I recently read a fine book on the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo and its operation authored by Nigel Walpole, a former Royal Air Force (RAF) exchange pilot who flew the aircraft. The title of the book is
Voodoo Warriors: The Story of the McDonnell Voodoo Fast-Jets, and at $1.99, the Kindle Edition is a straight-up bargain and worth the read. For years and years I had read about the Voodoo's terrifying pitch-up issues and Walpole's book helped bring home the fact that pitch-up was never too far from the minds of those who operated the aircraft.
Now within the past couple of days, a film produced by McDonnell about avoiding pitch-up and how to attempt to get out of it was just recently posted to YouTube by the San Diego Air & Space Museum (SDASM). The flight test footage (beginning at approximately the 8-minute mark) inside and outside of the cockpit is breathtaking (featuring McDonnell Test Pilot Don Struck in the cockpit). What also caught my ear was this restrained bit of commentary about recovery from pitch-up and the resulting loss of control through the use of the aircraft's drag chute, and the consequences of not using the drag chute to recover:
"However, if a [drag] chute is not utilized, time out of control will be lengthened considerably with the resulting increase in altitude loss.
Extended out of control time could possibly force you to leave the aircraft prior to recovery because of altitude considerations."
Anyway, check out the film. It really makes one appreciate the risks of flying a Century Series jet, and in particular, the grave danger presented by the Voodoo's dreaded pitch-up problem.
Also, check out this article by James H. Farmer that was published in Flight Journal in April 2012, "
Voodoo Magic: Learning to Dance With A High-Spirited Lady." There's an illuminating passage which apparently refers to the efforts this film was a part of (although Test Pilot Don Struck's name is mistakenly provided as "Don
Strock.")
Col. Craigwell today recalls that the Voodoo’s manufacturer, McDonnell Aircraft, sent a company pilot around to the various USAF F-101 squadrons to further brief pilots on the pitch-up phenomenon—‘a sword of Damocles problem’ never resolved by the company’s engineers. "The company test pilot was Don Strock, as I recall, a civilian, a very good man. He was trying to show us how far we could go with the airplane—what the onset felt like. Don kept telling us the pitch up was recoverable. He did it a number of times in his factory airplane. But he had an extra drag chute with a very long line attaching it to the airplane. If the normal drag chute line was, say, 75 feet, his was 175 feet. This was important to get the chute out beyond the turbulent air around a tumbling airplane. He also had a cannon cartridge to quickly shoot it out of the immediate vicinity of the airplane into the cleaner air. Now, normally, this special chute arrangement worked quite well for Don. But even he had to let one go one day when the airplane refused to stop tumbling.”