Added: 2 months ago
From: AVweb
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  • Great story...thank you for posting.

  • So refreshing to hear somebody talking about action/reaction properly as something that Newton understood to occur simultaneously, NOT sequentially as it is so often misused by the masses. One of my pet peeves- I couldn't resist noting it.

  • What a great story.  Thanks

  • I was the F106 MA1 flight chief and this was one of my birds! I had to bring a crew out to the aircraft and remove all the MA1 equipment ASAP. It was cold and windy, but my troops did a great job. Jerry Santy, retired USAF in Goodyear, AZ!

  • Funny end of the year story

  • Same aircraft now resides at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH. A must see place for aviation enthusiatist

  • I supported the F106 at Selfrigde AFB, Mount Clemens Mi just prior to this miraculous landing. The bird was assigned to the 71st FIS out of Malmstrom AFB, in Great Falls Montana. This occurred about 1 year after the 71st returned from a 6 month tdy at Oasn Ab, Korea. F106 Squadrons were rotated there on a 6 month basis after the Pueblo incident in Jan of 1968.

  • Important info for those starting out with interest in military interceptors~ You just don't see this great stuff in books all the time. Thanks for making the "verse" aware!

  • Great story, thanks.

  • omg

  • It took quite a bit of work to make 787 airworthy again. The underside was badly damaged, but the airframe was intact. I had the honor of both working on this aircraft, and serving under the flight commander that made the comment about Gary getting back inside it.

  • I have a freind of mine that was flying an rc delta wing nitro powered airplane , when the canopy came off in mid air it pulled the reciever battery out with it , being nitro powered the plane kept on flying flat and level untill it ran out of fuel about a mile away , we chased it down and recovered it with just the landing gear being torn off upon its landing sitting there right side up ! we were all amazed it had survived .

  • They DO NOT make 'em like that anymore!

  • Oh, and by the by. I've heard of a similar story involving a Mig-23 or -27, poised and trimmed for landing, where the pilot ejected, and the plane continued to land safely on the runway.., without the pilot. I think it was sometime after the fall of the wall.

  • That was good yarn!. I'm a sucker for little juicy anecdotes like that. Thanx for posting and keep up the good work..!

  • Great video, thanks for sharing it!

  • This particular plane (787) is currently at the AF Museum in Dayton, Ohio, wearing the squadron colors of the last unit it served in, the 49th FIS.

    I think the farmer that owned the property saw it land and notified the nearest Air Force base, but the other pilots involved with this particular "sortie" were concentrating on the pilot that ejected. They didn't have any reason to expect 787 to survive it's landing.

  • Reminds me of the story af a mechanic working on an English Electric Lightning, the canopy was removed and she was chained down for an engine test. The chains failed and the thing with engineer shot down the reserve runway heading for a line of fuel bowsers parked in storage. He was not straped in so could not eject. He could crash or pull back the stick. He done a complete circuit and landed safley. True story.

  • Neat story! Nobody saw the jet land itself?

    I fly radio control models and had vaguely similar landings myself. Once my battery pack got drained by the retractable landing gear, and I lost radio contact just as I was doing a slow and low pass over the runway. Luckily, the plane belly landed itself in the mowed grass just off the end of the runway with very minimal damage. The other time, I had to land blind, dead-stick behind some trees into a bean field and got lucky with no damage at all.

  • the trail photo needs to have more time, but great vid (I simply paused to get an overlapped look)

  • Great story! Thanks for bringing it to us!

  • kewl

  • awesome story!

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