Photo & narrative via Troy Curnutte

This picture was taken in Mar 1961 by Glen Fishback, the head photographer for Eastman Kodak. This picture was the front page of their magazine Applied Photography, Issue No. 16. Fishback was in the rear seat of a T-33 and we were flying over the CA Sierras. We did this maneuver four times and I guess they must have picked the best picture. He wanted a top, side, and bottom view of the F-106 in one frame, so on a count of three, one of us broke right, one held level and the other broke left. I was flying the left bird in the picture, Bill Curnutte was in the center bird, and Minor Nelson [Big tall Texan, and you know they're always slow to react :-)] was in the right bird. Note that we didn't have the fancy yellow paint jobs yet.

An interesting war story goes with this picture. The photographer was violently airsick when he took this. About a week before, ADC had sent us a message saying that he was coming and that he was to be treated like a VIP and was supposed to get anything he asked for. Being a relatively Jr. Lt., I was assigned to get housing for him, provide him with transportation, and generally take care of him. The day before this I was to take him for a Mach 2 ride in the B model. As we were walking out to the aircraft he casually mentioned that he had a tendency to get airsick. So I went back into PE and got him a couple of airsick bags. I assured him that I would not do any maneuvers that might worsen the situation. As we were passing through 1000' (about 10 seconds after T.O.) he started barfing. I told him we would be aborting the mission and he said "No, No, lets keep going." So we climbed to 45,000' in afterburner and made our Mach 2 run. He was barfing the whole time. As soon as we got to Mach 2, I throttled back and we went home and landed after only about 45 minutes of flying time. I worried about the condition of the rear cockpit, but he had been really neat - didn't spill a drop. He was absolutely green when he got out of the aircraft. Afterward I always thought I should have nominated him to the Guiness Book Of Records for being the first person to go Mach 2 in an F-106 while barfing in a bag! He did the same thing in the T-33 when this pic was taken, but it took about an hour and a half to get the picture he wanted. One has to give him a lot of credit for having so much heart and desire!

COURTESY OF
EVERETT DENCKLAU
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M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!
/home1/patsworl/public_html/f-106deltadart/piwigo/_data/templates_c/thq53k^86c4ac9971ff1e1d1928148862345e11365988f1_0.file.comment_list.tpl.php on line 92

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M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!
/home1/patsworl/public_html/f-106deltadart/piwigo/_data/templates_c/thq53k^86c4ac9971ff1e1d1928148862345e11365988f1_0.file.comment_list.tpl.php on line 92

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M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!
/home1/patsworl/public_html/f-106deltadart/piwigo/_data/templates_c/thq53k^86c4ac9971ff1e1d1928148862345e11365988f1_0.file.comment_list.tpl.php on line 92

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M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!
/home1/patsworl/public_html/f-106deltadart/piwigo/_data/templates_c/thq53k^86c4ac9971ff1e1d1928148862345e11365988f1_0.file.comment_list.tpl.php on line 92

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M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!
/home1/patsworl/public_html/f-106deltadart/piwigo/_data/templates_c/thq53k^86c4ac9971ff1e1d1928148862345e11365988f1_0.file.comment_list.tpl.php on line 92

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M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!
/home1/patsworl/public_html/f-106deltadart/piwigo/_data/templates_c/thq53k^86c4ac9971ff1e1d1928148862345e11365988f1_0.file.comment_list.tpl.php on line 92

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M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!
/home1/patsworl/public_html/f-106deltadart/piwigo/_data/templates_c/thq53k^86c4ac9971ff1e1d1928148862345e11365988f1_0.file.comment_list.tpl.php on line 92

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M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!
/home1/patsworl/public_html/f-106deltadart/piwigo/_data/templates_c/thq53k^86c4ac9971ff1e1d1928148862345e11365988f1_0.file.comment_list.tpl.php on line 92

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d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e?d=https://www.f-106deltadart.com//piwigo/themes/bootstrap_darkroom/img/user.png" />
M Tierney - Wednesday 22 January 2014 08:08
Thanks for the interesting info-What a dedicated photographer!!