheers!

Ron Easley

Ron, thanks for the comment on the photos and glad they were of use.

As I mentioned in my first post, I do have some 8mm movie footage of the formation. That film is presently stored in a box in the loft of my sister’s house in Plymouth though. I seem to remember transferring it on to VHS video tape about 10 years ago and am looking for that presently.

They are indeed and thank you very much for posting them.

Quote
BTW, what was the problem with Olds’ putting this formation together? I seem to remember the commentator at the time mentioning that he was off to SE Asia soon after.

In his autobiography Olds states the reasons for the performance, for which he didn’t get permission, were to get him off the promotion list for General. See attached.
It worked and he got chewed out. He was sent to Shaw and, two months later he was off to the 8th TFW at Ubon.

If you get the chance read the memoirs. They are worth it.

The memoirs are indeed superb so far……(I am at the P-51 stage of Robins career) it is like the great man is right there telling you the stories himself.

More F-101A/Model 96 photos

Two more photos attached here:

Ron

F-101A and Model 96 Shape

Thanks Doug! I have yet to purchase your book but look forward to doing so once a little “play” money comes available from our tight household budget!

In the meantime, here are a few things that I first posted last night at “CenturySeriesJets” on Yahoo. I have taken to recording information and notes on PowerPoint. What I am presenting here are selected note slides, converted over into JPEG format.

Briefly, as an integral part of the original WS 125 concept, the F-101 was to carry a large weapons/fuel pod, very similar to the MB-1 pod of the B-58 Hustler. Although the thread seems to have mysteriously disappeared in the past few days, there was a photo published on the F-101A/C thread that began a couple of years ago, and that I posted on recently. The shape was to carry the most advanced warhead available in the early 1950s, the W-5, along with about 850 gallons of fuel. One of the slides from a recently declassified document that I pulled from a US Department of Energy archive also gives information for a buddy-refueling version, a 1400-gallon fuel-only version, and a version carrying a TX-15 warhead. This is the same weapon dropped from a B-52 during the infamous Redwing Cherokee test, and yielded just under 4 megatons. This weapon would have given the F-101 a completely unprecedented offensive capability in a fighter-sized aircraft.

However, the large pod caused very severe stability problems, particularly at high altitude, and along with the aircraft itself, the Model 96 shape experienced delays in development. By early 1956, miniaturized, low-drag weapons such as the MK-28 EX were on the horizon, and offered a very significant punch without the drag penalty of the large pod. Combat radius with the MK-28, with one refueling, was similar to what the Model 96 pod would have offered, without the attendant problems, so the project was shelved.

Two more photos to follow. Let me know what you think!

Ron Easley
Sacramento, CA

Interest?
Of course. Bring them on, bigron!
Any help I can be re the ‘101 don’t hesitate to ask.

Terrific photos! I have seen YouTube footage of the Canadian “Warlocks” but the quality of your photos is much crisper, and I could only imagine how the sleek single-seat Voodoos must have looked flying their routine!

Off topic–as I have mentioned for anyone looking at my bio, I have been working off-and-on on a manuscript for a book on the Voodoo. Some of the forums that I used to be active on don’t seem to have much going on these days, and I have some new material that I’d like to share. My recent research has been on original armament options that were tested and discarded before the F-101A entered service. Any interest here? If so, I will start posting some things.

Cheers!

Ron

Thanks for the feedback on the photos. Glad they were of interest.

Doug, thanks for the info on why Olds put the formation together. will have a look around for his book.

🙂 The photos are better than you are giving credit for and are a piece of history.They look very graceful sleek aircraft.

They are indeed and thank you very much for posting them.

Quote
BTW, what was the problem with Olds’ putting this formation together? I seem to remember the commentator at the time mentioning that he was off to SE Asia soon after.

In his autobiography Olds states the reasons for the performance, for which he didn’t get permission, were to get him off the promotion list for General. See attached.
It worked and he got chewed out. He was sent to Shaw and, two months later he was off to the 8th TFW at Ubon.

If you get the chance read the memoirs. They are worth it.

And what if your photos end up being the only ones still surviving… are they still “poor” or are they priceless historical artifacts?

Could a professional photo studio perhaps get them looking better?

Robin Olds and his family used to live half a mile from where I’m sitting, in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, when he commanded a unit at Stewart AFB, now Stewart International Airport,

🙂 The photos are better than you are giving credit for and are a piece of history.They look very graceful sleek aircraft.

Ron, as I mentioned before, please don’t expect much. I managed to get three out of the seven into a fairly usable shot. They were all backlit and the images here have been heavily cropped into the subject. I would not normally post this sort of photo but here goes:

BTW, what was the problem with Olds’ putting this formation together? I seem to remember the commentator at the time mentioning that he was off to SE Asia soon after.

Oh for a digital camera and the RAW file format then!!

Can’t wait to see them! 🙂

I have found 7 slides of the formation. However, I think only one or two will be usable, and then only after much tweaking.

I am in the process of scanning at the highest resolution that I can in order to get something. Will post what I can salvage but, as mentioned before, the quality will not be good.

I was at that show and have some poor quality 35mm slides and some 8mm movie footage somewhere.

I will have a look through my collection but don’t hold out too many hopes of finding anything usable.

Thanks,
That would certainly be great if you managed to come across some. Will you put some here if you find them?

I was at that show and have some poor quality 35mm slides and some 8mm movie footage somewhere.

I will have a look through my collection but don’t hold out too many hopes of finding anything usable.

I have a friend here in Sacramento, Dick Stultz, who served under Robin Olds’ command in the 8th TFW not long after these events. I will have to bug him for details, but I remember him telling me the story. The commanding general, USAFE, had Olds’ star in his pocket and was planning to promote him at the change-of-command ceremony, but they had gotten wind of the planned aerobatic performance by the F-101 pilots and quietly warned him that it should be cancelled. Olds went forward anyway (should anyone be surprised? :)) and the rest is history. I’m sure that there were folks that wanted to throw the book at him, but I suppose that being a double-ace and having a reputation as an inspiring commander might mitigate the effects just a bit!

I think I was at that show, but was only 5 at the time 🙂

… never to be repeated performance; which incidently, earned M Olds a reprimand and sent him to SE Asia………….which he wanted all along.

They removed him from command of the 81st…and sent him back to the 9th AF HQ at Shaw.
But they couldn’t have been THAT mad at him since they gave him command of the 8th TFW in Sept. 1966.

If they were really mad at him, they never would have given him a wing again.
In my time in the service (including the 81st) I knew other well qualified full colonels who never got a wing because of some past issue/problem/or perhaps they just pi$$ed off the wrong person somwhere down the line.

I have a great story about a colonel like that at Bentwaters…:)