F-100A #53-1678, crashed 10 Aug 1956, 30 miles north of Kingman

Summary: At 7:45am on 10 August 1956, Captain Aubrey Brown took off from Nellis AFB, Nevada, on an acrobatic flight in an F-100A Super Sabre.  The pilot made an uneventful climb to 35,000 and cruised at this altitude for approximately 20 minutes.  He then executed a few hard turns down to 20,000 feet.  Then with his throttle at full military power, he descended to 15,000 feet to pick up the necessary airspeed for a loop.  As he approached the top of the loop, he experienced a severe compressor stall.  The pilot pulled the aircraft over the top, and once the nose of the aircraft came down through the horizon, the stalls stopped and the engine operated normally.

The pilot then climbed back to 18,000 feet and prepared for another loop.  After picking up airspeed, the pilot applied 4.5 "G's" to perform this maneuver.  When passing through approximately 60 degrees past the vertical, the aircraft again experienced a compressor stall.  The throttle was left at full military power and the nose was pulled down to the horizon. The stalls kept dying away, but did not quit.  At this point, the pilot pulled back the throttle and checked the exhaust temperature that was approaching 1,000 degrees.  The throttle was then brought back to idle and the exhast temperature dropped slowly to 600 degrees.  During this period the compressor stalls were still occurring, even though the RPM's dropped to 55 percent.  The pilot set up a glide at 220 knots and switched on the emergency fuel regulator.  The throttle was advanced, and again the exhaust temperature went up to 1,000 degrees.  The pilot then switched back to the normal system fuel regulator and the exhaust temperature dropped to below 600 degrees.  The throttle was advanced once again, causing the temperature to soar up, so it was pulled back and the RPM's dropped down to 50 percent.   The pilot then headed for Red Lake and advised the tower at Nellis he was going to bail out.  He turned the aircraft to an easterly heading and the successful ejection was made at 9,500 feet, where he landed near Red Lake.   The plane continued descending and crashed on a high mountain peak in the Music Mountains, spreading wreckage over a quarter mile while it cartwheeled .    

Visiting the site after an incredibly grueling hike, one can see where the plane hit.  The horizontal stabilizers are still in the same spot where the plane hit the ground, overlooking a valley, as in silent tribute to the great aircraft.  Walking in the direction of the debris trail, there are hundreds of parts that were thrown as the plane cartwheeled.  All the major parts are still there, including the wings and landing gear where they have remained untouched for almost a half century.