Erv,

Thanks.  Didn't know it was finally broken beyond repair.  More to the story.

I'm USAFA '68.  Don't know anything about the 'Hun” or "cadets hating the F-106" . . . "it was just there" (i.e. handy), along with the X-5. 

A few dozen cadets could lift the -106 and literally run with it.  Great sport for Doolies!  I remember one occasion when a Marine captain Air Officer Commanding overestimated his authority as he stood on our path at parade rest (marines always stand that way) with his swagger stick extended, shouting, "You Cadets!  Halt!"  Mistake--there was NO way we could have stopped if we wanted to once we were running with a Delta Dart on our shoulders!  He was a slightly rumpled Marine when he picked himself up.  And, yes, the aircraft was appropriately painted for various "spirit events”, but never because we disliked it . . . it was just there.

Switching to the little X-5, the Commandant's team got tired of our moving it and had it placed in one of the courtyards at Arnold Hall, the Cadet Social Center.  No way to get it out, right?  Wouldn't fit through arches, right.  WRONG-O!  Never underestimate cadets when confronted with a challenge, especially on involving slide rules.  One morning, the X-5 appeared on the terrazzo, much to the chagrin and dismay of the Comm Staff.  It seems that if you knew exactly how to tilt and move it, there was ONE way you could have moved it out.  Try as they could, the Comm Staff couldn't figure how to get it back through the puzzle opening, and I remember our class being charged several thousand dollars for the cost of having a crane lift it back into the courtyard.

Bottom line, I am sure 58-0761 was not destroyed by malice--and, by then, the cadets probably didn't even know it had allegedly replaced an F-100, etc.  I would say miscalculation (did you ever try to carry an F-106 down a 25-degree ramp late at night or consider the force vectors that I know you won't find in the Dash-1) was the cause of it's demise . . . and at least one former cadet will sorely miss its presence.

Greg Varhall, Lt Col, USAF (Ret)

MAIR; USAFA '68