The story is legendary and it begins with a legendary aircraft, the F-8 Crusader. The Crusader was first carrier based air craft to fly faster than 1000 miles per hour. In 1957 then future astronaut and Senator John Glenn used it to set a transcontinental speed record.
In Vietnam it earned a kill ratio of 6 to one and in 1962 camera equipped unarmed crusaders retrieved photographic evidence flying over Cuba during the Cuban missile crises.
The Jets abilities were in many ways remained unrivalled but our story begins with one instance where they fell short. At 6:00 p.m. on a summer night in 1959 lieutenant Colonel Rankin a pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps and a World Ward ll & Korean War veteran’s F-8, suffered an engine failure while flying at 47,000 feet at 500 Knots. He pulled the lever to deploy auxiliary power, and it broke off in his hand.
The failure was followed by a fire warning then a system failure. Rankin was about to have a very bad day. He though not wearing a pressure suit, ejected into the thin air 9 miles above the earth instantly decompression caused his body to swell weaker blood vessels ruptured and blood poured from his nose. He did however manage to make use of his emergency oxygen supply.
The 500 knot slip stream ripped into him at 50% below zero but this was just the beginning. Rankin was free falling into a thunder storm. Barometric differentials in the storm tripped Rankins pressure switch and his parachute deployed. Already soaked and blinded by rain frost bitten and bloodied Rankin was now beaten and spun in his harness violent dragged by his canopy in all directions by the extreme turbulence of the storm.
He was hit with hale and in his own words, “boy do I remember that lightning”. It appeared to him like Blue blades several feet thick, his body was pounded by the thunder. One lightning bolt lit up the parachute, making Rankin believe he had died. The air was so saturated with water he sometimes held his breath for fear he could drown.
Frozen disoriented and spinning in the muck the seasoned fighter pilot got air sick and vomited. The violence threw him into his own parachute’s canopy at any time the storm could have tangled him in the chutes lines or wrapped him in the canopy spitting him out to his death.
But fate had other plans William Rankin eventually dropped out of the storm under canopy He would end his flight slammed against a tree trunk, 65 miles from his point of ejection. Wet bleeding frost bitten covered in burses and welts nearly drowned and suffering from severe decompression.
Rankin got himself down from the tree and began to take inventory he noted the time, it was 6:40 p.m. 40 minutes since he’d ejected. Rankin recovered from his trip; he lived another 50 years and passed away on July 6, 2009.
Those who know the story remember him by the title of his book. William Rankin was
The Man Who Rode the Thunder
