HomeMy WebLinkAboutBob Pardo Radio Transcription #2City of College Station
Heritage Programs Oral History
Interviewee: Bob Pardo
Interviewer: Tom Turbiville
Place: College Station, Texas
Project: Veterans of the Valley
Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt
00:00: Tom Turbiville (TT): Yesterday you met Bob Pardo of College Station, F-4 pilot in Vietnam. March 10, 1967. Mission accomplished in taking out a north Vietnamese steel mill. But
with a buddy Earl (Amon?) in trouble in his F-4. (Amon’s?) Phantom had been hit twice during the attack and had only about 10 minutes of fuel left. Longer than it took to get out of
enemy territory. Hi I’m Tom Turbiville. This is Bravo Brazos Valley brought to you by Meis Associates. Bob Pardo takes it from there.
00:33: Bob Pardo (BP): Earl was having trouble keeping up with the formation and so I started to lag behind and stay with him. Just in case the MiGs came after us for a revenge kill
on the way out. I still had missiles on board and, significantly more fuel than he had. We simply flew, southwest until we crossed the Red River and so it, Earl felt that it was safe
to climb. He wanted to climb as high as possible so that when he flamed out, he could glide as far as he could.
TT: But it was time for an idea. And quick.
01:03: BP: He’s simply gonna run out of gas. And, and, I thought, “There’s got to be something we can do to get him to the jungle. And out of the, the flatlands here.”
TT: Yeah Earl (Amon?) wasn’t gonna make it, without a push. It had never been done before.
01:18: BP: And it occurred to me that perhaps if he would jettison the drag chute, which is right on the tail end of the airplane. That I could put the nose of my airplane into the drag
chute compartment, and push.
TT: Well that didn’t work.
01:30: BP: The, the turbulence coming off of his airplane was so great, that when we got within about three feet of him, it was just throwin’ us all over sky. So we had to abandon that.
TT: So come up with a second idea.
01:41: BP: Tried to put the top of our (shift lodge?) up against the belly of his airplane. And as we got within about a foot of his air, airplane, we could feel a, a vacuum or suction
pulling our airplane up against his. And we were gonna have to eject so we didn’t wanna damage the, the canopies and possibly not be able to eject.
TT: Now F-4s were originally made for the Navy. And thus were equipped with tail hooks.
02:07: BP: Well I’m looking at the tail hook and I thought, “Well it’s about 6 feet long. And it sticks down about a 45 degree angle below the airplane. Gets us, down below it pretty
good.” And I told Earl to drop the tail hook. This all happened about the same time. He’s, he’s running out of gas very fast. And there’s only about 200 pounds left. And I said, “Just
go ahead and shut it down. Get rid of the jet wash.” And then we were able to move in, put his tail hook in the middle of our windshield. Once he flamed out, the rate of descent, for
the Phantom is about 3,000 feet a minute. So from 36,000 feet, we just had over 10 minutes and we were gonna be in the, in the jungle. And we eased up very slowly, very gently put it
in the middle of the windshield. Started adding power. And the vertical speed reduced to about 1500 feet a minute. That essentially told us that we were gonna double his glide distance.
TT: But this was no easy invention at all.
03:01: BP: Now the hook swivels from side to side. And there was no way we could fly perfectly straight. So the hook would slide off the windshield.
TT: Seemed to be going okay until.
03:11: BP: Our left engine caught on fire. So we had to shut the left engine down. We went back in, tried it again. But now with, with one engine we were only able to, to hold the vertical
speed at about 2,000 feet a minute. One engine out, the airplane has a tendency to fly sideways. Ordinarily you do-, you never restart an engine that’s been on fire. But in this case,
I thought the airplanes are gonna go in the jungle anyway. So I restarted the engine. And it lasted for about two minutes. Caught fire again. And I said well, we’re, we gotta shut it
down and leave it shut it down, otherwise we may blow this thing up.
TT: Finally came the moment that they all knew that Pardo’s Push had worked.
03:48: BP: So we continued the remainder of the push. Another eight or ten minutes, on one engine. When we got down to about 6,000 feet above ground. That’s as low as I wanted to go
because people start shooting at you with rifles and pistols and throwin’ rocks at you so. We backed out from under him. And he did have a, one radio working and we told him to go ahead
and punch. And we saw both seats leave the airplane. Watched both parachutes open.
TT: To learn more about Pardo’s Push, go to any search engine and type Pardo’s Push. There is plenty to read, an incredible story. I’m Tom Turbiville, this is Bravo Brazos Valley.