Letter from Mike Laurence (pseud) to Lydia Fish, 7 January 1994

The Thud

History or airplane buffs may remember some airplane names. You may remember how they inspire confidence and reflect the finer qualities of the machine: Flying Fortress, Corsair, Mustang, Lightning, Spitfire, Sabre, Phantom. Our airplane, though, was called the Thud.

Actually, the Air Force officially designated the F-105 as the Thunderchief, but few people ever seem to remember that. The world's largest single-engine fighter, it weighs more than 53,000 pounds when carrying full fuel and up to 16,000 pounds of external stores. Its bomb load can be twice that of a World War II heavy bomber, and, at altitude, its top speed is more than 1500 miles an hour. Down on the deck, nothing built before it and only a couple of airplanes built since can fly with it as it screams along 50 feet above the ground at speeds faster than sound. It has a six-barrel cannon which rotates like a Civil War Gatling gun but fires 20 mm projectiles at 100 rounds per second.

Originally designed for toss delivery of nuclear weapons, the F-105 seemed destined for oblivion and replacement by newer, faster, more maneuverable aircraft. Bob McNamara's boys put the kiss of death on the F-105: their slide rules and computers had determined that "the F-105 has only single mission capability, fails to meet criteria for integrative enhancement of flexible force structure, and is non-cost-effective." Then came Vietnam.

Compared to the some other fighter aircraft in the inventory, the F-105 was nowhere. It wasn't new like the Phantom, fast like the F-106, or sexy like the F-104. It was a big, heavy, supersonic flatiron about 65 feet long with stubby, little wings that measured less than 35 feet tip-to-tip. (By way of comparison, the DC-9 airliner is 100 feet long and has a 93 foot wingspan.) You don't need a degree in aeronautics to figure it out. Lose power in an F-105 and it will fall out of the sky like a rock. Hang a full load of ordnance under its wings and it won't climb very high. Point its nose at the ground, and it will dive like a lawn dart.

Now, the Republic Aviation Corporation started building fighter airplanes since before Lindbergh made his celebrated trip to Paris, and some people claim that its founder, the wild, one-legged ace of the Tsarist air force, Alexander P. de Seversky, singlehandedly invented the modern fighter 15 years before World War II. His P-47 Thunderbolt was one of the best fighters of World War II, and Republic's F-84 Thunderjet first flew in 1946 and soldiered on in some Third World air forces nearly forty years later. Republic's airplanes have all been fast, tough, and heavy, but a lot of people concluded that the F-105 was a case of too much inbreeding. While all of Republic airplanes were noted for their propensity to use up concrete, at max gross, the F-105 had a takeoff roll only several yards shorter than Lindbergh's historic flight. Those of us who have flown the Thud have speculated that, if the Air Force paved the equator, Republic Aviation could build an airplane that would use every inch of it to struggle into the air.

When the F-105 entered the inventory, the wits and half-wits at officers' club bars around the world started to hang derisive nicknames on it. Its size and weight made the job easy. Lead Sled was an early appellation, and even 105 drivers had to admit that the name aptly described the airplane without full power.

The WWII P-47 had been nicknamed the Hog, and the follow-on F-84 had become the Super Hog. It was quite natural then that the F-105 would get tagged with Ultra Hog. Transition problems resulting in "controlled flight into terrain" gave rise to the name Lieutenant-eater, but that didn't stick. No one really knows what direction the nickname might have taken but for television, Buffalo Bob Smith, and the Howdy Doody show. Howdy Doody, it was alleged, was the illegitimate son of a Strategic Air Command bomber pilot, and Howdy, assisted by Mickey Mouse, was now writing standardization manuals at HQ, USAF. Buffalo Bob Smith, many others contended, was the role model for any number of Air Force Generals, while Clarabelle the Clown trained USAF stan/eval officers. On the television show, intermittently making mischief with the villainous Mr. Bluster, was a bumbling, drooling, semi-evil Indian named Chief Thunderthud. It had a nice ring to it. Thunder THUD. Thud, as in the noise made by a large heavy object hitting the ground. So, the F-105 became the Thunderthud, and finally, in life and legend, just The Thud.

Perversely, F-105 pilots liked the nickname. Thud drivers took fierce pride in their airplanes and in themselves. They scorned the aircrews of the newer, more maneuverable Phantoms as multi-engine pilots. "Our mission is to fly and fight -- and don't you ever forget it" the motto went. Thud drivers, Hell's Angels, and Mafiosi all exhibited similar patterns of intra-group and external relations, and the Air Force brass soon became resigned to (but not entirely pleased or happy about) the antics of Thud drivers in the air and on the ground. Following a familiarization visit to the the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing, an assistant to the Secretary of Defense wrote: "While these men might of some significant value in the event of all-out conflict, I fear that they might not be susceptible to normal management techniques in any other situation."

This report, when learned of later, was sometimes read aloud at a 355th TFW function known as a "pressure bar" at which all drinks were free until the first man went into the head to urinate. After the climatic sentence was read, the 355th pilots would stand on their chairs, the bar, or tables, yell "Fuck him; Fuck his boss; Fuck his hoss; Fuck the 13th Air Force; It's just a fucking revision of the Second Fucking Air Division," and throw whatever classes and bottles were handy onto the floor. There generally followed numerous choruses of "We'll Fly Our Fucking Thuds at 10,000 Fucking Feet," "Throw a Nickle on the Grass and Save a Fighter Pilot's Ass,""Cruising over Hanoi," "Our Leaders" and other songs. (The 13th Air Force and the 2nd Air Division were intermediate headquarters units and universally reviled by pilots.)

Of course, we had to show our contempt for authority as well:

Our Leaders (Music: Manana)

At Phillips Range in Kansas, the jocks all had the knack,
But now that we're in combat, we've got Colonels on our back,
Every time we say "SHIT-HOT" or whistle in the bar,
We have to answer to someone looking for a star.