[WhiteMountain65]

It is often said that Israeli aircraft use Chutzpa (Gall, nerve, balls, supreme self confidence) to remain airborne, rather than high octane av-gas. I share with you a case in point.

In the summer of 1958, Lt.-Col. Uri Yarom was testing out an S-58 Sikorsky helicopter (for those of us blessed with enough decades to remember, the same class of helicopter, named Screaming Mimi, used in the short-lived 80's TV show Riptide). Father of the first Israeli helicopter squadron, Yarom took the new aircraft over the Mediterranean sea for a test flight.


Lt.-Col. Yarom put the big whirlybird through its paces, but the weather started taking a turn for the worse and a high westbound wind came up with little warning which made heading back east to land a problem. One thing led to another and Yarom soon found himself running out of fuel. Not wanting to lose the new helicopter with a sea landing, he scanned the horizons for someplace to set down. Suddenly he saw it, the flight deck of the USS Wasp CVS-18.


Down below was the huge American aircraft carrier, known among its crew as the "Mighty Stinger." President Dwight D. Eisenhower had dispatched the World War II-era vessel to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean as Marines landed in Beirut to prop up that country's independence during a civil war.


But all this didn't matter to Yarom. He needed a place to land, quickly. And with pure, if dwindling, Israeli Chutzpa he did so, setting down on the USS Wasp's flight deck. He jumped out as startled, angry and curious naval officers and crew surrounded him.


The captain demanded to know just what he was thinking landing on an American aircraft carrier?!


The Israeli looked around, feigning surprise and turned back. "Oh, I am sorry," Yarom told him. "I thought it was one of ours."

Apparently, he hadn't run completely out of Chutzpa.