F-107A
For a magazine article that I'm doing, I'm trying to figure out whether a certain something about the North American F-107A is or isn't a myth.
It has long been said that pilots feared the -107, calling it "the Man-Eater," because they were afraid of being sucked into the engine intake if they had to eject.
Is it actually possible that professional test pilots in the mid-1950s (i.e. the only people ever to fly the F-107A) feared their bang seats weren't powerful enough to clear the intake? I find that hard to believe; if so, why weren't they equally afraid of hitting the vertical fin on conventional jets?
Few pilots ever actually flew an F-107A, since there were only three made and their total flight time was just over 176 hours, most of it in the hands of the same tiny group of USAF test pilots, that I think this is either phony or was a nothing more than a joke.
Anybody out there have any actual knowledge (as opposed to theorization no more solid than mine...) of this airplane?