Angelo Romano's USN Electronic Aggressors Parts 1 and 2

Angelo sent me copies of his latest monographs a couple of months ago. They are so impressive and comprehensive that my words failed me when I sat down to review them. Fortunately, there have been more timely laudatory reviews on Amazon, Facebook, and other websites like Detail & Scale. For the latter, with a detailed synopsis of what is in the books, click HERE for Part One, and HERE for Part Two.

The short version is that Part One covers 1949 to 1977, beginning with the formation of the second Composite Squadron Thirty-Three for ASW duty and its subsequent designation and mission assignment changes up through 1970 when VAW-33 was assigned to the newly formed Fleet Electronic Warfare Support Group. It was now to provide a realistic electronic warfare environment during fleet exercises, functioning as an adversary.  The history continues up through 1977 with hundreds of pictures (most in color) of the airplane types used, first hand accounts, illustrations of ECM equipment, etc.

Part Two covers 1978 to 2000, continuing the history of VAQ-33 and the establishment of VAQ-34 in 1983 to accommodate the increasing demand for electronic warfare training. It's equal in size, coverage, and quality to Part One.

"Fight as you train, train as you fight" These squadrons are the equivalent of Topgun and its Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center successor in at-sea exercises to ready the crews of warships for combat and maintain their proficiency, including the realistic simulation of an anti-ship missile attack in a full-scale jamming environment. It's a little known but extremely important part of mission readiness.

While these books are available from Amazon and other sources, I recommend that you order them directly from Steve Ginter: Part One and Part Two.

F8U-3 vs F4H-1 Dogfights at Patuxent River?

Often when the subject of the Vought F8U-3 comes up on the internet, someone posts something like "Crusader 3 test pilots would often jump the Navy pilots flying the F4H out of Pax River and get the better of them. Then the Navy brass complained and that was the end of the mock dogfights".

That scenario doesn't seem very likely. It is true that NASA Langley in Virginia was bailed the two F8U-3 prototypes for sonic boom studies after the Vought program was canceled. One arrived on 26 May 1959 and the other a month later (the latter was primarily used for spares). Flight tests were accomplished through October 1959 (I don't know the date of the last flight) and both airplanes stricken a month later.

 Langley didn't even bother adding the NASA logo on the tail of its F8U-3s during the five months they were on flight status there.

It is also true that there were F4Hs at Pax River during that time, No. 6 from 27 July to 13 August 1959 for NPE II, initial carrier suitability evaluation, and No. 3 in October, also likely for a couple of weeks, for NPE III, autopilot and air-to-air refueling evaluation. And Pax River and NASA Langley are not all that far apart.

However, No. 6 probably didn't leave the NAS Patuxent traffic pattern much, if at all, except on the ferry flight from St. Louis and the one to return.

I don't know whether there was any overlap between No. 3's visit to Pax in October and NASA's F8U-3 flight status; it's likely that there was and possible that they did tangle at least once.

Note that this picture was probably taken at a later date since No. 3 has a boilerplate IFR probe configuration being evaluated for production.

However, NASA test pilot Donald Mallick flew some of the Langley F8U-3 flights as described in his autobiography (a pdf can be downloaded for free from this NASA website: www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/history/Publications/index.html).

I'm pretty sure that if there was such an encounter, he would have mentioned it.

In any event, given the relatively brief periods of overlap of the two types in the area and the intensive and controlled nature of the flight-test programs involved, it seems very unlikely that there was much opportunity for mock dogfighting. One of the two pilots would have had to have enough fuel after completing the test points on his flight card to go looking to bounce another fighter in his vicinity that turned out to be an F8U-3/F4H  that happened to be airborne at the same time.