Another Cutlass snags the net. In the final sequence, from July 14, 1955, an F7U-3 lands short; the only fatality was pilot LCDR Jay Alkire of the VF-124 Stingrays. Manufacturing of bitumen-lined ...

Feightner had just one question: What airplane would the team fly? “He said the F7U-1 Cutlass,” recalls Feightner, at the time a Navy test pilot with the most flight time in that very aircraft.