Three, You Are in a Ninety-Degree, Left Bank Turn
- Christina DeSantis
- Jan 4
- 14 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Brinkmanship at the Height of the Cold War
The following story, written by Colonel Richard "Dick" Mason, was originally published in The Intake Magazine (Summer 2010), describes a pivotal moment in 1964 when international tensions were at their peak. Following the "quiet" removal of Jupiter Medium Range Ballistic Missiles from Turkey in 1963, the U.S. needed to demonstrate that it could deliver nuclear-capable units to the region from the mainland in a matter of hours.
This 6,600-nautical-mile non-stop deployment was "brinkmanship at its finest". It was an era when families built bomb shelters and stockpiled food, and for the pilots of the 308th Tactical Fighter Squadron, it was an experiment in endurance that would test the limits of both man and machine.
"Three, You Are in a Ninety-Degree, Left Bank Turn"
By Colonel Richard Albert "Dick" Mason, USAF (Ret.)
I entered the Hun world during the fighter pilot “transition period” of the early 1960s. I graduated in the first Nellis class deemed “fully combat ready” with all squares filled, to include KC-135 refueling, and Bullpup and Sidewinder certification. At my first squadron at George Air Force Base, the 309th Tactical Force Squadron, the squadron commander was a major, the ops officer was a captain and there were 17 first lieutenants in the squadron. Back then, being a captain was a really big deal.
About a month after my arrival at George AFB, the Berlin Crisis of 1961 flared, and the 309th was alerted to deploy TDY to Spangdahlem AB in Germany. The squadron was packed with lots of recently arrived, high-time Hun drivers from Misawa AB, Japan, and elsewhere, but by then-current TAC rules, they were deemed to be “not combat ready.” Thus, new “combat ready” guys like me flew Huns across the Atlantic—with KB-50 Tankers, not KC-135 Tankers—while many old “not combat ready” guys arrived at Spangdahlem via transports along with the squadron’s cargo. This was my first real experience with higher headquarters logic and reasoning.
With the Cold War in full swing, TAC got real busy trying to develop new and better procedures for long-range fighter deployments. Within the 31st TFW, “combat ready” pilots were constantly shuffled among various squadrons to beef up the “Alpha Squadron”—the next squadron in line to deploy. In one 12-month period from 1 July 1962 through 31 June 1963, I was deployed TDY overseas 278 days—not exactly a morale and family friendly work schedule. The next twelve months were much better: only 170 days of overseas TDY.
Experimental Follies
In the dead of winter in 1964, the TAC planners came up with a new concept for deploying fighters, and the 308th TFS of the 31st TFW, now relocated to Homestead AFB, Florida, was selected to conduct the experiment—a non-stop deployment from Homestead AFB, Florida to Çiğli Air Base, Turkey—some 6,600 nautical miles. The pilots were to experience “crew conditioning” before launching on the deployment. Some well-intentioned souls at HQ TAC determined that the deploying pilots should have their body clocks adjusted to Turkish time before takeoff. Thus, two days before departure, we kissed our loved ones goodbye and reported to the “crew conditioning” facility specially set up for us deploying pilots.
One entire barracks building was set aside and prepared for us. Dark shades had been installed on the windows to try to convert our body clock’s daytime into nighttime, because Turkish time was about twelve hours off from Homestead time. Pilots were assigned to private rooms with no distractions, such as a TV, and directed to go on a “Turkey-time” schedule.
Breakfast was served at breakfast time in Turkey and in similar fashion for other meals. All meals were “high-energy, low-residue” meals—like steak and a baked potato—not too shabby. The idea was to give the bowels time to purge. To ensure we pilots rested and did not sneak such earthly pleasures as booze or parting sex, security police were stationed at all exit points of the barracks and around the outside of the building to “monitor” us and to quiet any disturbing outside influences. During “Turkey daytime,” we attended briefings, poopy suit drills in the base swimming pool, flight planned and did preflights, run-ups, and flew our assigned aircraft—always herded everywhere by bus and with monitors.
The crew conditioning experiment sounded like a good concept—in theory—if one were to presume an actual conflict would permit the time to do crew conditioning. Personally, I did not sleep very much, nor did most of the jocks I talked to—we just dozed off and on and watched the clock waiting for the “guards” to come and bus us to the next event.
The Plan
The launch was scheduled for the night of 9 February 1964, the idea being to permit a late daytime landing in Turkey and to offer maximum daylight for the flight itself, and for search and rescue, if needed. The flight was to fly the polar route to try to approximate a great circle route to shorten the distance as much as possible. We were to use three different sets of KC-135 tankers, and we were briefed that the weather was “good, except for some light scattered cirrus in the first refueling area and swells in the north Atlantic Ocean of 20 feet.”
[Note: No one spoke about it, but we all knew that if we had to punch out on this February night over the North Atlantic with swells of 20 feet, we probably would not survive—poopy suit or no poopy suit. Significantly, we were not briefed as to the surface winds to expect over these swells—something all parachutists worry about—and several of us pilots were jump qualified. We all knew that this flight would not be just another cushy flight over the relative warm and calm waters of the South Atlantic that many of us had previously experienced, where if we had to eject and could manage to get into our raft, the probability of rescue was quite good.]I was to be #4 in the first cell of six led by the 31st TFW Commander, Colonel (later BG) Frank J. “Spot” Collins, a WW II ace. My element leader in #3 was Gene Lexion, my 308th Flight Commander, an IP and a graduate of IPIS. We were scheduled to taxi about 9:30 PM. All went smoothly until radio check-in when Gene announced he had an unspecified problem that he was trying to resolve with Maintenance. Colonel Collins told Gene if the problem was serious to go to the spare aircraft (we also had a manned ground spare standing by). Shortly, Gene radioed that the problem was resolved, and he was ready to crank.
[Note: In the final preparation days before the launch, Gene had experienced attitude indicator problems with his assigned aircraft, but he told me shortly before launch that he was confident that the problems had been resolved.]The Incident
We took off on time and flew up the East Coast to rendezvous with our first set of tankers. I was on Gene’s left wing and on the far-left side of the first cell. As we approached the first refueling area near Wilmington, NC, we encountered some light intermittent cirrus above us and below us. In between the intermittent layers I could at times see stars shining through the thin cirrus above us and ground lights shining through the thin cirrus below us—a rather strange and unusual visual experience: down sometimes looked like up and vice versa.
Soon the flashing lights of the three tankers appeared ahead, and as we closed, Colonel Collins directed Gene and me to take the left tanker. Gene acknowledged and started a gentle turn to the left toward our tanker, but he turned past the tanker about thirty degrees, rolled level, momentarily, and then made an abrupt turn back to the right. He again turned past our tanker, leveled momentarily, and then abruptly made a very hard left turn back into me.
I was fighting to hang on to the left wing, and with all the gyrations, I had moved to a close-in fighting wing position, and I transmitted, “Three, you are in a ninety-degree, left bank turn.” Three instantly snap-rolled further left, did a split-S out of sight, and transmitted, “I’m getting out.” Probably no more than 10 to 15 seconds had elapsed between when Colonel Collins cleared us to our tanker and when Gene transmitted, “I’m getting out.”
I pulled up, leveled on the gauges, and saw the lights of my tanker and the rest of the gaggle off to my right front. At the time of the incident, we were between thin cirrus layers with stars and ground lights visible through the clouds. I sped to my tanker and stuck to it like glue for the next four night refuelings.
Our great circle route took us along the east coast, south of Newfoundland and then arced down to pass north of the Azores. Somewhere southeast of Newfoundland, our first set of tankers left us. We now pressed on alone, without any accompanying tankers, in the blackest and longest night I felt I had ever experienced. After what seemed like forever, a hint of daylight began to show on the eastern horizon—a most beautiful and wonderful sight. Shortly, we met our second set of tankers. We stayed with them for two refuelings through the eastern abort point for the Azores; then they departed, and once again we were alone. We met our third set of tankers near Gibraltar and stayed with them for two more refuelings—numbers seven and eight—before once again setting out on our own.
We landed 13 F-100s in late afternoon, 10 February 1964, at Çiğli AB, Turkey, after an 11-hour and 40-minute flight with three sets of tankers and eight aerial refuelings—four being at night. We learned then that Gene did not make it, and that we had aborted fighters strung out from Bangor, Maine, eastward.
Postmortem Observations
The accident report determined that Gene had bailed out at an extremely high speed, and that the rush of air in the neck of his poopy suit, which was held open by a metal “comfort” band, caused the suit to inflate to the point of rupture. In the inflation process, both of Gene’s arms and legs were forced to a spread-eagle position resulting in massive injuries and broken limbs caused by the extreme wind blast. It was determined that Gene bled to death shortly after ejection. The stated accident cause was spatial disorientation. The Air Force made a movie about this accident, and it was shown for many years during instrument training.
No one asked my opinion, but I believe to this day that Gene had a malfunctioning attitude indicator, and good IPIS trained pilot that he was, he “got on the gauges,” and that, coupled with the confusing situation outside the cockpit of stars and ground lights shining through thin clouds and appearing somewhat similar, led to an extremely bad case of vertigo.
To put the overall situation into proper perspective, we must bear in mind that at this particular time TAC was undergoing a period of drastic transformation. The TAC Commander was a former SAC general and career bomber pilot, and virtually everybody and everything in TAC was being realigned to the SAC way of thinking and operating. Nevertheless, I believe the “SACumsized” folks at TAC learned a lot from this particular deployment about long range fighter deployments in general.
First, the pre-deployment, controlled crew rest experiment proved to be a noble thought, but a dumb idea in reality. Every pilot I talked to was exhausted at takeoff, and believed he would have been far better rested and prepared for the long flight if he had stayed at home and slept in his own bed.
Second, the F-100 urine bottle was not large enough for a flight of nearly 12 hours. Reportedly, some pilots pissed in their poopy suits—whether this was due to a full bladder or trouble getting a too short Willy out through all the clothing and the complicated poopy opening, especially at night, was never admitted by anyone.
Third, some well-intentioned soul came up with the idea of the “Bite Size” Flight Lunch—probably some bomber or transport type accustomed to a working autopilot and comfortable airborne rest and eating facilities. The idea of having every single piece of food, except the apple, cut into a one-inch square and individually wrapped very securely in aluminum foil—presumably to keep it fresh and palatable and conducive to easy munching—proved to be a really dumb idea for a single seat fighter pilot actually flying his plane. Trying to unwrap the little cubes while flying proved to be quite futile (especially at night), not to mention the litter problem of all the tiny aluminum foil pieces. Most of us settled for just eating the apple.
But what I personally learned from this experience, and carried with me through my fighter career, was that the day of the dumb-shit wingman was long gone. Expecting a wingman to simply “keep the light on the star and his mouth shut” was bad thinking. In my opinion, a good wingman best be trained, capable, and always ready to take his leader’s place when things go to hell, as in this tale. Imagine the possibility of a better outcome, if, as that first tanker join up was getting too hairy, Gene had simply said, “Four, you have the lead….”
Gene Lexion “...was an F-100 IP, an IPIS Graduate, an exemplary officer—intelligent, well-mannered, hard-working and always impeccably dressed—even his flight suits were always ironed. I once chided him about the ironed flight suit, and he said, ‘You white guys can be outstanding about here (holding his hand palm down about waist high), but as a black guy, to be outstanding, I have to be about here (holding his hand palm about head high). I always have to work and try harder.’” Rest in peace, Gene.F-100 Article Epilogue
I wrote The Intake article for Cold War-era F-100 pilots to read, and I used terms and expressions that probably are meaningless to others. Thus, I offer the following in response to comments I have received.
This F-100 deployment took place at the height of the Cold War when international tensions were very high. People were scared, building personal bomb shelters, and stockpiling food, medicine, guns, etc.
The Strategic Air Command (SAC) general was Walter C. Sweeney, a career bomber pilot and the fair-haired favorite of President Kennedy, who sent Sweeney to "clean up" TAC. Sweeney’s son was my roommate at the Air Force Academy, and I once dated Sweeney’s daughter, Ann. Captain Gene Lexion was a graduate of the USAF Instructor Pilot Instrument School (IPIS), an advanced school not all pilots were selected to attend.
As I recall, a total of twenty F-100s were launched to proceed through the first aerial refueling (our squadron of 18 plus 2 airborne spares). Thirteen F-100s completed the deployment as planned. Five more trickled in later to flesh out our squadron to 18 birds. This 6,600-nautical-mile non-stop deployment is a distance record that still stands today for a single-engine, single-pilot, jet fighter plane.
I actually flew the plane during the entire flight, as I suspect did most pilots. The F-100 had a primitive device nominally called an "auto-pilot," but it was totally unreliable and prone to do unpredictable, bad things to the airplane. Most jocks would have gladly traded it for a few extra pounds of fuel. Further, much of the flight was at night and we were flying in a fairly close, tucked-in formation—not the time or place for some "dumb ass" to be whiling away time on an auto-pilot. Besides, fighter pilots consider themselves to be real pilots, and real pilots fly their airplanes. If one of the jocks had used his so-called auto-pilot, he probably would not have admitted it. It was a period pilot "macho" thing—similar to pilots of an earlier era deeming an open cockpit de rigueur and an enclosed cabin "sissy stuff."
Flying "light on the star" refers to the position of a wingman flying formation on his flight leader. It means the wingman positions his airplane so that he aligns the wingtip light of the leader’s airplane precisely on the center of the star in the center of the USAF insignia on the side of the lead plane's fuselage. In the proper position, the wingtips of the two airplanes will be just a few feet apart. All fighter pilots are very skilled at doing this or they would not have become fighter pilots. All fighter pilots (not just Thunderbird pilots) train to fly close formation doing all sorts of aerobatics—loops, barrel rolls, etc.—as well as close formation takeoffs and landings, day and night, in good weather and bad.
Historically, the greatest washout factor in Air Force Pilot Training was an inability to fly close formation—critical to becoming a fighter pilot. Why was formation flying important? Air Force philosophy at the time was that all Air Force pilots must be capable of flying all Air Force airplanes. Viet Nam proved that some pilots were better suited to fly aircraft other than fighters.
The North American Aviation "fly away" cost to the U.S. Government for a brand new F-100 was under $800,000. It was the first U.S. jet fighter capable of flying supersonic in level flight. It had one UHF radio for communication, one TACAN and one "Bird Dog" radio compass for navigation, one great engine with afterburner, four 20 mm cannons, and none of the electronic crap that seems to be necessary in today’s airplanes.
Pilots really loved the F-100, but it did have some initial stability and handling problems. The worst year was 1958, when 116 F-100s were destroyed in accidents and 55 pilots were killed. Better F-100 pilot selection and training, added wing flaps, and a taller tail greatly improved future loss rates—leading to the aircrew deduction that neither plane nor pilot ever had "too much tail." A total of 2,294 F-100s were built, of which a staggering 889 were lost in non-combat accidents. An additional 186 F-100s were hostile-fire combat losses in the Viet Nam War, where the F-100 flew more individual combat missions than any other aircraft. F-100s were flown by Denmark, France, Taiwan, and Turkey, as well as the United States.
The U-2 shoot-down of Francis Gary Powers in May 1960 pissed off and embarrassed the Russians and heightened Cold War tensions and international rhetoric. Then along came the Berlin Crisis in the fall of 1961, with the Russians threatening to cut off access to Berlin (I flew an F-100 from California to Germany for this crisis). The Cuban Missile Crisis followed in the fall of 1962 with more international posturing, more rhetoric, and threats—both implied and real. The end result was that Khrushchev "backed down" and pulled Russian missiles out of Cuba with great United States fanfare.
What shortly followed, with little U.S. fanfare, was the spring 1963 beginning of a very quiet removal from Turkey of three U.S. squadrons of Jupiter Medium Range Ballistic Missiles—supposedly now deemed "obsolete." The drawdown of Jupiter missiles coincided with an increase of F-100 squadrons in Turkey pulling nuclear alert—presumably, I suspect, to cover the Crimean area targets previously covered by the Jupiter missiles.
My squadron, the 308th TFS, 31st TFW, was the first U.S.-based F-100 squadron to deploy TDY to Incirlik AB, Turkey in February 1964. Presumably, the purpose of this non-stop deployment from the U.S. was to supplement existing F-100 squadrons based at Incirlik AB, Turkey; and, more importantly, to convey to the Russians that the U.S. could send additional nuclear delivery units to the region, and elsewhere, in a matter of hours—brinkmanship at its finest.
A Distance Record: This 6,600-nautical-mile non-stop deployment is a distance record that still stands today for a single-engine, single-pilot, jet fighter plane
Real Pilots: I actually flew the plane during the entire flight. The F-100 had a primitive "auto-pilot" that was totally unreliable and prone to unpredictable "bad things".
"Light on the Star": This refers to the position of a wingman. You align the lead plane's wing tip light precisely on the center of the USAF star insignia on its fuselage; in this position, wing tips are just a few feet apart.
The "Hun" Statistics: The F-100 was the first U.S. jet capable of supersonic flight in level flight. However, it was dangerous. In 1958 alone, 116 F-100s were destroyed and 55 pilots killed. Total non-combat accident losses reached 889 aircraft.
About Colonel Dick Mason
Colonel Richard Albert "Dick" Mason is a member of the pioneer USAFA Class of 1959. Over a 24-year career, he rose from a one-room schoolhouse in Missouri to become the Vice Commander of the 347th Tactical Fighter Wing. A graduate of the U.S. Army Advanced Airborne Jumpmaster School and the Naval War College, he flew 309 combat missions in Vietnam and earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses. He will be inducted into the Mountaineer Hall of Fame in March 2026.
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