Scooter! Stuff

My latest book, Scooter!, has yet to get many reviews on line or in periodicals (actually only one so far, from an on-line friend) but what I really appreciate are the complimentary and congratulatory emails from individuals, particularly those who bring something more to the story.

For example, Larry Blumenthal provided the following, scanned from FDR's 1960 cruise book picture of tied-down A4D-2s with protective covers in place, including specially created GSE for the Tinkertoy:

 

T.J. (Jeff) Brown provided a summary assessment of the A-4 versus the A-7 for the book, but he had more to add:

There is one thing that I forgot to mention in my submission that you might include, should you ever do a reprint. The A-4F nose struts that included the nosewheel steering (NWS) feature did not hold up well under the punishment of repeated carrier landings and leaked hydraulic fluid profusely. When a strut failed, there was no indication to the pilot except his repeated pushes on the stick button were doing nothing, and this detraction with his head down in the cockpit sometimes caused late brake applications when exiting the arresting gear. This caused great concern to all who might be in charge of flight operations, namely the Air Boss and the Skipper, especially if foul-deck waveoffs resulted. The nosewheel steering was also not accurate enough to keep from sliding off the side of the "turtle back" on the catapult (that held the bridle) that the airplane had to go up and over, either, and this operation had to be done with a Blue Shirt on the deck with a nosewheel tiller bar. This was dangerous for the Blue Shirt if the a/c had an operative nosewheel steering, since if it were engaged with the tiller bar connected, it could cause anything from broken bones to his being tossed over the side. For these reasons, most A-4F squadrons (as we did in Air Wing 21) replaced the Foxtrot nose struts with Echo struts. Problem solved, and we operated as had A-4 units since time immemorial: take the trap at 100%; on the pullback, simultaneously pull the power to idle, retract the speedbrakes, raise the flaps and hit the left brake, causing the aircraft to cock to the right since it was being pulled aft by the arresting cable; then smartly taxi out of the gear, pleasing all hands.

In the Training Command, it would not have been practical to do this with the T-birds, since carrier landings were few and some of the students needed all the help they could get anyway. Instead, the LSOs just put the Fear of God into them NOT to touch the NWS while on the ship and the tiller bar was connected (hand signal: index finger placed alongside the nose, and clearly acknowledged by the pilot).

Us Old Salts endured the inconvenience of not having NWS on the beach, since it would be a major job for Maintenance to change the struts all out and back on a short turnaround, which we usually had. All this taken into account, the A-7 always had NWS, since there was no turtle-back on the nose-tow cat system, and the NWS was much more accurate and easy to steer onto the nose-tow box. This is my story and I'm stickin' to it! :-)

Jack Anderson provided more color as well from his experience:

Reading (Scooter!) brought back a lot of memories that had been dormant about flying the the first A4D-1's. We were so pleased with them after flying F7U-3s that we just enjoyed the simplicity, reliability and the performance of them. I had forgotten about the engine problems and the mandatory safety inspections. One of those occurred while we were at sea doing our first carquals.

In a clean configuration we could exceed Mach one in a 30-degree dive. It performed well up to 35,000 ft. As it passed through 40,000 ft it was getting very sensitive. I once nursed one to 49,500 ft but it took a lot of work and required a step climb from about 43,000 ft. One my squadron mates said he made it to 50,000 ft by doing the same technique. We could out dogfight anything at Cecil Field except the F8U-1. The roll rate was spectacular and the throttle response was very good. The aerodynamic slats could flip you upside down in a high-altitude dogfight especially above 40,000 ft if you pulled too hard in the turn. I don't remember too much trouble with fuel shift in the wings on the dash 1, probably because of our nuke delivery mission and the requirement for a lot of low level nav practice.

Walt Fink, another contributor to Scooter!, and a long-time acquaintance, had his memory jogged as well:

The photo of the EPI on page 63 brought back a couple memories. The little windows for fuel pressure and oil pressure were flip-flop things with two readings (when powered), NORM and OUT, or something like that. We discovered, after a couple of unnecessary aborts by some of our more senior aviators, that the oil pressure flip-flop would show OUT when in reality the oil pressure was high. Apparently the circuitry inside it just recognized the normal range and anything above or below it defaulted to OUT. Since the J-65 was built around an oil leak anyhow, that did result in a couple moments of panic and high pucker factor.

That little quirk caused the Navy to retrofit the airplanes with what we called a "nickel gauge" for direct oil pressure reading. So-called because it was the tiniest little gauge in the airplane, only about the size of a nickel.

Jim Rotramel, my go-to guy for external stores and F-111 stuff, took the time to go through the book and provide corrections and additions to the captions for pictures that I hadn't shown him before going to press:

Pg 130: Mk 81/Mk 14 Snake Eyes, not Mk 82s. The Scooter was so small that Mk 82s looked enormous on it. The key thing to look for was that you couldn't carry a fully loaded MER/TER of Mk 82s, while you could with Mk 81s.

Pg 137: Small photo is not an M117 (wrong shape/fin). Outboard appears to be Mk 82/Mk 15 SE, inboard is probably AN-M65 1,000-lb bomb. (Large photo is Mk 81/Mk 14 Snake Eyes again.)

Pg 140: Bottom photo is CBU-55 FAE, not Napalm.

Pg 141: Mk 81/Mk 14 Snake Eye

Pg 145: No "-" in M118 (or any other M series bomb, just M and the number with no space or dash).

Pg 150: the outboard pylons aren't loaded with CBU (no fins, no fuzes). They appear to be 19-tube rocket pods, probably LAU-61s, which were 10 in. longer than LAU-3s.

Pg 151: 221 has Mk 81/Mk 14Snake Eyes. 227 probably has an AGM-12E Standoff Cluster Missile loaded with BLU-62 and 63s.

Pg 169: Nearest A-4 carrying a TP Mk 82 and NTP Mk 83

Pg 175: Nice shot of a Mk 83 LGB.

Pablo Calcaterra sent me this picture of an Argentine pilot attacking HMS Glasgow on 12 May 1982. The picture was taken from the deck of HMS Brilliant and is indicative of the height of the A-4 on the run-in:

A better reproduction of Captain Carballo's and Lt Rinke's attack on Broadsword on 25 May and a painting by Carlos A. Garcia are provided here: http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/09/scooter.html

Douglas F6D Missileer

One of the Navy's ongoing concerns is defense of its ships from attacks by aircraft and/or missiles. The Chinese anti-ship missile threat is only the latest. In the 1950s, it was long-range, high-performance missiles launched from Soviet bombers. The first solution was the Sparrow air-to-air missile carried by fighters whose development had begun in the late 1940s. The F4H Phantom was the first Navy fighter specifically designed for the mission and was also armed with the Sparrow. However, the Navy continued to fret about a combination of faster bombers and longer range air-to-surface missiles that the Phantom/Sparrow approach was not capable of adequately addressing.

The solution from operational analyses was the Missileer concept. The Operational Requirement was issued on 11 July 1955. The "fighter" would simply be a subsonic platform that loitered out on a station on the threat axis,  lugging a huge, long-range radar and up to eight very long-range air-to-air  missiles. The missile's range requirement necessitated that it be provided with its own radar for terminal guidance. That and fuel required range that it was a very big missile indeed. It was to be called Eagle.

Work on the missile and engine design definition began first, because they would take much more time to develop and qualify than the airframe. The Bendix Corporation was selected as the prime contractor for the Eagle, including the airborne radar and missile control system, in December 1958. Grumman (airframe and flight test), Westinghouse (aircraft radar), Litton (tactical computer), Sanders (missile active pulse doppler seeker), and Aerojet (propulsion) were subcontractors.

 The missile with its booster was 16-feet long. Together, they weighed 1,288 lbs, including the missile's on-board radar and 110-lb warhead. The maximum range from launch to intercept was 100 nautical miles against a bomber flying at 60,000 feet and Mach 2.

The Pratt & Whitney TF30 engine was one of the first turbofan-type engines, desired for its benefit on endurance. It was based on an engine that Pratt was developing for airlines.

The invitation to bid on the aircraft wasn't requested until 11 December 1959. Bids were received at the end of February from Chance Vought, Douglas, Grumman, McDonnell, and North America. Douglas was selected. The decision was announced on 21 July 1960.

The Navy's press release was explicit about the F6D's role: "The EAGLE-MISSILEER weapon system employs the concept of building long range and high performance into the missile, rather than into the launching aircraft." The 50,000-lb takeoff-gross-weight airplane was to be capable of operating from Essex-class carriers and loiter on station for four hours at 35,000 feet.

The bulbous nose was necessary to accommodate the Westinghouse AN/APQ-81 radar dish, which was five feet in diameter. (Big as the radar was, the missile's maximum range could only be utilized with the Bendix home-on-jam option.) The two-man crew sat side-by-side, surrounded by avionics. The normal missile load was six, all carried under the wings. Two additional missiles could be carried under the fuselage, increasing the takeoff gross weight by 4,800 lbs.

Unfortunately, the incoming Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, decided that it would be cost effective to combine two nascent "fighter" programs, the Navy's carrier-based, subsonic, 35,000-ft loiter Missileer and the Air Force's land-based, supersonic, tree-top ingress, nuclear-strike TFX. Strictly speaking, neither was a fighter and what's worse, two more different tactical airplane requirements would be difficult to imagine. The F6D program was formally terminated in April 1961 (it had been on hold since December 1960 awaiting the Kennedy administration's DoD programs review); Hughes took over the development of the radar/missile program, which was appropriately renamed Phoenix.

The F-111 train wreck, particularly given the Navy's outrage at being subservient to Air Force program management and subsequent passive-aggressive cooperation, was inevitable. For more on the F-111B program history, buy my F-111B monograph HERE.

A Designation Story

9 June 2024: Adding some detail about the AD-5W

The Grumman WF-2 (E-1B) is an interesting example of the Navy designation system and a little known false start for an iconic Navy airplane, the "Stoof with a roof". For starters, what was the WF-1? And why is there no E-1A?

The basic designation was W for Airborne Early Warning (AEW) and F for Grumman. Up until then, W was a suffix, not a prime mission designation, as in TBM-3W. It indicated that an existing airplane type, the third modification (3) of the first Torpedo Bomber (TB) to be built by Eastern Aircraft (M), had been modified for the AEW mission (W) by substituting a large radar and its cover for the bomb bay. (The 3 actually reflected that it was the third modification of the TBF, since the airplane was originally designed, developed, and produced by Grumman as its first torpedo bomber, with Eastern Aircraft, a division of General Motors, taking over its production from Grumman.)

The TBF-3W was followed by a series of AD Skyraiders, like the AD-3W shown here, modified similarly to carry the APS-20 radar aloft.

As an aside, the similarly configured Grumman AF-2W was used for AntiSubmarine Warfare (ASW), not AEW, with the radar being used to detect a surfaced submarine or more likely, its snorkel. It was paired as a hunter with the AF-2S, the killer half of an ASW team, which was equipped and armed to localize and sink the submarine.

Grumman was in the process of replacing the AF-2W and AF-2S with the S2F, a twin-engine airplane that combined the mission equipment and armament of those two airplanes into one. The S for ASW was now a prefix as W would be for AEW.

The S2F's small radar that was housed in a retractable "dustbin" dome under the aft fuselage was optimized for surface surveillance, not AEW. Grumman therefore proposed a minimally modified S2F airframe for the AEW role, with the APS-20 radar and dome mounted above the cockpit rather than under the fuselage, which would have required a much longer landing gear and therefore required a folding vertical fin/rudder to meet the hangar-height limitation. The forward location of the radome meant that the existing S2F wing-fold system that overlapped the fuselage could be retained. The only change required to the airframe therefore was a slightly deeper fuselage with an aft cabin door and the addition of finlets to the horizontal stabilizer to compensate for the sail area forward that was added by the radar dome.

The Navy ordered two prototypes as the WF-1 in 1952 and assigned them BuNos 133043 and 133044. Grumman accomplished wind tunnel tests and a fuselage mockup before WF-1 development was terminated, probably due to budget priorities (the Korean War didn't end until an armistice went into effect in July 1953 and the Navy needed a swept-wing fighter as quickly as possible) and the availability of the AD-5W.

The AD-5 had first flown on 17 August 1951. An AEW version was ordered as a logical follow-on to the AD-4W and a placeholder for a new twin-engine airplane that was to result from the 1951 competition that resulted in the WF-1. It began to be assigned to squadrons in 1953. Douglas delivered 239 in all. The last two were retired in 1966 from VAW-33 as EA-1Es.

Vought also got an initial contract for WU-1 development and two Bureau Numbers were assigned, 133780/1, but it was cancelled as well. (Note the wing-fold arrangement used to accommodate a radar dome mounted over its mid fuselage.)

Eventually, however, the Navy felt the need to use a bigger, better radar for the AEW mission. The existence of and commonality with the TF-1 Carrier on Board Delivery (COD) variant of the S2F, which had been proposed at the same time as the WF-1, was no doubt one of the deciding factors in the decision to award the program to Grumman. Based on its similarity to the WF-1, the Navy elected to designate it the WF-2 rather than WF-2.

Incidentally, the COD version of the S2F was designated as T for Trainer rather that something like S2F-1R like the TBM-3R because the majority of the missions it was originally intended to be used for were training. See https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/05/carrier-onboard-delivery.html

The WF-2 had enough of a family resemblance to the S2F and TF that resulted in it being referred to as the "Stoof with a Roof". The radar was now mounted over the airplane's center of gravity like the Vought's WU-1, which required the substitution of an H-tail and a reversion to the sto-wing fold system that was a Grumman invention. The capacious TF-1 fuselage was lengthened ahead of the wing, probably for center of gravity considerations. Because of uncertainty about the aerodynamic implications of the huge radome, TF BuNo 136792 was modified, except for the fuselage extension and sto-wing, for initial flight test with the radome. (Note the feathered engine.)

In the following picture, the aerodynamic prototype is flying in formation with a production WF-2. Note the different location of the propeller strip versus the pilot's side window, which indicates where the forward fuselage was extended forward.

The sto-wing necessitated the use of a free-swiveling tail wheel because of the aft shift in the center of gravity when the wings were folded.

I can't confirm that the prototype was designated the XTF-1W as Wikipedia currently states. It doesn't seem likely and Larry Webster confirmed that its history card only states TF-1 and C-1A. A very early (but not dated) Grumman S2F brochure describes the AEW and the COD versions as the WF-1and TF-1 respectively. I've also read that the aerodynamic prototype was designated WF-1, with the production airplane therefore being the WF-2. That's definitely bogus.

However, for a short time the WU-1 was referred to, at least by Vought, as the S2U-1W...

After Grumman flight test of the aerodynamic prototype, the radome was removed, and it was assigned to NATC for equipment tests. Eventually a TF/C-1 interior  was installed and the aircraft utilized as a transport by NAS Quonset Point, RI.

According to Angelo Romano, there were three other topless Tracers that were used for pilot training since field carrier landings and real carrier landings, not to mention catapult launches, were hard on the electronics, not to mention that the radar and guys in back were unnecessary for that requirement.

When Navy aircraft designations were changed in 1962 to be consistent with the Air Force system, the WF-2 became the E-1B. Although it could have been argued that there was no need to reflect a universe in which the WF-1 had not been cancelled, the group in charge of redesignation chose to do so.

For a multi-part history of U.S. Navy AEW by a naval aviator, Steeljaw Scribe, who has forgotten more about the subject than I will ever know, see:
http://steeljawscribe.com/2010/10/06/project-cadillac-the-beginning-of-aew-in-the-us-navy
http://steeljawscribe.com/2010/10/09/project-cadillac-the-beginning-of-aew-in-the-us-navy-part-ii
http://steeljawscribe.com/2010/10/17/project-cadillac-the-beginning-of-aew-in-the-us-navy-part-iii

Attack on the Broadsword

Captain Carballo and noted Argentinian artist and illustrator Carlos A. Garcia provided more material and Carballo's copilot's name for my post on the one disappointing reproduction in Scooter!. For the update, go to http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/09/scooter.html

Halcyon Days - 1950

National Archives 80-G-419777

Patuxent River Naval Air Test Center (NATC), September 1950 Static Display

Clockwise from the facing airplane on the left-hand side of the ramp:

McDonnell F2H-2N Banshee (note the elongated nose)

Grumman F9F-2 Panther being flown by Electronic Test

North American AJ-1 Savage

Pratt & Whitney-operated, civil-registered JB-17G (Ron Lewis: See http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=2455) with an XT34 turboprop engine in the nose (the T34 was a Navy program but no production resulted for Navy airplanes)

Martin P4M Mercator (Almost certainly BuNo 122208; per Ron Lewis, see http://www.vpnavy.com/vp21_aircraft.html for other pictures of this airplane)

Douglas XF3D-1 Skyknight*

McDonnell F2H-2 Banshee

Vought F7U-1 Cutlass

Grumman F9F-2 BuNo 122563 with photo registration marks

Vought F4U-5P Corsair

Does anyone have any other information about these specific airplanes (particularly the Panther with the X on the fuselage) or the event?

* I had identified the Skyknight as an XF3D because of the small tail bumper (the production airplanes had a bigger one that incorporated a small wheel). Sharp-eyed viewer Ron Lewis noted that and also that part of the BuNo was visible, a 4 and a vertical line that could be part of a 1. Digging further, I'm all but certain that this is XF3D-1 BuNo 121457 that had just arrived at Pax for evaluation of control system modifications accomplished by Douglas.

Picture from Roger Besecker

Self Boarding for the Douglas Skyhawk

Up until the early 1950s, self-boarding was a requirement for U.S. Navy carrier aircraft. Boarding ladders were unwelcome on a windy, crowded carrier deck. (Similarly, you didn't see pilots walking to and from their airplanes wearing parachutes: the consequences of a parachute accidentally opening were too serious. As a result, the parachutes were left in the cockpit and the pilot strapped it on or connected it to a torso harness once he was seated.)

With the advent of the large jets that set nose high like the F3H Demon and F7U Cutlass, however, self-boarding provisions began to require mountaineering skills. See HERE and HERE for the two different approaches McDonnell used on the F3H Demon, for example. These proved to be inadequate, particularly on a wet, windy flight deck.

The Douglas A4D Skyhawk appears to have been the first exception to the self-boarding requirement, justified by Ed Heinemann's focus on weight reduction and the degree of difficulty involved in providing a self-contained boarding capability for it. The bespoke ladder was equipped with a tube that inserted into a hole in the left side of the fuselage. Wheels on the bottom of the side frames of the ladder minimized the loads on the mounting structure.

Boarding ladders were subsequently provided for the F3H and F7U although the self-boarding "feature" was retained. The XF4D self-boarding capability was removed for production and a ladder similar to the A4D's provided by Douglas for it. However, there were few exceptions made to the requirement— or provision of boarding ladders as GSE—after these aircraft were retired. (The North American A3J/A-5 Vigilante was one.)

Since a ladder was not always available, particularly for an urgent dismount, some Skyhawk pilots occasionally used the inflight refueling probe installation on the right side of the fuselage to exit the cockpit and move aft around the inlet to the wing and then jump off the trailing edge.

The more surefooted and athletic would go forward and execute a high bar dismount. (In the midst of the Forrestal fire, with his A-4's ladder having been removed, John McCain simply got out onto his probe, went forward on it, and jumped off.) Former gymnastics reportedly even gained access to the cockpit by muscling up on the probe.

With the introduction of the A4D-5 and the strakes forward and below the engine inlets, the degree of difficulty of self-boarding was somewhat reduced and became more common, particularly if malcontent sailors had tossed all the boarding ladders overboard as happened on at least one deployment. It helped if you were flexible and had long legs (but not too long because of the size of the Skyhawk's cockpit) like young T.J. (Jeff) Brown pictured here.

Douglas provided a self-boarding capability for the Blue Angel A-4s that consisted of a very narrow folding ladder stowed in a tube extending from the 20mm gun port in the left wing root.

The two-seat TA-4s had a ladder with a stepped platform that provided access to both the front and rear cockpits.

The TA-4s used for training were much more likely to fly into airfields that didn't have appropriate ladders for ingress and egress. As a result, some squadrons formally condoned and marginally improved the use of the strakes and the cover over the IFR pipe by treating them with a skid-resistant coating on them, as well as on the aft end of the external tanks and a wing walkway as shown here in a picture provided by Rick Burgess:

The front seater used one of the fins on the right external tank to get up on the wing and then went forward around the inlet to the strake and thence along the refueling boom. The guy in the back seat could enter and exit from either side using the strake.

A video of this egress is on Youtube: HERE

Scooter!

As I said, I'm very pleased with the publication quality of my history of the A-4 Skyhawk, Scooter!, which should be shipping from Amazon, among others, in a couple of weeks. One small disappointment, however, was the reproduction of the picture of Capt Pablo Carballo and Lt Carlos Rinke's attack on Broadsword on 25 May 1982. It wasn't a very high resolution picture to begin with and this regrettably resulted in it being too small in the book to provide the impression that I wanted to convey. Here it is as big as I can make it (click on it for a larger size) and annotated as well:

Both Carballo and Rinke survived the attack (as did Broadsword), reportedly because the Sea Wolf missile system could not choose between their A-4s in the short time that they could be engaged.

Noted Argentinian aviation and maritime artist and illustrator Carlos A. Garcia created the following painting of the action, The Volcanos, based on this picture and interviews with Capt Carballo:

More of Senor Garcia's work can be seen at his website, http://www.aviationart.com.ar/Carlos_Adrian_Garcia_eng/Welcome.html.