This was one of those random videos that popped up in my Youtube feed.
I had heard this story before, but never really knew any of the details beyond that it actually happened. Growing up, Navy and Marine pilots were frequently around the house; my dad was a pilot (that is story for another time) and we lived in Virginia Beach. It was the 60s to early 70s, and the military did a lot of things that made people with some sense say, “It may work, but not for long.” This was one of the stories I heard when I was probably 10 or so and all the F4 and A6 pilots around said it was basically a suicide run. Everybody knows about the Doolittle Raid and launching B-25s from the USS Hornet, but that was a one way trip, they had no expectation of being able to land on the carrier after the mission.
This was a completely different ballgame, they wanted to be able do it whenever they needed to.
There’s a number of humorous comments on the video page, but this one is my favorite.
“The pilot was able to stop so quickly by dragging his huge balls of steel behind the plane.”