Good ol maneater F8 Crusaders too.
Quite a bit of Big O's deck equipment found it's way to museum Lexington in Corpus. Among them, the starboard side crane and 2 deck guns I believe.

quote Originally posted by maryjane: Good ol maneater F8 Crusaders too. Quite a bit of Big O's deck equipment found it's way to museum Lexington in Corpus. Among them, the starboard side crane and 2 deck guns I believe.

We had a guy get sucked into an F8 just before I got on the ship, he didn't live through it. My first Tour one of the A7's returning from a bombing mission over Laos, said he almost flamed out twice. The Plane Captain was doing test run ups on the jet on the flight deck with it chained down, he was turning 85% when one of the deck personnel stepped too close to the intake. Plane Captain cut fuel as fast as he could, guy went in head first, and a big puff of smoke came out the exhaust. We all feared the worst, but they pulled the guy out head first, both hands severely lacerated, hell of a lot of blood vessels in face burst, severely sprained back, left foot healing missing 50%, and right foot missing boot heel and part of sole. He lived thanks to the Plane Captains quick reaction, and those Navy deck boots. He got his ticket away from the war, heard he recovered pretty good after a couple operations, and a lot of therapy.

Another thing not known too well, is the trailing wing edges of an F8 are so shape, if you walk fast into one, you're going to need stitches. You always had to be very careful around them.

[This message has been edited by California Kid (edited 05-03-2015).]