THUD

PILOTS LOVED THE THUD. EXCEPT FOR TEST PILOTS, WHO WERE PAID TO FIND FAULTS, THE REPUBLIC F-105 THUNDERCHIEF SEEMS TO HAVE HAD NO DETRACTORS. Aviators as well as ground crews and maintainers graced the airplane with the kind of brand loyalty that is otherwise found among Coke drinkers, Harley riders and A-10 Warthog drivers (another Republic product).

“I just loved it from the moment I saw it,” said Captain Hank Goetz in the documentary Thud Pilots. “Everybody wanted to get their hands on it.” Colonel John Casper enthused: “Greatest airplane I’ve ever flown. It was a delight to fly, and I’ve flown the F-5, the F-4, the A-10, the F-16… but [the F-105] was the one I really loved flying.” Captain Sam Morgan: “There was nothing, with that airplane, that I couldn’t get out of. You could pull all the Gs you wanted, you could run as fast as you wanted, it was just a great airplane. And you looked good on the ladder.”

Thud pilot Vic Vizcarra called it “the Cadillac of the air. Huge, comfortable cockpit. I had all the confidence in the world in that airplane. It had terrain-avoidance radar, not terrain-following. You had to manually fly it. I remember one training mission I flew entirely under the [radar] bag. My instructor said, ‘Hey Vic, look where you are.’ I was in a tiny valley, huge mountains on each side. It proved to me I’ll be able to do this mission in real weather.”

“It was a beautiful airplane, and it was a real thrill to fly,” said Colonel Calvin Markwood. And Marty Case, with 2,000 hours in Thuds, noted: “I really liked the cockpit layout. The pitot heat [switch] was unlike any other airplane.