The Chance Vought F8U Crusader was developed in response to the U.S. Navy’s 1952 requirement for a supersonic, carrier-based day fighter.1 At that time, carriers also embarked specialized night/all-weather aircraft.
The prototype XF8U-1 first flew on 25 March 1955, and easily exceeded Mach 1 in level flight, a remarkable achievement. It was the first time a Navy fighter had exceeded the speed of sound in level flight. Chance Vought test pilot John Konrad reached 35,000 feet. It immediately was obvious that the Crusader was an exceptional aircraft, and in 1957 the coveted Collier Trophy was awarded jointly to the Navy and to Chance Vought for its design and achievements.
A production F8U-1 set an international speed record of 1,015.428 mph, and in June 1957 two Crusaders launched from the carrier Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31), sailing off the California coast. After refueling in flight, they landed aboard the Saratoga (CVA-60) off the Florida coast, having spanned the continent in 3½ hours. A month later, Marine Major John H. Glenn piloted an F8U-1P reconnaissance variant from California to New York in 3 hours, 28 minutes, 50 seconds, an average speed of 723.517 mph—a cross-continent record. (On three occasions Glenn had to come down from his optimum altitude and slow to 350 mph to fuel from AJ-2 Savage tankers, but he still maintained an average speed of Mach 1.1 for the flight.2)
The Crusader’s designers had been faced with the problem of creating a Mach 1+ fighter that had good carrier-landing characteristics. Their solution was to give the Crusader a swept-back wing that raised up seven degrees during landing and takeoff to provide the angle of attack necessary for a 130-mph landing speed and still have the fuselage in a near-horizontal attitude for maximum pilot visibility. When airborne, the wing merged into the fuselage to provide a highly efficient aircraft. The outer wing panels folded upward for carrier stowage. (In a couple of very rare instances, Crusaders became airborne with the wing sections in the folded position!)
As a lightweight day fighter—i.e., without a radar intercept officer in a “back seat”—the Crusader was powered by a single turbojet engine with afterburner. The cockpit was in a forward position, over the nose air intake.
The early Crusaders were armed with four 20-mm cannon, a Sidewinder missile rail on each side of the fuselage, and a rocket pack that opened from the bottom of the fuselage to fire 32 12.75-inch, unguided air-to-air rockets. In later models the fuselage rocket pack was deleted, the missile rails were modified to each launch two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, and four underwing attachment points were added to carry up to four 1,000-pounders or two Bullpup air-to-surface missiles. However, Crusaders rarely were employed in the attack role.
In the F8U-1P Photo Crusaders, the fighter’s four 20-mm cannon and magazines were deleted, more fuel was carried, and the nose was reconfigured with up to six cameras being fitted. The types of cameras and arrangement could be changed to adapt to specific missions. The cameras were controlled through an electronic arrangement that enabled the pilot to manually take photos, or to use an automatic mode in which he would dial in the plane’s speed and altitude.3
Deliveries of the F8U-1 to the Navy began in December 1956, initially to various bases for operational testing and to Development Squadron VX-3. Fighter Qquadron (VF) 32 at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Florida, was the first operational squadron to receive the Crusader, in March 1957—exactly two years after the first flight of the prototype, another remarkable achievement. That squadron also marked the first time that Crusaders flew in a hostile environment when, flying from the Saratoga, VF-32 operated over Lebanon during the Middle East crisis of February 1958.
By the early 1960s, 32 Navy fighter squadrons and 13 Marine fighter squadrons flew the Crusader. Reconnaissance squadrons and several utility and experimental units also flew the plane. Total Crusader production was 1,261 aircraft, including 42 built specifically for French carrier operation. After operational service, beginning in 1965, 375 fighters and 73 photo planes were “remanufactured,” receiving new engines and other upgrades, and being redesignated in the F-8 series.
Crusader pilots soon were racking up remarkable flight times. The first F8U pilot to achieve 1,000 hours in a Crusader was Commander James Stockdale, who flew with VF-24 and VF-211 from 1957 to 1960. He soon would fly the plane in combat.
Navy- and Marine-piloted RF-8 Photo Crusaders had a key role during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962, taking low-level images of the Soviet buildup on the island nation. These flights were under the aegis of Light Photographic Squadron 62 led by Commander William B. Ecker. None was shot at during these overflights that originated from bases in Florida. Less than two years later, beginning in late May 1964, Photo Crusaders—flying from 7th Fleet carriers—were criss-crossing Southeast Asia to snap photos. These flights came under fire with some aircraft lost. And Crusader fighters soon were in action in the skies over North Vietnam.
1. Chance Vought and its predecessors, which produced the milestone VE-7, F4U Corsair, F6U Pirate, and F7U Cutlass fighters, was merged in 1961 with Ling-Temco Electronics to form Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). Two useful histories of the Crusader are Barrett Tillman, MiG Master: The Story of the F-8 Crusader (Annapolis, MD: Nautical & Aviation, 1980), and Peter Mersky, Vought F-8 Crusader (London: Osprey, 1989).
2. Glenn subsequently became the first American astronaut to orbit Earth (1962) and later served as a U.S. senator (1974–99); he again flew in space while a senator (1998).
3. See Norman Polmar, “The Last Picture Plane,” Naval History, vol. 24, no. 25 (October 2010), 64–65.
Chance-Vought F-8E Crusader
Type: Fighter
Crew: Pilot
Max. weight: 34,100 pounds
Engine: 1 Pratt & Whitney J57-P-20 turbojet; 10,700 lbst.
Length: 54 feet, 5¾ inches
Wingspan: 35 feet, 8 inches
Wing area: 375 square feet
Height: 15 feet, 9 inches
Max. speed: * 749 mph at sea level
1,132 mph at 35,000 feet
cruise 430 mph
Range: 1,425 miles
Ceiling: 52,350 feet
Armament: 4 20-mm Mark 12 cannon (500 rounds)
approx. 4,700 lb. bombs, rockets, missiles
* Performance data with four Sidewinder missiles.