Three hours, 7 minutes and 43.63 seconds: that was 1st Lt. Gustav Klatt’s time from Los Angeles to New York in an RF-101C Voodoo on Nov. 27, 1957. It was one of three transcontinental speed records set that day by Air Force reconnaissance pilots in Operation Sun Run. KC-135 tankers refueled the jets along the way.
The pilots came from the 17th and 18th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadrons of the 363rd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. They flew Los Angeles to New York, New York to Los Angeles, and a round trip, all in the new RF-101C, an improved version of the RF-101A.
Shaw’s own history of Operation Sun Run, by Airman 1st Class Kelsey Tucker of 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs, records the outcome: “In the end, three new records were set.” The first, it says, “was by Klatt, who established the new speed record” for Los Angeles to New York “as 3 hours, 7 minutes, 43.63 seconds.”
Six pilots, four record runs
Six pilots were selected, per the Shaw article: Capt. Robert Sweet, Capt. Robert Kilpatrick and Capt. Donald Hawkins of the 17th, and Capt. Ray Schrecengost, Capt. Robert Burkhart and 1st Lt. Gustav Klatt of the 18th. Four flew the record attempts, “with Burkhart and Hawkins acting as backup in case of emergency.”
The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force’s Operation Sun Run fact sheet gives the plan: six RF-101Cs, two flying the round trip, two flying one way from Los Angeles to New York, and two as backups. Because assignments were not set until a few days before the flight, all six pilots trained for the round trip, the museum says.
The flights began in Southern California. “At 6:59 a.m., Nov. 27, 1957, Capt. Ray Schrecengost took off from Ontario International Airport near Los Angeles,” on the first round-trip flight, the museum’s fact sheet says. Capt. Robert Sweet followed at 7:50 a.m. on the second. Kilpatrick and Klatt flew the one-way legs. The two backups trailed the formation until the first refueling, then landed at March Air Force Base, California, per the museum.
Preparation was practical. The jets were “painted brightly for easy identification by official timers,” the Shaw article says, in-flight refueling tests were run, and in early November the pilots flew their jets to George Air Force Base, California, “to begin practicing.”
The KC-135 in the middle
The records depended on the Air Force’s newest tanker. The Shaw article calls the KC-135 Stratotanker “the Air Force’s first aerial refueler,” and the museum calls it “the USAF’s first jet tanker.” Per Shaw, it was the tanker “which could refuel at an altitude of 35,000 feet and speed of Mach 0.8.” That Mach 0.8 figure is the tanker’s refueling speed, not the Voodoo’s top speed. It mattered because the jet tanker could keep pace with the RF-101C during the hookup.
The museum says 26 refuelings were required, flown by tanker crews from Strategic Air Command and what the museum calls Air Force Research and Development Command. Shaw’s article is direct about their role: without the KC-135s and their crews, “it would have been impossible for the Sun Run pilots to complete their journeys.”
Christopher Koonce, the historian quoted in the Shaw article, described Sun Run as an early demonstration of “the first supersonic photo reconnaissance aircraft refueling from the first jet tanker.” He called the operation “an early display of the three effects of airpower: global vigilance, global reach and global power.”
The three times on the record
Both the Shaw article and the museum fact sheet credit the same pilots with the same times:
- Los Angeles to New York: 1st Lt. Gustav Klatt, 3 hours, 7 minutes, 43.63 seconds.
- New York to Los Angeles: Capt. Robert Sweet, 3 hours, 36 minutes, 32.33 seconds.
- Round trip: Capt. Robert Sweet, 6 hours, 46 minutes, 36.21 seconds.
“Capt. Sweet set the round-trip record, at a time of 6 hours, 46 minutes and 36.21 seconds,” the museum’s fact sheet says, closing the account of a day when four Voodoo pilots from Shaw and a chain of KC-135 crews put three new transcontinental times into the books.
Top image: An RF-101C Voodoo (56-166) at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, in later camouflage. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.