F-106A 58-0776 "Centennial Bird" in 1976 of the 318 FIS McChord AFB, WA

Written by the McChord Air Museum
July 2021

In the spirit of the 4th of July, we use the spirit of the red, white, and blue feature for today’s Flashback Friday Feature.
We reach back to 1976, and the year-long "Bicentennial" celebration commemorating the American Revolution and the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Patriotic feelings were on display by many Americans with a wide range of bicentennial themed items, big and small. This was also the case for the U.S. Military.

In the U.S. Air Force, leaders allowed the display of the official Bicentennial "pretzel" logo on all of their aircraft and more substantially, gave their units the ok to create bicentennial themed aircraft. One of those units taking full advantage of this was McChord’s 318 Fighter – Interceptor Squadron.
Fresh off of being named as the World Best Fighter Squadron (the Hughes Trophy) the unit had an additional reason to create a special flagship.

During their event organized to recognize the squadron's 1975 Hughes Trophy win, a bicentennial themed F-106 with its name "The Freedom Bird" stretched across its red, white, and blue wing tanks made its debut. The aircraft picked for this honor, serial number 58-0776!

A late addition to the squadron arriving to the unit for a short time in 1968, and later in the Summer of 69, #776 AKA "The Freedom Bird" was an understandably the aircraft of choice by the 318th during their visits to airshows during America’s 200th Birthday. Unfortunately, 1976 was the “high” for ol 776, the unfortunate low being its crash near Tallahassee, FL on August 8, 1980. The aircraft was destroyed but the pilot was able to escape.
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