Black Magic: The Unknown History of the Voodoo

58 years after it was written, the official history of the development of the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo remains classified.  However, since the mid 1990s, a great deal about the airplane and its original mission has come to light.

In the Fall of 1945, the bombers of the United States Army Air Force represented by far the most potent military force in history.  Having delivered the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the waves of hundreds of huge, silver B-29s over all of the major cities in Japan were in the process of being forgotten.  Japanese cities were incinerated by the square mile with the most advanced and expensive aircraft in the world, a true marvel of aerodynamic design.  Three years later, that capability had almost completely evaporated as the new commander of what was now Strategic Air Command, General Curtiss LeMay, began the onerous task of reforging the broken sword of American strategic airpower into a potent new weapon with which to face the newly-realized threat of Soviet expansion.

Beginning with his command of the first American bomber group deployed to England to take the war to Germany and as he advanced to commands within the Eighth Air Force and, finally, the 21st Air Force charged with the destruction of targets in Japan, LeMay understood better than anyone the potential of strategic airpower and what was needed to not only ensure that units and equipment were mission-capable, but also what was needed to keep his precious crews alive.  During the air war over Germany, one of the decisive innovations was to use long-range fighters to provide escort for the slow, heavy bombers to their targets and back, fending off the vicious attacks of the Luftwaffe.  While the technology had changed drastically with the dawn of the jet age, the basic concepts of strategic bombardment had not.  Increasing numbers of ever more swift jet interceptors were being fielded and it would only be a matter of time before the Soviet Union developed effective interceptors of their own.

General LeMay wanted a fighter force under his sole and direct operational control, with no other mission but to provide escort and support for his forward-deployed B-29 and B-50 bombers, as well as for the gargantuan Convair B-36 and the swift, high-flying B-47.  In October 1948, he summoned the one fighter pilot on his staff, Lieutenant Colonel William "Dinghy" Dunham, to draft a letter detailing the specifications for a new, purpose-built fighter.  As time passed and nuclear weapons technology proceeded at a breakneck pace, new miniaturized weapons suitable for fighter carriage became feasible.  Afforded the capability of striking air defense and other targets in support of following bombers, the new nuclear-capable fighters enabled the "strategic fighter" concept to be born.  Dunham's proposal led to the selection of a developed version of the canceled McDonnell XF-88A Voodoo.  As the design evolved, it would become the ultimate expression of the strategic fighter concept as the F-101A.

Photo: Mock-up of the McDonnell Model 36W, the F-88K, soon to be recast as the F-101A.

Photo credit: Gerald Balzer Collection, Greater St. Louis Air & Space Museum

While Tactical Air Command was developing its own nuclear delivery capability, it used relatively small, low-yield weapons such as the 20-kiloton MK 7 and 15-kiloton MK 8.  The interim F-84G and F-84F fighters assigned to strategic fighter wings used the same weapons, since they were all that were available and nothing larger could be carried.  SAC wanted the ultimate expression of its strategic fighter to have commensurate firepower.  The smallest and lightest strategic-level weapon available was the new MK 5 weapon, intended for relatively short-ranged B-50 and B-47 medium bombers.  With six selectable yields ranging from 20 kT to 120 kT, the MK 5 was just small enough that it could, conceivably, be carried by a large fighter airplane.  In 1953, while the new F-101A was well into design development, the concept of modifying the F-101A to carry the 44-inch diameter W-5 warhead in a streamlined casing was explored.  The concept was deemed feasible and the F-101A was modified to accommodate the large, 33 foot long, 10,000 pound store on a centerline hook. By June 1954, the lightweight TX-15 Zombie hydrogen weapon and another weapon that remains classified were also being considered for the new Model 96 store, to be manufactured by McDonnell.  In any event, it promised the Voodoo far greater firepower than any fighter aircraft before or since.  Ranging out nearly 1,000 miles from base, air-refuelable, and with a top speed of over 1,000 miles-per-hour, the reincarnated version of the Voodoo would form SAC's irresistible sledgehammer to breach the defenses on the approaches to Moscow and other targets within the heart of the Soviet Union.

Photo: Concept drawing of the F-101A/XW-5 weapon system, April 1953.

Photo credit: US Department of Energy

Drop testing of the Model 96 pod began in 1954 from a B-47 test aircraft.  By the late Spring of 1955, testing was ready to begin on preproduction F-101A aircraft.  The history of flight testing of the weapon remains classified, but much can be gleaned about it.  During 1955, the F-101A was plagued with compressor stalls under any form of accelerated flight condition, as the year wore on and both engines and airframe were tweaked to problem gradually improved.  However, an insidious and far more dangerous problem lay ahead as the stall-free maneuvering envelope of the airplane was expanded--the infamous "pitch-up" of the Voodoo, which led to its first fatality in December 1955 with the loss of Captain John Dolan near Edwards AFB, California.  Already "squirrelly" at combat altitude and heavy fuel load, any handling deficiencies could only have been exacerbated by the presence of a large, heavy centerline pod.  The side area of the pod nearly doubled the area that the vertical tail had to hold stable, its cross-sectional area made a poor Area Rule distribution even worse, and the increased angle-of-attack needed to produce lift to counteract the weight of the Model 96 shape, ranging between 10,000 pounds with a full 849-gallon load of fuel and 4,000-pound empty drop weight would have brought the F-101A even closer to the razor's edge of the pitch-up boundary under cruise and even the most benign maneuvering conditions.

Photo: Special weapons test aircraft JF-101A 52-2427 after takeoff during a later test flight with the Model 96 store.  The large size of the pod with respect to the small wings and control surfaces of the Voodoo is particularly noteworthy.

Photo credit: Gerald Balzer Collection, Greater St. Louis Air & Space Museum

As an integral part of the WS-105A weapon system, McDonnell made valiant efforts to salvage the pod concept.  McDonnell had envisioned a modular concept in which different capabilities could be added to the basic F-101A by interchangeable pods with different mission equipment.  A developed version of the pod, the McDonnell Model 102, could carry various types of buddy-refueling equipment and in the Model 102H and Model 102J electronic countermeasures equipment.  The jammers specified for the Model 102H, the AN/ALT-6, AN/ALT-7, and AN/ALT-8 along with an AN/ALE-1 chaff dispenser, comprised the new SAC-standard ECM systems being retrofitted at that time to the B-47 and B-52 fleets.  The last gasp for the pod concept came in March 1956 with the Model 117A store, intended for carriage by both F-101A fighters and RF-101A reconnaissance aircraft.  Carrying similar equipment to the Model 102H, its development was discontinued along with all of the other pod concepts that same month.  Integration of the basic Model 96 store with the lightweight, 2 MT yield W-27 was also halted.

By early 1956, it had become clear that the F-101A would be unsuitable for the strategic fighter mission envisioned for it.  Indeed, with the deployment of the fast, very high-flying B-52 and the switch from high altitude penetration to low-altitude missions for the workhorse B-47, the entire strategic fighter concept was rendered obsolete.  State-of-the-art just a few years prior, the W-5 warhead was on its way to becoming a museum piece.  New weapons on the horizon such as the small TX-28 hydrogen bomb promised greater yield with much lower drag and better range performance than the massive Model 96 pod.  Originally intended to equip at least three fighter wings for SAC, the F-101A and improved F-101C were deployed with only a single combat wing, the 27th Strategic Fighter Wing at Bergstrom AFB, Texas beginning in May 1957.  SAC operated the Voodoo for only two months as plans were already in motion to transfer it to a less than enthusiastic Tactical Air Command and get out of the fighter business altogether.  Plagued with troubles and with its future far from certain at that point, the Voodoo would go on to make history and become one of the key assets of American national policy during the most critical years of the Cold War.

Photo: The second special weapons test aircraft, 53-2428, carrying a T-63 "shape" for the interim MK 7 weapon.  Standard for the tactical nuclear strike role in the late 1950s, the Voodoo would go on to carry the MK 28 weapon as its mainstay over most of its active USAF service.  The powerful megaton-range MK 43 "laydown" weapon would also later be carried, but was primarily issued to the RF-101C Voodoos of the 38th TRS, which had assumed a secondary nuclear strike role in the aftermath of the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

Photo Credit: Gerald Balzer Collection, St. Louis Air & Space Museum