“I reported to the 363rd Reconnaissance Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. I didn’t stay long. In October 1947, I went to England in a pilot exchange program, then served as instructor pilot at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, upon my return to the United States, training reconnaissance pilots in the RF-80. All of our pilots went directly from that school to the war in Korea. I finally went to Korea in April 1953 and served as commander of the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron flying RF-80s out of Kimpo Air Base, near Seoul. in March 1954, I reported for duty at the Pentagon to learn to be a staff officer—they referred to us as ‘legmen.’ I was assigned to the Reconnaissance Branch in Operations as a tactical reconnaissance officer. SAC ran the peripheral reconnaissance program, PARPRO, so I didn’t have anything to do with that. I was in the building maybe six months, just long enough to find my way around, when I was told to go and report to Major General Kenneth B. Bergquist, the director of operations on the Air Staff. I was a lieutenant colonel and did not know what I had done so wrong that the director of operations wanted to see me. I reported as directed, and General Bergquist said to me, ‘I want you to go up and see the boss.’ I had no idea who he was talking about. The ‘boss’ turned out to be Lieutenant General Frank Everest, the deputy chief of staff operations, the right-hand man and personal friend of General Nathan F. Twining, the US Air Force chief of staff. So I went up to the general’s office, saluted, and he barked, ‘Sit down.’ He was a rough-talking guy, very direct. He started speaking very fast, and the gist of what he said was, ‘The Korean War is over. We’re in a hell of a position with the Soviets, and these damn nuclear weapons and missiles and all the aircraft they got. We’re going to have to improve our knowledge of them. The way we are going to do this is to overfly and photograph parts of the Soviet Union. You are going to be my “legman” on this program—starting right now. We are going to have security you have never heard of before. And we are going to have some schemes, and the director of operations, director of plans, and the director of intelligence are each going to have a legman. We are going to have exceptional security, and we must have it or the whole project is going to self-destruct and create a major international incident. You are working with me on operational matters, that is, with aircraft which may or [may] not be flying.’ He continued talking and telling me that the air force had already started acquisition of six new and modified supersonic F-100s for this overflight program, and I was to monitor their acquisition. He finished by saying, ‘The State Department is giving us hell on this program. Remember, we cannot lose this. Don’t write anything down.’ I was knocked off base listening to this.
“This was more than target intelligence. The air force wanted to get data about the Soviet force structure and location of weapons, especially nuclear stuff. We knew when one of our aircraft was penetrating on an overflight how the Soviets were tracking it and what they were seeing on their radar scopes. In a short period, we collected this intelligence. But there were problems. The air force was also flying separate peripheral missions around the USSR and the PRC and had two of these aircraft shot down, one over the Baltic. You did not want these peripheral reconnaissance flights and our penetration flights mixed up. One program going on independently can aggravate things for the other without being aware of it. There was a guy over in State, a special assistant to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, I had to touch base with whenever a request for an overflight came in. Such requests were validated by the air force, the JCS, then taken to State. Sometimes I went along and sat outside while they coordinated the mission. Our military overflight organization was really informal. There was just General Everest and the staff. General Bergquist told me, ‘You are also my legman, but frankly I am going to step out of the way because you are working directly for General Everest.’ Everest worked for General Nathan Twining, the chief of staff of the air force and also the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, JCS. I heard later that the overflights were being decided at the National Command Authority, president of the United States, but we did not know that at the time, nor did we ask or talk about it.
“My other job, when General Everest ordered it, was to go to the North American Aircraft Company and see what they were doing with the RF-100s. I was supposed to talk only to the head knocker, so I did. He told me they had six F-100s all blocked off and were mounting a camera lying down under the hood with a rocker on it with a mirror to allow it to look down at the earth. It was remarkable. The aircraft was named Slick Chick, and I recruited the pilots for Slick Chick primarily from Shaw Air Force Base. They would come up to my little office in the Pentagon, and I would brief them on what they would be doing. I did this one at a time. Three aircraft would be going to Europe, and three to Asia. It so happened that the air force had been making great propaganda statements about their new supersonic fighter. The big claim was that they were air-refuelable and can go anywhere in the world. Well, these six airplanes weren’t, and I told General Everett. ‘How in the hell are we going to get them over there?’ he said. I said, ‘I think on an aircraft carrier, sir.’ He said, ‘You go tell that to General Twining.’ It turned out General Twining had to go hat in hand to the US Navy to get a little place on an aircraft carrier to get the planes to Europe and Asia.
An F-100D Super Sabre. Note the refueling probe extending from under the right wing. A KB-29/50 or KC-97/135 aerial refueling tanker would extend a flexible hose that had a basket-like contraption attached to its end, and the receiver had to slowly fly his probe into that basket to get his fuel. It wasn’t every pilot’s piece of cake, and especially at night some just couldn’t do it.
“Anyway, we used them in Europe first. The Slick Chicks flew primarily over the satellite countries because of their limited range. And it was a flap when they first went in. It was not the photography that was such a shock. When they did that first penetration, they encountered ten times more radars than we ever thought existed. And they went in at 50,000 feet at close to Mach 1.0, and the Soviets still picked them up easily and tracked them easily every bit of the way. That information came back to Washington, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and everybody was shaken up to learn that the Soviet radars were that good. That was the first time we ever used a really high-performance airplane to punch in over there. So nobody cared about the pictures that resulted at the time because of the air defense radar network reaction that the penetration touched off.”
Slick Chick was an attempt to acquire intelligence by means of overflight by a high-performance aircraft. The idea probably germinated in someone’s mind remembering how successful the RF-86 was in Korea, and the new supersonic F-100 should, if anything, be even a better performer. Each aircraft would mount five cameras. The cameras would provide coverage from horizon to horizon. The primary cameras were two Fairchild K-38, 36-inch focal length cameras mounted in a split vertical configuration. To mount the cameras, North American removed the 20mm cannons and all ammunition bays. It was also necessary to mount the K-38 cameras horizontally and let them shoot through a mirror to achieve the desired viewing. A viewfinder was installed in the cockpit so the pilot could view the earth beneath him. The aircraft, like all fighters, had a limited fuel-storage capability. With two external tanks carried under the wings, the aircraft fuel capacity was 1,702 gallons, or 11,000 pounds. The two external tanks were designed for supersonic flight and were carried on nearly every flight. The plane’s J-57 Pratt and Whitney engine produced 10,200 pounds of thrust at sea level at military power, and 16,000 pounds of thrust with the afterburner engaged. Using the afterburner, however, greatly diminished the range of the aircraft. In September–October 1954, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodarmer selected the Slick Chick project officers—Captain Cecil Rigsby was assigned to Europe, and Captain Ralph White to Asia.42
“We were told,” recalled Colonel Rigsby at the Early Cold War Overflights Symposium, “to attend F-100A ground school at George Air Force Base, California, and we were to do our flying at nearby Edwards Air Force Base
, the US Air Force’s flight test center. One reason for our selection was that both of us had RF-86 pilot hours, and the RF-86 was considered the lead-in aircraft for the F-100. Once checked out, White and I were responsible for checkout and training of the other pilots. We were also briefed on the security aspects of our mission and issued blanket orders allowing us to travel to all necessary locations. I did not know then, and for many years afterward, that Slick Chick was just one component of an American overflight effort called the Sensitive Intelligence, SENSINT, Program. There was a short program delay when it was discovered that the rudder on the F-100A was too small to maintain directional stability at maximum speed. North American’s chief test pilot, George S. Welch, was killed when his F-100A yawed to one side at maximum speed and broke apart. [Actually, it was the vertical stabilizer that was too small, and George Welch died while demonstrating a flight-point at Mach 1.55 during a 7.33G pull-up.] We also learned that many F-100A models were lost, and their pilots killed, in what was called the ‘Jesus Christ’ maneuver. At low altitude, when the aircraft experienced turbulence, or the pilot went into afterburner, the nose of the airplane would begin an up-and-down movement, which increased in intensity until the pilot lost control. The solution was to let go of the stick when encountering such movement—the airplane would recover itself. North American solved both of those problems by installing a larger tail section and making the ultrasensitive elevator control nonlinear.
An early model F-100 with the short stabilizer on the right, like those flown by the Slick Chick pilots, one of which killed George Welch, North American’s chief test pilot. On the left, a later model F-100A with the larger tail, which solved several of the F-100’s shortcomings.
“Colonel Rhodarmer, meanwhile,” continued Colonel Rigsby, “had selected the additional pilots and support personnel for our project. For flights in Europe, Rhodarmer selected Captains Bert E. Dowdy and Edgar H. Hill. Hill and I had served combat tours together in Korea flying the RF-86A. For Asia, Rhodarmer selected Captains Bond, White, and Moomaw. Once we finished ground school and checked out in the F-100A at Edwards, we all went to Palmdale to check out in the RF-100A. While there, we flew a few photographic exercises; however, since all of us were highly skilled in tactical reconnaissance, we concentrated on maximizing aircraft performance. We developed our own flight profiles with no external tanks, two tanks, or four tanks. The RF-100A did not respond well to four tanks. The airplane would yaw left to right, and the CG was such that the elevator control became very sensitive. The additional two 200-gallon tanks did extend the range of the airplane, but the increase in drag resulted in no significant gain. Because the RF-100A was not equipped with antiskid brakes, we concentrated on short-field landings with heavy braking. We wanted to know how much braking power we could use before a tire would skid or blow out. I had my crew chief watch my landings and tell me if he saw any smoke from my tires. The aircraft landed at 150 knots; the pilot then deployed the brake chute and used the brakes to come to a full stop. If the chute failed to open, or you landed on a short runway, maximum brake pressure was required. We learned early about landing the RF-100A and never had any problems, unlike our counterparts in the F-100 fighter units.
“Then we moved on to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where we were fitted with partial pressure suits. Each of us was suited up to take a test flight in the pressure chamber. They took Captain Dowdy to 65,000 feet, and he promptly passed out. They took me only to 55,000 feet, but forgot about me and left me in the chamber for eight and a half hours. We bade good-bye to those going to Asia, and flew our three Slick Chick airplanes to Mobile, Alabama, where they were cocooned for shipment on a small aircraft carrier to Belfast, Northern Ireland. Upon arrival in early May 1955, our three aircraft were processed without any problems, and we took off for Bitburg Air Base in West Germany. Upon arrival in Belfast, I learned that Captain Dowdy had been promoted early to major, and now as the senior officer became the commander of our little group. We were assigned to the 7499th Support Group in Wiesbaden, and our squadron, the 7407th Support Squadron, was located further east at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt. The high-altitude RB-57D reconnaissance airplanes also were assigned to this unit. It was not practicable to locate our aircraft at Wiesbaden because it only had a short 5,000-foot runway. Frankfurt was also a commercial airport, and we would attract too much attention there. So Bitburg, with its F-86 fighters, was an excellent location for us. We were the first F-100s in Europe. The 36th Fighter Wing at Bitburg was slated to receive F-100s within a year, so our presence there attracted little attention. Captain Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, was a squadron operations officer at Bitburg.
“It took us a little while to settle in, but on June 1, 1955, we considered ourselves operationally ready and began regular flight training. In West Germany at this time there were no restrictions on supersonic flight. You could go supersonic at low or high altitude. A perfect training environment for us. We had been in Bitburg only a few days when in late May 1955 we were ordered to Headquarters USAFE in Wiesbaden. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Holbury, a longtime reconnaissance officer, briefed us on the security of our project. In no case were we to tell each other about any mission we flew, or even if we were planning or had flown a mission. We could make up any cover story we wanted, but were never to tell anyone, including our wives, about our overflight missions. This was essentially the same security briefing we had received from Colonel Rhodarmer in Washington. For each overflight mission, we would go to Wiesbaden for our preflight briefings including intelligence, weather, and so on. After a mission, the pilot was to proceed immediately to Headquarters USAFE at Lindsey Air Station in Wiesbaden for debriefing.
Slick Chick RF-100A 53-1551 at Bitburg Air Base, West Germany, modified with the larger stabilizer. This plane was number five out of six built and is now on exhibit at the National Museum of the USAF at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.
“At our first meeting in May we presented to Colonel Holbury possible RF-100A flight profiles. I could tell he was disappointed in the limited range of our aircraft. We made it clear to him that we would fly any profile he chose. Our speed advantage over the MiG-17 without afterburner amounted only to a few knots. Considering all factors, Holbury decided that our first mission would be flown at 50,000 feet at Mach 0.96. Should Soviet air defenses show any weakness, then other flight profiles might be feasible for future missions. Returning to Bitburg, we spent the remaining practice time we had flying at 50,000 feet using afterburner. At takeoff, the afterburner makes a loud bang and throws your head back against the headrest. But at 45,000 feet you can barely feel it, and at times it doesn’t light. At this time, the people living near Bitburg experienced a lot of sonic booms.
“During the year in which we flew overflights, between 1955 and 1956, each of us flew two missions over the East European satellite countries. That’s a total of six missions for our entire program. I flew my two missions out of Bitburg. The first was to Prague, where the primary targets were airfields. When I crossed the border, my aircraft was at 50,000 feet at Mach 0.95 or 0.96 in full military power and afterburner. As I approached my targets, I could see through the viewfinder of my vertical cameras a number of fighters scrambling to get airborne at one of the airfields, and other fighters circling over it. When I reversed direction after photographing all my targets, I had a great deal of company. The Russian fighters were going all out to match my speed and reach my altitude. One airplane managed to get in my eight o’clock position, but he was about 20,000 feet below me. I did not drop my external fuel tanks because I never felt threatened. The Russian fighters broke off when I reached the West German border. Lieutenant Colonel Holbury debriefed me and shared the photographic negatives of the flight. They were of excellent quality, and I could easily see the airborne fighters and those taking off. Intelligence experts at USAFE were pleased with the outcome of the mission.
A MiG-17 fighter over North Vietnam as seen t
hrough the gun camera of Major Ralph Kuster’s F-105 in 1967. Without afterburner, the RF-100A’s speed advantage over the MiG-17 amounted to only a few knots.
“My second overflight targets were near Leipzig and Potsdam. I was less than fifty miles into East Germany when a flight of four MiGs, in finger-four formation, came toward me at high speed. They passed only a few thousand feet below me. I had learned a long time ago in World War II and Korea, when you meet another airplane head-on, you are not likely to ever see it again. I covered all my targets and returned to the border without seeing another aircraft. I recovered at Bitburg and was flown to Wiesbaden. When I told Holbury about the four fighters, he was concerned. At Headquarters USAFE they had access to signals intelligence, which was immediately checked. The analysts concluded that my encounter with the Russian fighters was a chance encounter.
F-100A-1 #52-5760, the fifth production aircraft, in a 45-degree climb over Edwards Air Force Base, the US Air Force flight test center.
“Major Bert Dowdy later sent me an e-mail describing his two missions. The first he flew from Fürstenfeldbruck across Austria into Hungary. His second mission took him over Czechoslovakia flying out of Bitburg.
“One day in June 1956, when I was at one of the US Air Force hotels in Wiesbaden, I encountered a dozen or more civilians wearing black military shoes just like mine, accompanied by Colonel Fred McCoy, who was in uniform. McCoy had been in reconnaissance for many years, and we knew each other. I did not recognize a single reconnaissance pilot in that group in civilian attire, and McCoy disappeared before I could talk to him. Returning home that evening, the TV was showing pictures of a new high-altitude weather-sampling aircraft, the U-2. At the time I had no idea what was going on; however, after the arrival of the U-2, we Slick Chicks never received another overflight mission. Shortly afterward, I was promoted to major, and Major Dowdy assumed command of an RF-84 squadron in France. We continued to train for the next two years—but were never tasked again.
Silent Warriors, Incredible Courage Page 20
