Abandoned Navy Jet

[Django]

Post by permission from the Vintage Leather Jacket Forum. Check out this jet in the woods. I searched but didn't come up with anything on here.

Here's how the old abandoned field looked in the 'sixties. The last photo is of a Navy jet that made a forced landing at Oak Grove sometime in the fifties or sixties. The Marine Corps tried to helicopter the plane over to Cherry Point to be repaired, but just off the end of Oak Grove's runway, the tether broke. The jet remains in the woods where it fell, uncomfortably close to where my house is now located.







AF

[Robbie Roberts]

No such thing as an "Abandoned NAVY jet"- they salt a corpse in them to claim them as war graves, and retain ownership in perpetuity... I'm amazed more Navy vets aren't being told they are still USN property...

Robbie

[Cubs]

The jet in question is a Grumman F11F. If I remember correctly, it's the long nose version. I don't have the BuNo.

[Holedigger]

Grumman F-11 Tiger (BuNo. 138639),

which sits where it was dropped in the woods, southwest of Oak Grove.

From
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/NC/Air ... m#okagrove


I think that one is in the "Long-Term Hardwood Storage Facility"!

Last edited by Holedigger on Wed Oct 28, 2009 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Holedigger]

I thought they normally stored them on the bottom of Lake Michigan, guess the EPA has been on their case and is now watching Lake Michigan to keep them out!

[Cubs]

I hope a museum does get it soon. The plane has been vandalized terribly.
Hunters have shot it. I think the canopy is missing and a few hundred other small items. ( By the way, a second glance at the photos, I realize the BuNo is painted right there). As Holedigger has posted. Of course, the airframe has suffered much damage from being dropped from a height of maybe 200' or so.

[51fixer]

Of course, the airframe has suffered much damage from being dropped from a height of maybe 200' or so.

Isn't that a normal Navy Landing?
Rich

[tom d. friedman]

No such thing as an "Abandoned NAVY jet"- they salt a corpse in them to claim them as war graves, and retain ownership in perpetuity... I'm amazed more Navy vets aren't being told they are still USN property...

Robbie

robbie that's a real good 1!!!

[Nathan]

Post by permission from the Vintage Leather Jacket Forum. Check out this jet in the woods. I searched but didn't come up with anything on here.

Here's how the old abandoned field looked in the 'sixties. The last photo is of a Navy jet that made a forced landing at Oak Grove sometime in the fifties or sixties. The Marine Corps tried to helicopter the plane over to Cherry Point to be repaired, but just off the end of Oak Grove's runway, the tether broke. The jet remains in the woods where it fell, uncomfortably close to where my house is now located.







AF

How cool is that. Love the orange tail scheme be neat to keep it like that if a museum does get it. I can't believe people would just leave a plane out in the middle of the woods like that!

[Holedigger]

People didn't leave it there, the NAVY did! Lets not have that kind of confusion again!

[RickH]

Now that attention has been drawn to it the Navy is making plans to remove this aircraft to the aforementioned long term storage facility we know as Lake Michigan !

It would be GREAT to see the F-11A Tiger restored in the outstanding Orange Day-glo and white colors of its final "VT" squadron advanced trainer days.

The markings displayed by the Advanced Training Squadrons' F-11 Tigers and F-9 Cougars in the sixties were among the most colorful and best looking schemes ever seen on these aircraft (IMHO).

It is interesting also that the Tiger, although a newer aircraft, had a shorter service life as an advanced trainer than the single seat TAF-9J Cougars.

[RareBear]

Having worked on a Naval Air Station for 12 years, and seen umpteen jets land or bounce-and-go, I firmly believe the term "flare" is not in the Navy's flight training cirriculum and is not taught at Pensacola.

Walt