An afternoon a sortie came back with a mayday call, the landing was uneventful, but for the GIB it sure was a new feeling doing his business in a windy office without a canopy to protect against blast and weather. The explanation what happened was a bit weird like just fell off, dont know why, and so on. A first inspection could not reveal anything terchnical responsible for the mishap.
No damage reports fom civvis had arrived that time, so the canopy was most probably somewhere in the wooden area of the black forest close to our base.
How could this have happened?
Well itīs always the same.
Bad waeather in the morning, a full squadron coffee bar, and some unsane ideas. In this case a few hotshots discussed, how slow the phantom could be flown by a superior stick in some sound maneuver without going out of control, and being it only for a couple of seconds. Some bold front seater came up with the number slower than 60 knots (even the speedometer started not before 80 knots) and another took him by the word and offered some ammount of his flightpay if he would do it and could prove that he had done it.
The discussion was interrupted by improving weather and flying was called on.
After briefing and flightplanning our superior stick guy and his GIB used all their not so superior brain to make a proposal to their money offering pilot fellow to prove their ability to fly slower than 60 knots and prove it by...
opening the canopy and making a mark with a edding on the outside..
The canopy was restricted to 60 knots, which was enough for speedy taxiing, and our superior crew saw no problem in slowing down, open the canopy, make the mark with the edding, close the canopy again and speed up to flying speed again. Would the rest of the aircrews had heard of this plan there might have been a way to reason, but as it had become a thing of honor and money between two well expierienced Recce-pilots the show went on.
You know already that it didnīt work as planned, and you might guess the reason. No, it was not the speed that went wrong as they later told the interested audience during another bad weather day without any unwanted flight safety or command guys around. They just had forgotten the effect of a blownup canopy seal, which prevented the canopy from closing again. There might have been a work around, but letīs not communicate it, there are still some phantoms flying and you never know if Joe
............ will try .....
franzl