12-26-2020, 08:37 PM
I had never heard of Robert Thacker before today, but Hawaii was the site for several of his flyboy heroics. He still holds the world record for longest distance ever flown in a propeller powered fighter plane, taking off from Hickam Field. The flight lasted 14 1/2 hours, in a two seater aircraft. Quite the guy.
Robert Thacker, found himself caught in the middle of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor when he was piloting an unarmed B-17 bomber to Hawaii for refueling, but managed to make a hair-raising landing.
His plane was among a flight of newly built B-17s arriving from California en route to the Philippines. As he began his descent to the Army Air Corps’ Hickam Field, at first unaware of anything amiss, he was astonished to see bombers and fighters roaming the skies and black smoke rising from the American base and adjoining military installations. One of the fighters shot out the front landing gear of his Flying Fortress as he approached the runway. But he careened to a landing and led his crew to a swamp alongside the runway to escape the inferno.
In February 1947, about 18 months after Japan surrendered, he was back at Hickam Field, this time to make aviation history. Now a lieutenant colonel, he piloted a North American Aviation P-82 fighter plane on the first nonstop flight from Hawaii to New York City in what remains the longest nonstop flight, 5,051 miles, ever made by a propeller-driven fighter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/ro...-dead.html
Robert Thacker, found himself caught in the middle of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor when he was piloting an unarmed B-17 bomber to Hawaii for refueling, but managed to make a hair-raising landing.
His plane was among a flight of newly built B-17s arriving from California en route to the Philippines. As he began his descent to the Army Air Corps’ Hickam Field, at first unaware of anything amiss, he was astonished to see bombers and fighters roaming the skies and black smoke rising from the American base and adjoining military installations. One of the fighters shot out the front landing gear of his Flying Fortress as he approached the runway. But he careened to a landing and led his crew to a swamp alongside the runway to escape the inferno.
In February 1947, about 18 months after Japan surrendered, he was back at Hickam Field, this time to make aviation history. Now a lieutenant colonel, he piloted a North American Aviation P-82 fighter plane on the first nonstop flight from Hawaii to New York City in what remains the longest nonstop flight, 5,051 miles, ever made by a propeller-driven fighter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/us/ro...-dead.html