1st Lt. Barty Brooks and the "Sabre Dance".

[JohnB]

Aviation History magazine has a nice article that gives “the rest of the story” on a piece of film most of you have seen and perhaps wondered about.

On January 10, 1956, 1st Lt. Barty Brooks was ferrying a new F-100C from the factory to George AFB. Enroute, they noticed a minor problem with the nose gear so he diverted to Edwards where they have longer, wider runways.
His approach was short and in attempting to stretch it, he got into a stall which led to adverse yaw and roll motions. As his airspeed dropped, the oscillations worsened, he lit the afterburner which gave the plane enough power to dance down the runway.
Eventually, the right wing fell and the plane cartwheeled into a fireball.
In the days before “Zero-Zero” ejections seats, Brooks did not have a chance to successfully eject.
The film was shown to new Air Force and Navy pilots as a lesson on getting behind the power curve.
It became known as the “Sabre Dance”.

The film became famous for its use to two feature films, as a battle damaged F-86 in the great Korean War film, The Hunters, and as Charles Bronson's chase plane in the semi-documentary, X-15.

You can read the full story here and see the film.
http://www.historynet.com/deadly-sabre-dance.htm

For more information on Lt. Brooks, including a New York Times article on him in training, and a copy of the crash report:
http://www.sabredance.net/aviationhistory.htm

As I kid I saw both of those films, and since it's pretty clear it was not a survivable crash, I always wondered about the pilot.
RIP Lieutenant Brooks.

Last edited by JohnB on Thu Jul 21, 2011 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Speedy]

If I recall correctly, he survived the crash and fire, but choked on his own vomit and his cause of death was asphysxiation.

And the 'big runway' at Edwards had been set up for some other test flight later that same day, which is the only reason why the camera's were positioned and rolling where they were.

[JohnB]

If I recall correctly, he survived the crash and fire, but choked on his own vomit and his cause of death was asphysxiation.

The article disputes that.

[b29flteng]

I've seen the footage a million times but never heard the story.

[p51]

Funny, every time I'd ever seen the film, I always wondered what had happened. I've always wondered what the guy's family must feel to know it's being seen over and over like that...