Pardo's push
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: by the Great Salt Lake, USA
Posts: 1,542
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Pardo learned that from the best:
Valor: When Push Came to Shove
Valor: When Push Came to Shove
Brig. Gen. Robinson Risner's heroism during seven and a half years of imprisonment and torture in North Vietnam is legendary. Less known is the fact that he was a jet ace in Korea with eight confirmed victories. Few are aware, at least in detail, of an incredible feat of flying performed over North Korea by Robbie Risner in an attempt to save the life of another pilot.
.....
As they climbed back across the Yalu near Antung, Logan's F-86 took a burst of flak. Fuel and hydraulic fluid poured out the belly of his aircraft. With only five minutes' fuel left, he would, it seemed, have to bail out in enemy territory. But Risner was not about to lose a fine wingman who was also a close friend.
"A typical fighter pilot," says General Risner, "thinks less about risk than about his objective," and Risner's objective was to keep Joe Logan out of enemy hands. Jet ace Risner immediately embarked on an undeniably high-risk venture to achieve that objective. The Air Force had a rescue detachment at Cho Do Island, about 60 miles to the south--and with plenty of flak en route. Risner decided to try something that, to his knowledge, had never been done successfully before. He would push the damaged F-86 to Cho Do, where Logan could bail out safely.
Risner told Logan to shut down his engine, now almost out of fuel. Then he gently inserted the upper lip of his air intake into the tailpipe of Logan's F-86. "It stayed sort of locked there as long as we both maintained stable flight, but the turbulence created by Joe's aircraft made stable flight for me very difficult. There was a point at which I was between the updraft and the downdraft. A change of a few inches ejected me either up or down," Risner, now retired and living in Austin, Texas, recalls.
Each time Risner reestablished contact between the battered nose of his F-86 and Logan's aircraft was a potential disaster that was made even more likely by the film of hydraulic fluid and jet fuel that covered his windscreen and obscured his vision. It was, one imagines, something like pushing a car at 80 miles an hour down a corduroy road in a heavy fog.
Miraculously, Risner nudged Logan's F-86 all the way to Cho Do, maintaining an airspeed of 190 knots and enough altitude to stay out of range of automatic weapons. Near the island, Logan bailed out, landing in the water near shore. Ironically, Risner's heroic effort ended in tragedy. Although Logan was a strong swimmer, he became tangled in his chute lines and drowned before rescuers could reach him. But the measure of a heroic act lies not in success. It lies in the doing.
.....
As they climbed back across the Yalu near Antung, Logan's F-86 took a burst of flak. Fuel and hydraulic fluid poured out the belly of his aircraft. With only five minutes' fuel left, he would, it seemed, have to bail out in enemy territory. But Risner was not about to lose a fine wingman who was also a close friend.
"A typical fighter pilot," says General Risner, "thinks less about risk than about his objective," and Risner's objective was to keep Joe Logan out of enemy hands. Jet ace Risner immediately embarked on an undeniably high-risk venture to achieve that objective. The Air Force had a rescue detachment at Cho Do Island, about 60 miles to the south--and with plenty of flak en route. Risner decided to try something that, to his knowledge, had never been done successfully before. He would push the damaged F-86 to Cho Do, where Logan could bail out safely.
Risner told Logan to shut down his engine, now almost out of fuel. Then he gently inserted the upper lip of his air intake into the tailpipe of Logan's F-86. "It stayed sort of locked there as long as we both maintained stable flight, but the turbulence created by Joe's aircraft made stable flight for me very difficult. There was a point at which I was between the updraft and the downdraft. A change of a few inches ejected me either up or down," Risner, now retired and living in Austin, Texas, recalls.
Each time Risner reestablished contact between the battered nose of his F-86 and Logan's aircraft was a potential disaster that was made even more likely by the film of hydraulic fluid and jet fuel that covered his windscreen and obscured his vision. It was, one imagines, something like pushing a car at 80 miles an hour down a corduroy road in a heavy fog.
Miraculously, Risner nudged Logan's F-86 all the way to Cho Do, maintaining an airspeed of 190 knots and enough altitude to stay out of range of automatic weapons. Near the island, Logan bailed out, landing in the water near shore. Ironically, Risner's heroic effort ended in tragedy. Although Logan was a strong swimmer, he became tangled in his chute lines and drowned before rescuers could reach him. But the measure of a heroic act lies not in success. It lies in the doing.
