file0321.wav

My older brother gave me a bunch of cassette tapes last year because he was moving. One was marked "F-101 STARTUP" and I was eager to hear it, knowing he had served in the American airforce in the late 1960's.

I was astonished to hear that it was a stereo recording. It was probably recorded via two Sony MTL F-96 Dynamic mics into a Panasonic "Compact Cassette" recorder.

There are all the low fidelity and dropout issues of cassette tape, but the stereo field is amazing. It sounds as though he simply pointed the mics in opposite directions.

You will hear some terrific white noise, which I assume is some sort of starter, and then the jet engines kick in. They warm up for about 5 minutes, and then they are cranked up a bit and the plane moves off.

The recording was probably made at K.I. Sawyer AFB in upstate Michigan. Due to the extreme cold there my brother describes the noise made by the jet engines as "sounding like cloth tearing".