Hellcat Drones

[DaveM2]

Anyone done much research on these?

TIA
Dave

[tex-fan]

here is one I found.

http://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/f6f-5k/

[quemerford]

Other than dodgy (plagiarised) mistake-ridden stuff on the internet, not much. I did see a nice, more in-depth piece in a book a while back, but it only dealt with Korea War involvement with these aircraft.

At one point I was going to research these, but other articles/books got in the way.

There is an out-of-print book on PMTC which covers that side in reasonable detail, but as with much of aviation history, it's a subject just begging for some proper research!

[Zachary]

You might find this interesting. Jim Soyk, Sr. was an electronics technician assigned to Navy Utility Squadron VU-3K at White Sands, where he became a F6F-5K Hellcat drone operator.

http://eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=4384485939001

[DaveM2]

Thanks chaps, a tough one to crack by the looks of it

[Taigh Ramey]

Way back when I was working with Flying Heritage Collection I recall seeing remnants of red paint on their F6F showing its history as a drone.

[C VEICH]

I have something of an affinity and would LOVE to see an in-depth book on the subject. I am currently flying a radio control -5K and have a -3K, which will be in an overall yellow scheme, nearly finished. It seems every Hellcat book has a couple of pages dedicated to the airplane's use as a drone but, as you would expect, much of the information and photos is the same from one to the next. It would be great to have all the available information compiled into a single volume. Of course I understand that the obscurity of the subject means there is little chance of that happening!

[Woodsy Airfield]

As a point of interest, many years ago while at the Soplata Collection, Walter pointed to a wrecked R-2800 with some red paint residue and thought it was from an F6F Drone...Don't know if engine still at sight...

[Duggy009]

[Duggy009]

[AG pilot]

Wow, those are some really interesting photos that were just not randomly done, but composed.

[John Dupre]

Years ago I read a post about an attempt to recover a Hellcat drone from an island off California. In the story there was one really complete example but somehow environmentalists got involved and one was flown out to the island only to declare the wreck was too close to a bird's nest so the recovery couldn't go forward. I wonder if anything has changed since then? Is the wreck still there? There were no photos in the article as I remember but would love to see some either then or now.

[Wilson]

Years ago I read a post about an attempt to recover a Hellcat drone from an island off California. In the story there was one really complete example but somehow environmentalists got involved and one was flown out to the island only to declare the wreck was too close to a bird's nest so the recovery couldn't go forward. I wonder if anything has changed since then? Is the wreck still there? There were no photos in the article as I remember but would love to see some either then or now.

Classic Wings, Issue 64, Vol. 15 #1, 2008. In the article, the author says there were approximately five relatively complete Hellcats, along with T-33s and F-86s. They were dumped in a ravine along the coastline in the late 1980s on San Nicolas Island, off of LA County in California. Perhaps our Google Maps sleuths can find then. The unfortunate thing is that once our lovely California environmentalists get an idea in their head that something shouldn't be there (like dumped aircraft), they won't let it go.

[Wilson]

The Hellcat NOLO drones in California were flown out of Pt. Mugu and China Lake. Pt. Mugu is now Naval Base Ventura County. San Nicolas Island is part of Pt Mugu's sea range. Pt. Mugu used to have a small museum on base, but I can't find a listing for it anymore. China Lake has a large museum. Visiting their website, they sell a DVD called Secret City that appears to cover the Hellcat drone program. The also sell a book titled Arming the Fleet that sounds promising. http://www.chinalakemuseum.org/index.htm. I imagine the museum itself could provide a lot of information on the Hellcat drone program.

And, of course, The Mickey Mouse Club visited China Lake. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiuCL0mKCiM The sacrifice starts at 1:45.

[Wilson]

And I stumbled into this guy's account of flying NOLO F-86 Sabres from Pt. Mugu: http://gunnersmoon.com/plane-fun/milita ... ft/qf-86f/