Irvin Industries, Inc. of Lexington, Kentucky and Herts, England has long been a manufacturer of parachutes. Webster’s definition of a parachute states “a device for dropping safely through air.” Leslie L. Irvin, the founder of the firm, early on in the organization’s history founded what is known as the The Caterpillar Club, and would award to the users of his equipment membership in the club to those capable of authenticating that they had used a parachute as a life saving measure. Such individuals were presented with a membership card and a small one inch long golden caterpillar pin to affirm their use of the silken parachute in an operational necessity.
Stationed in Korea in 1955, I was a member of the 69th Fighter Bomber Squadron stationed at K-55, a military base about 20 miles south of Seoul. The squadron was one of three, under the 58th Fighter Bomber Wing, that was part of the military never ending “police action” that followed the end of the Korean war in 1953, a war that had no formal ending. The fighting had terminated with an agreement to disagree, with the civil war ending at a stalemate at the 38th Parallel. A demilitarization zone was established at that point, known as the DMZ, and has existed for over forty decades since. Our mission was part of the ongoing effort to enforce the DMZ agreements, and the 38th Parallel was patrolled from the air from both sides, from the south by the American forces and on the north by the Communist Korean government. Ground armies patrolled the DMZ from both sides.
Following the receipt of an Air Force Officer’s Commission and the awarding of my pilot wings in 1954, I received gunnery and fighter pilot training in the Lockheed T-33A and the Republic F-84G aircraft in Texas and Arizona prior to being assigned overseas to Korea. Upon arrival in that theater of operations, I was pleased to see that our squadron flew the North American F-86F aircraft. My goal all through pilot training was to fly jet fighter aircraft, and specifically the F-86. In my biased opinion, the F86 “Sabre Jet” was a truly elegant airplane. Its graceful contour lines, swept back wings and tail, and overall symmetrical profile was admirable, both airborne or on the ramp. Although lacking in maneuverability to its adversaries in the Korean conflict, the MIG 15 and MIG 17, the air-to-air superiority of the F-86 during the war had been impressive. Lacking powerful thrust, it was still capable of supersonic flight, but only when placed in a dive.
Arriving in Korea the night before Christmas Eve in 1954, my enthusiasm at seeing the F-86’s was tampered by the fact that precious little flying time was available to the squadron. As “new heads”, my arriving contemporaries and I were to see duty performing a variety of functions for the first four months other than flying jets. Our biggest extracurricular activity was the building of a squadron mail room. But that was to change as the older heads rotated stateside and we eventually got checked out in the F-86.
It was at K-55 when on July 27, 1955 I had occasion to become a member of the Caterpillar Club. Two armed aircraft were constantly on “strip alert”, with a 15 minute reaction time to respond to any abnormal activity detected along or near the DMZ, which occurred with random but fairly frequent intervals. My flight leader, Lt. Berlin Huffman, and I had launched on a two ship flight in response to some north flying activity picked up by our radar. The flight was under radar control and we received a vector northward towards the DMZ. As we were passing through 23,000 feet my aircraft was shook by a terrific explosion. The aft fire warning light illuminated on my cockpit console as I was reducing the throttle to idle, and then to the stopcock, or fully off position. The aft fire light went out but the vibrations continued, and the only recalled instrumentation indication noted was the 10 % engine wind milling RPM. Lt. Huffman advised me of trailing smoke as he reported to the radar controller our emergency. A vector was given to the nearest airfield, K-46, a small Army base southeast of our position. K-46 was the closest airfield to our position, but had a runway much shorter than desired for normal jet aircraft usage.
With no thrust power available from my crippled jet turbine engine, the descent rate was rapid. The aft fire light came back on and then extinguished again. My leader stated he saw pieces of the tail section depart the aircraft and the trailing smoke resumed. At that time Lt. Huffman advised me to eject from the aircraft. The vibration of the airframe seemed to become more excessive, and I acknowledged that I was going to eject.
At 17,000 feet I began the well rehearsed emergency procedure – sitting erect, legs retracted towards the seat, arms well within the seat frame, and the armrests pulled to the fully upright position blowing off the canopy. With the seat ejection trigger exposed, I pulled the lever and a 2.75 inch rocket fired as designed and promptly shot the seat, with me attached, from the aircraft. Clearing the aircraft and now conscious of my status, I extended my legs and got separated from the seat. Without any effort on my part, I was face down to the earth in a slow flat spin, with no sensation of speed in a suddenly totally quiet environment. Aware of the 17,000 foot altitude at the point of bail out, I knew it best to free fall for a period. The face down flat spin continued with my legs spread out. When the detail of the ground beneath me was quite clear I pulled the rip cord on my chest to release the parachute. I recall pulling but not getting the cable fully out, then giving it a more firm jerk, followed by the the beautiful sight of the parachute’s alternating orange and white panels blossoming above me. A small tear in one of the orange panels from an unknown cause was noted, but that was secondary to the realization that my previous rapid free fall was now harnessed by the wide canopy catching and spilling out air that would allow for a safe landing. My watch had circled loosely around my wrist and, noticing it, I straightened it out and noted the time. It was 0958. Suddenly I was aware of my ejection seat passing nearby, proving that a man free falls faster than an F-86 ejection seat. I watched the seat disappear from my sight and then observed my crippled aircraft. The Sabre Jet, still trailing smoke, made a large circle around me prior to impacting on the top of a small ridge about three miles away.
Lt. Huffman had visually picked up my descent in the parachute and circled from a distance. The slow descent was in fair weather conditions and the ground contact point was on the edge of a small rice paddy. My landing occurred at 1005, therefore the time with the parachute deployed was seven minutes. It was later I computed that, falling at roughly 1,000 feet per minute after chute opening, my parachute opened at approximately 7,000 feet altitude. Knowing my ejection altitude of 17,000, I therefore free fell 10,000 feet. A free falling body travels at approximately 120 mph, or two miles per minute. Since the distance of 10,000 feet equals roughly two miles, my time in free fall following the ejection was about one minute.
I gathered up the parachute and climbed a small rise on the edge of the paddy, spread the chute out for better visibility, and hoped recovery to home base would be rapid. Lt. Huffman had located my landing site, passed overhead, and with a wing rock returned to home base. I was confident my position would soon be relayed to a search and rescue helicopter and my pick up would be forthcoming. Wearing a Mae West jacket and associated survival equipment, I retrieved the small signaling mirror and before too long saw and heard a Huey helicopter coming towards me. With the sun shining I aimed the reflected dot from the mirror to the helicopter. To my chagrin it proceeded to pass directly overhead, went three or four miles to the east, then circled that area. After a half hour the helicopter then disappeared from sight. Extremely frustrated by this time, I studied the map among my survival gear and determined that I could drop off the hills to a visible small stream about a half-mile below, and following its meandering path upstream would lead me to the U. S. Army base at K-46, which I guessed at about five miles distance.
Proceeding with this plan of action, I gathered all my gear and walked down to the stream, finding it about twenty yards wide. As I was starting to follow the waterway to its hoped destination I heard the sound of another much smaller helicopter. As it neared my position, I retrieved from the survival gear a shark repellent pack and quickly proceeded to spread the contents in the water. This resulted in a rather large blood red pool. Whether the Army helicopter saw the crimson spot or me first, I do not know, but in any case the pilot landed by the stream edge and fairly quickly recovered me back to K-55.
Back at home base about four hours after the my safe parachute landing, I was examined by the Air Force medics, found to be in good shape and was back flying in a few days. A facial contusion by the mask being wind whipped off my face and some bruises on the back calf of my legs, due to not getting my feet firmly enough in the ejection seat stirrups, were the only marks left as a result of my experience.
The accident investigation board came to its conclusions fairly quickly following the formal procedures to determine cause factors of all Air Force accidents. There was enough of the wreckage of F-86F, Serial # 52-4547, to determine that the explosion was caused by the separation from the main engine turbine of seven adjacent blades, or buckets as the curved sections were known, and six turbine serrations. This separation occurred in an area resulting in the rupturing of one or more critical hydraulic lines allowing fluid to be sprayed on the hot exhaust cone and tail exhaust area. Pictures taken at the crash site clearly showed this area of failure. Engine failure and the association problems as the result of this action was clearly evident to the investigating board. One hopes not to have to depart an aircraft in this fashion but this was clearly the prudent action at the time.
Pilots from the beginning have judged a departure from the earth’s bonds of gravity and return to terra firma to be a success if one can walk away from an airworthy aircraft. Flying log books are maintained to prove flight hours and currency requirements for those in military units and civilian passenger carrying operations. My flight log book does reflect a strange entry – a fifteen minute flight on July 27, 1955 without a landing, my only failure to execute a satisfactory landing following a takeoff. But there are times that operational necessity does dictate some unusual choices.
Wings Over Cumberland 