Peter Stickney wrote:

It was a Way Cool Machine - bigger than an F-4, but able to outrun and
out-stay it on the same power. It had a supersonic ejection system
that worked pretty well. (Of the "Roll the Crewman Into a Knot, and
Hope the Seat Doesn't Hurt Him Too Bad" variety). It's only problem
was, to quote a family friend who didn't quite dodge all the SA-2s
fired at him one morning in 1967, that it "Jinked Mejestically."


There's speculation that its design was the inspiration for the Soviet
Union's MiG-25 "Foxbat"; and the two aircraft do resemble each other in
general layout and intake design... now that I found that three-engined
Vigilante interceptor variant design study, the idea seems more plausible.


Pat