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The tiger & me.

Article Excerpt
In this month's edition of "HOT MIKE", we bring you the inside story of the Navy's Grumman F11F-1F world altitude record mentioned in the Corky Meyer story Tale of the Super Tiger which appeared in our February 2006 issue of WINGS. Submitted to us by noted aviation author Fred Blechman of West Hills, California, a former Navy pilot who flew Corsairs in World War II, this story was elicited from a special one-on-one interview Fred conducted with test pilot George Watkins several years ago.

George Clinton Watkins retired from the U.S. Navy as a Captain in 1973 after a 30-year career. By that time he'd established a number of records including becoming the first American pilot to make more than 1,000 arrested carrier landings in 1962 (he retired with a total of 1,418 arrested landings on 37 different aircraft carriers!), and attaining the world's turbojet high-altitude record of nearly 77,000 ft. in 1958. As a Navy experimental test pilot during three tours at Patuxent River, Maryland, he flight tested 75 different models of aircraft, and piloted more than 200 different types of airplanes.

Testing airplanes at 'Pax River' lasted for three years--the standard tour at Patuxent--and then in April 1956, Watkins came out to Edwards AFB California to evaluate the Grumman F11F-1F Super Tiger. Here now is the story of the Super Tiger's world altitude record in the words...