My 550th IPASOY parody! The McDonnell F-101 Voodoo started off as a planned heavy fighter escort for the B-47 nuke bomber but in Vietnam became the RF-101 recon bird that could fly above the tree lines at amazing and dangerous Mach speeds. The MiGs of the time failed to catch it when the pilot lit the J57 afterburners and in Hanoi Voodoos caused much alarm. A supremely unforgiving aircraft that was tricky to fly (some claim the hardest US fighter in history and the first to break Mach 1 on its first test flight), the Voodoo had excellent performance and long-range of almost 2000 miles! The F-101B was also used by the US and Canada as long range interceptor in case the Soviets tried to cross North American airspace with their bombers, the 101 capable of intercepting 1000s of miles away from target. And on top of this, it was also a fast tactical nuke bomber that could perform an "over the shoulder" lob. What I find amusing about this aircraft is that most people do not know that it one of several US fighters derived from WW2 Luftwaffe '46 projects; in this case, the 1944 Focke-Wulf Twin-Jet Fighter design that led to the XF-88 and then the Voodoo. It's 20mm M-39 cannon was also derived from the WW2 German Mauser MK-213 cannon. The 101 carried 3-4 cannons in either 2x port and 1x starboard array or 2x each side! Its only flaw was the high T-tail with all-moving plane that caused the aircraft to sometimes pitch up and it had to have a brake chute AND a field arrestor hook in case of emergency landings as it was heavy and fast. The 101 also drank a lot of fuel so it had both a probe and fuel slot to be fed by any type of tanker. The Voodoo is one of my favorite US planes from Vietnam along with the F-4, F-105, RB-66, SR-71, and B-52D.

I had a friend of our family who was CIA and got to fly in the 2-seat Voodoo. He said that was the only thing he was ever afraid of as his mission had the 101 at low altitude running Mach 1.8!!! He puked his guts out and soiled himself... and this man was also an interrogator who tortured the enemy for a living and also took out Officers in the field with a silent sniper. He was one of those few people who had an extraordinary life doing amazing things worldwide that none of us ever will. And the Voodoo made him crap his shorts!