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NOTEWORTHY HANDSHAKES are accorded "winningest" team after race. Left, Bendix Corporation's Bill Mara congratulates Lt. Gordon, holding Bendix Trophy miniature; right, Radar Intercept Officer Ltjg. Young receives official kudos from RAdm. F. A. Brandley.

SOME seven minutes later at 1409 LCdr. Scott Lamoreaux and his RIO, Lt. Tom Johnson, both of VF-101, Detachment Alfa, based at NAS OCEANA, Va., flashed by the tower at New York for another record time of two hours and 57 minutes. The transcontinental record had been broken again and seven minutes later Lt. Dick Gordon and Ltjg. B. R. Young flew by the tower at over 400 knots to establish the current unofficial record and personally capture the prized Bendix Trophy. Gordon's time of two hours, 47 minutes, 17 and 3/4 seconds, over a course of 2445.9 miles——an average speed of 869.739 mph—— was filed immediately with the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) by Bert Rhine, National Aeronautic Association contest board chairman.

The fourth entrant in the race, LCdr. Paul E. Spencer with his RIO, Lt. Jim Wagner both from VF-74, encountered refueling difficulties and arrived in New York at 1530 for an elapsed time three hours and 47 minutes. 

In compacting the events which preceded the epic bid for the Bendix Trophy, the verbal package reveals that a lot of people lost a lot of sleep over a two-week period.

CNO approval of the project and its entrants was granted on 9 May with Cdr. Julian S. Lake, C.O. of Vf-74, in charge. The speed run code name, LANA, was inspired by Naval Air's current Golden observance: "L" the Roman numeral equivalent of 50 and "ANA" representing the initials of "Anniversary of Naval Aviation."

Three F4H teams were entered from LantFlt, two from PacFlt. These were:

LANA One, VF-74: Cdr. Julian S. Lake and Ltjg. E. A. Cowart

LANA Two, VF-101 Det. A.: LCdr. L. Scott Lamoreaux and Lt. T. J. Johnson

LANA Three, VF-121: Lt. R. F. Gordon and Ltjg. B. R. Young

LANA Four, VF-74: LCdr. Paul E. Spencer and Lt. J. W. Wagner (alternate team)

LANA Five, VF-121: LCdr. K. W. Stecker and WO-2 J. H. Glace (alternate team).

NAMING the Phantom II as the project vehicle was an obvious one. Already the holder of three world class records in speed and altitude achievements, the McDonnell carrier-based, twin-jet, Navy fighter was considered "ready"in its routine squadron configuration. In the case of the VF-74 team, which had trained in the Phantom II but which had none assigned, a loan of two training F4H-1's was made by VF-101, Detachment A, based at NAS OCEANA.

Concurrent with the start of a short but intensive planning and training period, the paper side of LANA was tackled. Coordination and documentation of record attempts are prime considerations. Clearances and approvals were obtained from the Federal Aviation Agency and the National Aeronautics Association, U.S. representative of the FAI. Through the NAA, official timers were procured. 

Air Force GCI sites were contacted for in-flight following and all centers across the country were notified of the flight to take place during the week of 21 May 1961. On both coasts, LANA teams, with the assistance of Navy and company experts, staged dress rehearsals. In-flight refueling had not been done by the contestants, and Heavy Attack Squadron 9 of Sanford, Fla., assisted VF-74 and VF-101, Det. Alfa, in aerial refueling with its A3D's. VAH-4 from Whidbey Island conducted practice aerial plug-ins for VF-121.

Engineers from McDonnell Aircraft were consulted with regard to the profile to be flown. Advent of Mach 2.0 flight in the Phantom II created new problems which had to be solved in a speed run such as this. For example, the most critical problem was that of upper air temperature. At the 40,000-foot level, the temperatures had to be colder than —54º C. or the engines would not be performing at their peak level. The speed of 1.9 to 2.0 was necessary at 50,000 or above in order to make up time lost during the refueling periods which were planned at 33,000 at Mach .8. With the two J-79 GE-2 engines in the F4H, it was determined that a minimum of three refuelings had to be made, one north of Albuquerque, one north of St. Louis, and one over Fort Wayne, Ind. Each refueling had to be a full load of up to 20,000 pounds in order to make the next point on the profile.

Another possible problem was that of spotting the tanker at the right position and at the right time to preclude loss of precious minutes en route. Each refueling area had a minimum of four A3D tankers on station, two A4D tankers for marking in case of no contrails and for emergency gulps, one
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JULY 1961                                             7