SLICK CHICK: The Wild Story Of The USAF's First Top Secret Supersonic Spy Plane

Sometime in the early summer of 1956 an F-100A Super Sabre landed at a half-finished airfield near Trabzon, Turkey. This might seem like a totally normal occurrence, albeit in a slightly unusual location. And it would have been were it not for the fact that the rear end of this F-100 looked like it been attacked with a blow torch. The titanium fuselage was full of scorched holes.

How this Super Sabre’s pilot came to melt through the aft section of his plane’s fuselage is an interesting story. It involves an illegal intrusion into Soviet airspace and a three hour game of cat and mouse with a dozen interceptors from the Soviet Air Defence Forces. It is also a subject so secret at the time that very little has emerged about it to this day.

The Slick Chick was the first super secret supersonic spy plane built for the USAF to penetrate into the Soviet Union. It only flew for around a year and undertook a handful of missions but those missions remain so classified that the aircraft remains a mystery.

This one is a great story and one that I really enjoyed researching.

[jb]

As alluded to towards the end of this video, a total of six RF-100As were built. Three were sent to Europe, and three were sent to the Far East for similar USAF use and the last five were eventually transferred to the Nationalist Chinese Air Force.. What is not widely known, is that the Nationalist Chinese happily flew reconnaissance missions into communist China for the Americans, using Martin RB-57s and even Lockheed U-2s. There is a famous story involving a Nationalist Chinese Air Force U-2 pilot who was on a night training flight in the U.S. when the engine of his U-2 flamed out at altitude. Unable to get a restart, he glided to earth and made a truly miraculous night landing at a small airstrip without damaging the U-2. In another miracle, he was able to extricate himself from the U-2 and wandered his way towards the lights of a small airport shack. There, he started a small UFO scare when, wearing a full space suit and not speaking much english through his helmet, the occupants of the shack mistook him for a Martian.

[Robutube]

You are to be congratulated on producing such an informative and polished episode on a small but significant episode in the cold war. Your research and editing efforts shine out from the screen.

[badian]

I know of the "Slick Chicks" and this was the most comprehensive storytelling yet! One thing, the C-130 was shot down in 1958 and not 1968, other than that; great job!

[Chilly_Billy]

This channel has rapidly joined the top tier of YouTube aviation history sources. Well done.

[jfanreva]

Twenty years later, in Vietnam, I read that Air force pilots referred to the F-100 (used as a fast forward air controller) as the "slightly supersonic Saber". Dick Rutan told about his last mission, which was his back seater's final mission before going home. Tradition held that the back seater flew in the front seat on their last flight. On one pass, they got hammered by AAA, and were losing fuel at a tremendous rate. They probably would not have made it to the coast, but the back seater turned the plane straight for the coast, pulled the nose up to optimum angle of attack, and lit the afterburner. It was a race to see if the battle damage or the afterburner would empty the tanks first. The afterburner won. They just broke mach 1 as they reached the coast. They glided out over the gulf, ejected, and were rescued. Dick Rutan said that it was a never to be forgotten lesson in fuel management.

[hertzair]

This channel is on par with Rex’s hangar and Ed Nash’s Military for quality of content and presentation….and hit it out if the park with this fascinating story.

[georgemallory]

This was superb. Top notch investigative reporting. I love how you drew your own, logical conclusions and didn't pretend you knew more than that. I can tell you put a lot of work into this.

[marktuffield]

What a pity that one wasn't preserved for posterity.

[joshkamp]

This is like an early Atomic Age alt-fiction novel come to life. Superlative research, storytelling, and delivery, as always. Massive thanks once again, the quality of each and every video is simply top tier.

[stevewhisperer]

An excellent video!!

I've heard/read of many of the cold war era recon efforts, but I had absolutely no idea about Slick Chick.

Thank you so much for presenting this story!

[marcusott]

Much awaited, much appreciated excellent insights as always.

[jimdavis]

I was a crewchief on the F-100 from early 1962 to late 1966. I crewed mostly the 2 seater F-100F during that time, but never heard of the RF version. Amazing.

[johnmoore]

Thanks for uncovering an unknown chapter in USAF history. It is likely most of the people involved have passed by now. So, all that knowledge and experience went with them to the grave. It would be nice if those records were declassified for historians and the public.

[Shooting-Journey-Guy-Mike]

Well done! The work you put into this video and the research that went into it really shows in the final product.

[deadendfriends]

Yes ! More stories like this. Recce, spy insertion and rhubarb flights just fascinate me to no end, yet no one talks about them. Thank you for this one.

[christopherneufelt]

You hit the QualityLevel with this video. A great thanks.

[i-love-space]

During Ike's 2 terms the Air Force penetrated Soviet Airspace hundreds of times in many types of aircraft, including RB-47s, RB-36s, U-2s, RB-45s, and as you have shown, RF-100s.
When you consider we didn't even have accurate maps of Russian territory, and therefore we didn't even know where all of our targets were, (even though the Soviets had incredibly available public information about the location of pretty much every city in America), we were in a real pickle.
We had no satellites of any kind, so what is a POTUS to do? Ike decided the information was important enough for a credible deterrent that the risk was worth the benefit. Better to provoke the Soviets while they were still weak than wait until they had thousands of bombs, aircraft and missiles.
At the same time this was going on, he had crash programs for ICBMs, spy satellites, and high flying spy planes. What an "interesting" time to be living. People today have simply no idea. The Cold War "hysteria" seems crazy, but that is simply because most people didn't know the real situation or bother to think about it. People who knew what was going on, knew we needed to be concerned and take action to protect our country. (After the Cold War paused for a while, Soviet archives showed that much of the shit people thought was paranoid actually corresponded to real Soviet offensive programs and disinformation.)
I applaud my father's generation. They did what needed to be done, and I slept better at night, knowing that they were competently running the world. Today, our government is undermined by a bunch of selfish idiots trying to prevent government from working.

[paintnamer]

I liked the model kits of the F 100 that had multiple weapons options like Bullpups, Sidewinders, 2.75 rocket pods and bombs of all types.

[loganpe]

I truly enjoyed this episode and want to say _Thank You_ for all the effort it had to have taken!

[Freesavh]

At least 1 of them needs to be in a museum. Cause this shows great ingenuity in a time of need. Which America has always been pretty great at that. 🇺🇸