Group Captain Nigel Walpole looks back at the RF-101 Voodoo’s time at Upper Heyford.
I first met the ‘Voodoo Warriors’ of the USAF’s 66th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing (TRW) at Spangdahlem Air Base, West Germany, when competing against them with my RAF Supermarine Swift FR.5, in the 1958 NATO tactical reconnaissance competition, Royal Flush. A year later I was flying McDonnell RF-101 Voodoo as an exchange officer on a training squadron at Shaw AFB, South Carolina and met aircrew destined for the unit. These were the men who would have to face combat in the extremely hostile skies over Vietnam.