Nightshade/PR

That's a sharp skin.

When it all works...........

This is what I was shooting at.

That's a nice looking bird.

But then, I'm also partial to the Brazilian Mirage III's

The Swiss Mirages do look good.....but there's just something about the French ones in silver.

I forgot the B57 was fitted with a drogue chute......... Meaning the end result shows it wasn't the only thing retarded on this mission.

This ain't your daddy's candy bomber......

Still one of the coolest planes to ever take to the skies.....

Then you would not have been a fan of mine. Sea Foam Green, 2-door, it had mag wheels wrapped in Goodyear Eagles, a 427, and ALL the toys. But I stood to lose it in a divorce in '89, so I traded it in on a Metallic Blue Skyhawk (a model she HATED), so she wouldn't want it. It served me well throuh my 1st stint @ Eglin, sat in storage for a year during the 1st Gulf War; came out for 6 months, and went back into storage for another year when I went to Kunsan, and survived another year in the Florida heat, hurricanes, (ex-gf's), a 4 year tour in Germany, and finally decided here in Wichita that it had been driven & ridden harder and longer than any Kardashian, and gave up the ghost. Speaking of SkyHawks........

Once upon a time, I drove an Impala

Well this took a hard detour into the bizarre.

The Old Ways.........

Getting off the deck is the easy part. There's always a critic in the audience waiting to blow up your performance.... I had some operator control issues on the landing.... Kinda drifted on the touchdown Talk about getting it stopped at the Last Second......

But you got back on the deck with the mighty Rhino. Definitely more work than landing the 'Cat.

I have been known to try it. It's like trying to nail water to a tree: messy & unproductive. He was dumb enough to come down here & get low and slow.

Glad I could be of assistance. Every now and then, I have to be reminded the F-104 is an Interceptor; not a dogfighter.

Putting the earlier Phantoms on the deck requires constant power inputs. Cutting back with the gear & hook down and flaps out, it bleeds speed and sinks at a prodigious rate, so you're constantly putting on and pulling off power to keep a steady approach and not stalling. I try and stay between 160-165 knots. It's a little fast, but I find I can control it better.