14 June 2014 – 9,887 pages – Scrapbook History RAN FAA A4G Skyhawk

A4 Skyhawk
Association
Roll Rate of
the A-4
Skyhawk
VIDEO
-
720 deg
per sec-
Click Page for the
short VIDEO clip
The roll rate shown is not as fast as it can be but a good illustration of the potential to rotate
the A-4 Skyhawk at 720 degrees per second with a nominal limit of one 3600 ONLY NATOPS
I didn’t want to know.
What NOT to do sure(My
own call-sign was
The story of how I got
in a Dogfight: “Animal.”
that one is much less interestA Ripping Ad- ing, and much more humiliating, than you might guess. I
venture Yarn
don’t want to talk about it.)
I had about two weeks to go to
complete my navy pilot training. About 10 more hops to get
the coveted gold wings… all in
the air combat maneuvering
(ACM) syllabus. Dog-fighting.
I’d done an awful lot of intense flying over the prior two
years. Aerobatics. Formation
flying. Instrument flying. Lowlevel navigation. Air-to-ground
weapons (bombs, rockets, and
strafing). Air-to-air gunnery.
I’d also carrier qualified. I was
quite the killing machine. And
I’d done the dual instruction
part of this ACM phase. An instructor had ridden in the back
seat for a dozen or so hops to
make sure I wouldn’t inadvertently kill anyone. Now it was
time to go solo… Me in one jet,
my instructor, and adversary,
in another.
So, today, I drew a MarineCorps captain with the callsign “Pud.” I don’t know how
he got that call-sign. I was
I strapped into the Escapac
ejection seat, plugged in my
radio cable, oxygen mask, and
g-suit connector, and started up. The plane checked out,
and I followed Pud out to the
runway where we had no wait.
The two of us taxied out, ran
our engines up, and released
brakes for a formation takeoff from NAS Chase Field in
Beeville, Texas. We made a
climbing left turn to 15,000
feet and proceeded to the ACM
area, a marked-off piece of airspace over the vast expanses of
south Texas, where you could
crash a plane with assurance
that you wouldn’t hurt anyone
or damage anything valuable.
I split out to a combatspread position relative to Pud’s
aircraft. About a mile off his
wing on the 90 degree bearing,
stepped up a thousand feet.
Over the decades, the navy had
determined this to be the optimum formation for penetrating
hostile airspace. Each plane
can maneuver and clear the
other. If a bogey appears, a pair
of aircraft in combat-spread
can quickly maneuver to counter. You have to keep your head
on a swivel, even here. Twice
Pud had been in the
Marine-Corps about 15 years.
He’d flown A4 Skyhawks all
the way back to Vietnam.
They were phasing out the
A4, so Pud had no career path.
They were forcing him out. For
some reason this made him
rather bitter. He was still a
marvellous pilot and a tough,
mean son-of-a-bitch.
We briefed the hop, he
quizzed me on emergency procedures like always, and didn’t
see any reason to fail me then
and there. So we went to the
maintenance shack, checked
out our jets, and walked out to
preflight.
The TA-4J was the 2-seat
trainer version of the A-4
Skyhawk. A very, very, slick
little airplane, though markedly underpowered in comparison to later Navy tactical
aircraft. It was still the finest,
most intense flying experience
I’d ever had. The plane was up.
1
I’d seen a private plane blunder into this airspace, unaware.
A doctor with too much money and not enough flying hours,
no doubt. Don’t know why
they put windows on the darn
things, they never look out ’em.
If I’d had any ammo, I could
have had a kill.
We did some 90-degree
crossunder turn drills, and a
coordinated bogey response
drill called the ’loosedeuce’
maneuver, just to warm up.
The pneumatic bladders in
my g-suit puffed up as I put ’g’
force on the aircraft, squeezing my lower extremities to retard the drain of blood from
my brain in the high-g turn.
You get an extra couple of g’s
margin with one of these before you black-out. There was
a typical, scattered puffy umulus deck at 8,000 not really a
factor. The 95 degree South
Texas heat faded with the
cockpit A/C going full blast.
“All-right Animal, level it
out, I’ll take an offensive position, we’ll have a look at your
rolling-scissors.”
“Rog.”
Pud maneuvered back to
a 45-degree bearing on my
left wing, stepped up a couple
of thousand feet, and called
“fight’s on.”
He immediately rolled in on
me. I immediately countered
with a left turn. Amazing that
WWI ace Oswald Boelke’s rules
of air-combat still apply after
all these years. Always turn in
to the attack. Since Pud was
coming in from a vertical offset
as well as a horizontal one, my
countering turn was not flat,
but a climbing one. I hoped to
force Pud to overshoot, in both
the vertical and horizontal
planes.
You have to understand
how fighter tactics proceed
from both fighter aerodynamics and fighter weapons. This
was the early 1980s, bear in
mind, and air-to-air weapons still had significant restrictions on the parameters
at which you could fire them.
You needed to be behind your
opponent to employ the main
dogfight weapon, the Aim-9
Sidewinder. This is a missile
with an infrared, or heat-seeking warhead. So you needed to be within about a 45
degree cone extending back
from your target’s tailpipe to
fire. (Modern versions of the
sweat, forced down by the gSidewinder can home in from
force, rolled down my forehead,
any angle… much more leover the bridge of my nose, and
thal, but in some respects, less joined the wet film on which
sporting.)
my oxygen mask slid, slickly.
You also needed to be pret- As I decelerated to the velocity close to your target’s sixty at which the aircraft could
o’clock line in order to employ
no longer aerodynamically susguns with any high probability tain the g-load I was applying,
of getting hits.
it began to enter “stall buffet”…
So in the situation I was in, the wings biting on the thin
I was in a race with Pud that
edge of aerodynimc stall. The
I desperately wanted to lose. I ride was like driving at speed
needed to force Pud out of his over a washboard…
position behind me. I pulled on
It worked, though. Pud’s
the stick for all I was worth.
plane crossed my six with a
At 5 g’s, your cheeks feel
high rate of overshoot. I kept
like they weigh 50 pounds
pulling, going nose-high, rolleach. You’ve got a 100 pound
ing left. Pud, being nose-down,
bag of flour strapped to each
started to move ahead, neuarm and leg, and another attralizing his initial offensive
tached to your head.
advantage.
The bladders in my G-suit
At this point I was rollsqueezed my legs and abdoing inverted, looking down
men like a giant blood-preson Pud’s plane. We began to
sure cuff. I supplemented
describe a double-helix path
its effort with the “grunting”
through the sky…
maneuver they teach: you reI had amassed enough
peatedly, rhythmically grunt
hours on the A4 so that
and clench your abdominal
maneuvering it, to some exmuscles as if you were consti- tent, had become a subconpated, straining on the toilet.
scious motor-skill. So a part of
Despite these measures,
my mind could step back and
my vision began to go all grey objectively marvel at the situaat the margins. Bullets of
tion I found myself in. The sky
2
and the earth whirled around
me. I looked down on Pud’s
plane, crawling like a salamander across the green and
brown of the Texas landscape
15,000 feet below. A white and
dayglo-orange salamander.
The colors were beautiful. The
geometry was beautiful. This
was what I’d got into this business for.
As I rolled, Pud duplicated my countering maneuver,
forcing me back out in front. I
countered again. Around and
around we went.
Finally, after several complete turns around, Pud came
back up on the radio: “Ok, you
seem to know what you’re doing here, but you gotta remember not to waste time.
You gotta make an offensive
move… you can’t just keep going around. Let’s knock it off.”
We levelled out. Pud came
back: “Okay, let’s separate out
to one mile, and we’ll see what
you got.”
We flew on diverging paths
until we were level with each
other at one mile separation.
The textbook here called for
each plane to accelerate to 300
knots before commencing the
dogfight. Each of us cheated
on this, though. In naval aviation, like big-league baseball,
the operative motto is: “if you
ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin.”
I waited until my airspeed indicator read 350 before saying
“okay, I got 300.”
Pud came back, “okay,
fight’s on.”
We each instantly roll 90
degrees angle-of bank and pull
5 g’s until we are nose-to-nose,
heading striaght towards each
other.
A game of chicken at 700
knots relative rate of closure.
Point your nose at him, deny
him any horizontal separation,
he can use that to convert to
an offensive position.
We pass each other at 100
yards separation, each going 350. I’m banked left, he’s
banked left, I can look up
through the top of my canopy
and see him. He’s got his oxygen mask off, he’s chomping on
the stub of a cigar. Right out
of a comic book, but it’s happening to me.
Okay, now I gotta make
my move. Dogfights, from time
immemorial, have been about
horizontal tail chasing. Each
contestant chases his oppoectomorph. Pud’s a football
nent’s tail, madly, until some- player, he has the physical
one gets a shot. It’s different
edge.
with jets; there’s so much more
…Okay, what if I move my
energy to be managed. My first head to the right, here, and romove is a vertical one. If he
tate it back between the canfollows me, we’ll see who has
opy and the headrest of the
the most energy. The first one
ejection seat. Okay, there he
to poop out loses, because he
is…
has to start down, and his opThe sun glints through the
ponent can just follow him.
plexiglass of the canopy, with
So I make a pull into the
a brightness groundlings never
vertical. I try to keep my eyes
witness. The sky is just bluer
on him. This is crucial, he
than you people ever see.
who loses sight of his foe
My head is stuck.
quickly loses the fight.
I can’t get it out.
There’s a piece of frameThe radio microphone
work structure down the top
switch is on the throttle, on
spine of the TA4’s canopy… I
the left side of the cockpit. I
can’t see him, Goddammit.
can’t reach the damn thing,
What to do?
so I can’t even tell Pud what’s
We are each zooming up
wrong.
vertically. The TA4 does not
The airspeed indicator conhave enought thrust to sustinues to wind down. Before
tain this for long. The airspeed long, I’m out of knots. The A-4
indicator quickly begins to
departs controlled flight, pivunwind…
oting from a nose-high vertical
I frantically swivel my head zoom, through some whifforaround to try to keep him in
dill maneuver that I can’t idensight. It’s difficult… I’m pulltify, into a vertical nose down
ing g’s, my head is encased
dive at the ground. I’m helpin a bulky helmet and oxyless. My head is locked in posigen mask, and weighs a couple tion; I see sky, sky, sky, cloud,
of hundred pounds… on top
cloud, ground, ground…
of which I’m a pencil-necked
Pud’s got his eye on me. He
3
comes up on the radio: “What
are you doing? I can’t answer
him.
Well, this is not promising. The altimeter would be
unwinding, now, faster than
it wound on the way up, if I
could see it, which I can’t. All I
can see is whirling greens and
browns.
This is starting to look like
a mis-spent youth coming to a
bad end. What in the hell do I
do now?
Somehow, I have a flash. I
reach up and un-hook the oxygen mask, and pull my head
from the helmet, leaving it
wedged between headrest and
canopy. The airplane is spiralling down, more or less vertically, passing through 10,000
feet. It’s a simple matter to recover. And, since my helmet
is no longer filled with head, I
can pull it out, too. When I’m
finally hooked back up, Pud is
frantically trying to find out
what the hell happened.
…I did not get good marks
on this flight. But I did learn
what not to do in a dogfight.
http://everything2.com/?node=
What+NOT+to+do+in+a+Dogfight
%3A+A+Ripping+Adventure+Yarn
A- 4G
SLAT
Click left
From an RNZAF No.75
Squadron cartoon series
See the
SLATS
in
Landing
Config
http://www.globalaviationresource.com/reports/2010/ta4j/images/kavq20100419-082.jpg
“Heard that Rahn used to explain the reason the slats on the A4 were not
interconnectted was expense. It would have cost $70 on an airplane then
worth 900 grand apiece. ‘Boom’ Powell.” http://www.a4skyhawk.org/2g/com.htm
E-Ticket Ride in TA-4 (Slat Malfunction)
The TA-4 flight was to have been a quick
functional slat check for slat maintenance
performed, followed by a 2 v 2 DACT with
the “locals” (Puerto Rican Air National
Guard F-16s). No big deal, considering I’ve
had over 2,000 A-4 flight hours and at least
that many slat checks in the Skyhawk. This
day was, however, not going to be quite that
much fun.
The flight brief was a touch lengthy, yet
thorough. I nonetheless conducted a quick
crew brief with my backseater, who was
just along for the ride and was also well
experienced in the realm of A-4 “peculiarities” (having also been a previous A-4 ACM
instructor). On startup, our wingman went
down for electrical problems. Undaunted, we
continued, looking forward to a good workout with the PRANG. Takeoff and climbout
went as well as can be expected. In preparation for the slat checks, I called over the ICS,
“Gear stowed, harness locked” to complete
the pre-maneuvering checklist. I guess that
call was kind of a leftover from those training command days where you always erred
on the side of safety and, from the discussion during debrief with my copilot, it was
something he hadn’t considered until I made
the call. Slat checks are generally not much
of a problem, and even if they are, a mere
forward push of the stick usually reseats
them and you continue on.
Our first attempt at 250 knots was
fine with a slight left roll due to the left
by Cdr. Bernd Foerster (XO VC-8) from an “APPROACH” article
“neutral to slightly aft” and pulled the stick
slat coming out a touch after the right. We
back less than a couple of inches. I guess
repeated the check and it was still within
they put that in the emergency procedures
limits. We continued on to the 300-knot
check, expecting a little more aggressive roll, for a reason, because it certainly worked
almost immediately. The rotation slowed
but nothing out of the ordinary; however,
and we found ourselves in a steep dive.
what we got we certainly did not expect.
Fearing aircraft damage because of the fast
Upon extension of the right slat (and nonrate
of rotation and violent entry, I chose to
extension of the left slat) the aircraft immeforego the 18-20 unit pull-out (after checkdiately rolled violently (I now know what
ing altitude). We bottomed out with 4,500
that means in an aircraft) to the left with
feet remaining. This turned out to be a good
enough adverse right yaw to bruise my left
decision.
Several rivets had popped, and
arm. Within one second we were inverted
internal wing damage had occurred as a
and in somewhat of a steady state oscillaresult
of the fuel “ballooning” into the wing
tion, rotating from 10 degrees nose up to 60
during roll/yaw.
degrees nose down (good thing we locked
Lessons learned? First, expect the worst
the harness). Controls were already neuin FCF/critical evolutions. I had been doing
tralized, trim in limits and power back. A
that for 18 years and it finally happened.
rapid banging led us both to check the slats,
Second, brief the crew. Somebody else comwhich were still attached to the aircraft and,
ing along? Make sure you brief them on
fortunately, both all the way in. We deterwhat to expect from you and how they can
mined the banging to be compressor stalls.
help you; it works! Last, know the airplane.
Although I pulled off what I thought was
Pilots learned the specific slat rigging limits
a big handful of power, it wasn’t enough; a
from this incident. This was never published
little more off took care of the problem. My
as a preflight item in NATOPS nor was it
backseater was quick to inform me that we
known to many of our troubleshooters.
were passing 13,000 feet. His outstanding
Be ready! Just because you haven’t expebackup was a calming force in a not-sorienced a problem or the airplane has been
calm ride. After removing a few pieces of
around forever isn’t insurance enough. We
paper—including the FCF checklist—from
have a new appreciation for that fact.
the instrument panel, I was able to deterCdr. Foerster was the XO of VC-8 when
mine a little more about which way we were
he submitted this story.
rotating and how long we had to go. Another
check around the cockpit and I found the
http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/media/
stick pretty much centered. I remembered
approach/vault/articles/0097.htm
No criticism implied or intended, however an example of the hazards of ACM, especially in the TA4.
Both the RAN & the RNZAF lost at least one
2-seat trainer each to ACM. The report
on the right is from the USN Safety
Magazine (issued to all USN &
RAN squadrons) “Approach”.
The RAN continues this
safety magazine
tradition by publishing their
own today.
USN Safety Magazine page
Former TA4G 881
now NZ6256 lost:
Crashed into sea off Perth WA
20/03/2001 after departing
controlled flight during a tight
turn and entered a spin, the pilot
(Flight Lieutenant Phillip Barnes,
25, of Rotorua) ejected and was in
a liferaft for an hour before being
rescued by an RAAF SAR
Helicopter. URL LINK
Q: What was it like ejecting?
Reply: Sept 11, 2006, 7:09pm
Barnsey: “I’d guess it felt pretty good
after watching the a/c hit the water.”
Q: How did it feel ejecting?
Barnsey: “At the time, it was rapidly
apparent that it was the only option
available to extricate myself from a
very bad situation! ‘56 had departed
controlled flight at approx 4,500ft
above the sea during hard
manoeuvring in a dogfight.
I had initially tried to get control
back by going through the departure
drills, but now the jet had settled
into a steady state flat spin to the
right. The rate of rotation was quite
high and the jet was descending at
approx 20–25,000 feet per minute.
The final item in the departure
checklist is “Out of Control below
10,000ft eject”.
I then tried to recover from the spin
by applying opposite rudder only and
confirming the elevator central. This
isn’t completely the correct spin
recovery drill in an A4, as aileron
(inspin aileron for an upright spin) is
more effective than rudder due to the
aileron’s large adverse yaw effect (due
large aileron size).
Around this time, the waves and
white-caps were looking pretty large,
I probably caught a flash of the
altimeter rapidly unwinding, and my
wingman was verbalising the
departure drills over the radio and
was finishing with “Out of control
below 10,000 feet — EJECT”.
The Ejection decision had already
been made (and now fully confirmed
as the right and only decision
remaining), and it was very easy to
assume the ejection posture, reach
down for the handle, and pull!
I remember it seemed like quite a
delay as the canopy and then the
rear seat departed the aircraft first.
There was an almighty bang and kick
in pants as I was fired up the rails.
My chin touched my chest in spite of
trying to hold my head back against
the headrest, and I can remember
my breath being forced out during
the upwards trajectory.
I next remember a loud crack near
my head (either the “ear burner” seat
separation rocket, or it could have
been the ballistic spreader firing to
open the parachute) [Escapac 1G3].
I remember thinking how gentle the
parachute opening shock was
compared to the rocket ride just
previous.
The biggest thing now was how
quiet it was. There was just a little
wind noise as I descended under the
chute. Just seconds before, I had
been sitting in a jet trying to fly my
best BFM — with both radios going
flat-chat, then recover from an
unexpected departure — there were
all sorts of different airflow noises
thanks to the high yaw rate, and
then flung out at a great rate thanks
to the seat. But now it seemed to be
so surreal and peaceful!
I looked down to the right and
could see the canopy and rear seat
falling away, and then down to the
left I could see ‘56 continue through
about another half turn and then
pancake into the water. It made a
pretty huge splash.
From the time I spent in the chute,
I ejected at about 1,200 feet. From
that altitude there was no chance
that the aircraft could have recovered
from the spin and the ensuing dive
safely.
Despite the rather lengthy blurb
above, I still get cut up talking about
the whole experience.
It’s certainly not most auspicious
tale to tell, but I’m happy to answer
any other questions.”
_______________________________
Later Barnesy describes water
entry and life raft experiences:
Barnsey: “Parachute Descent and
Logging Liferaft Captaincy
Once I’d got over the whole “Holy
crap, WTF has just happened” effect,
the parachute descent drills came
back to me readily. It really was a
case of all those times spent hanging
over the Ohakea pool practicing with
a blindfold on or one arm strapped to
your side, making the real event flow
easily. Thanks to the S&S lads!
The first part of the descent drills
was to check that the parachute
canopy had fully inflated and wasn’t
damaged, raise the visor and then
drop the oxygen mask away from
your face.
In my case, my visor had partially
risen during the ejection sequence
despite being locked down prior.
I think that they found that if the
operating arm was sitting just on the
detent, the G forces could unlock the
mechanism and allow wind blast to
raise the visor.
If you had ejected over a forest, you
were supposed to keep the oxy mask
on your face prior to entering the
trees to give face protection. (You
would also keep the survival pack —
RSSK8 — attached to your behind to
stop giving yourself a pine tree
enema!). In my case being over water,
I unhooked the mask from both clips
and pulled it off completely and
discarded it.
From there, I activated the
emergency beacon located on the
survival jacket and then deployed the
life raft and survival pack. Unlike
previous ejections, I didn’t have any
problems deploying the pack.
There wasn’t a whole bunch more
time prior to me hitting the water.
I didn’t contemplate using the 6(?)
line cut to get steering ability on the
chute, and I didn’t make an attempt
to try and steer the chute into wind
prior to splashing down. In fact,
I remember thinking how glad I was
that I was going into the water and
not attempting to come down on the
land, as I had a reasonable ground
speed thanks to a bit of wind.
As I hit the water, I found the Koch
fittings OK (where the parachute
risers attach to the torso harness)
and the chute was blown clear, and
I then inflated my lifejacket. It wasn’t
too much of a swim to get to the
liferaft and clamber in. I then
deployed the sea anchor and and
then dragged the survival pack
aboard and switched off the
emergency beacon that is in the
pack. This was all happed just as we
had practiced in the pool or when
being flung of the back of a launch
during wet drills, without much
thought on my behalf.
From there, I took my helmet and
gloves off and partially inflated the
raft’s roof and floor. I then started
using my helmet as a bailer to clear
the worst of the water from the raft.
Once most of it had been cleared,
I velcroed up the roof and used the
integral bailer to try and get the rest
of the water.
Early on I got the beacon out of my
jacket and switched it to voice mode
and made contact with my wingman
who was orbiting overhead. It sure
was comforting to talk to Ted and let
him know I was OK, and hear that
help was on the way.
An aside that came out afterwards
was that the new beacon the RNZAF
had wasn’t good for CSAR ops. The
beacon was good from a “civvie”
rescue point of view, in that it
transmitted on 243 and 416 for
satellites, but the only voice mode it
had went out on 243 Mhz as well.
The downside to this was that you
needed to keep the beacon mode
going so that your position could be
DF’d but this would be blaring away
on guard (243), so all the guys
holding overhead had switched guard
off on their radios so that they could
co-ordinate the rescue. This meant
that I could not raise them if I had
tried as they weren’t listening…!! The
old SARBE had a discrete frequency
(282.8?) that could be selected while
it still transmitted on guard for DF.
Anyway….
There was a pretty big swell
running that day and there were
waves and white-caps breaking off
the tops. I was getting hit side on a
bit and the waves were breaking onto
the roof portion and splitting open
the velcro, so the raft would fill back
up with water. This didn’t seem right
as the sea anchor was supposed to
keep the back of the raft towards the
swell, and I could see it was at 90
degrees to the raft. I found that the
parachute had snagged around the
RSSK8 container that I’d left
dangling down the side, and was
acting as a more effective sea anchor
and was holding me side on to the
swell. Even once I’d untangled it and
had put the RSSK8 container on my
lap the raft was still not riding out
the swell well and the raft would be
hit and open the roof up again and
fill up with water. I was doing a lot of
bailing! I now found that the sea
anchor was rolling itself up into balls
when dragging through the water
and pretty much useless. More
bailing…!
I was in the raft for about 90
minutes, and eventually got the
helicopter in sight as it closed from
the east. Normally you would pop the
smoke end of one of your rescue
flares for their wind awareness, but
I was surrounded by a bit of AVTUR
from the jet so didn’t want to start a
rather large fire ball to advise my
position.
The S-76 came into the hover
overhead and the rescue swimmer
jumped out and came over to the
raft. They lowered a back board and
intimated that I should get in it! I
wasn’t too keen but followed —
nearly a bad move due to the
weather. The stretcher sits quite low
in the water and I was restrained by
about 5 straps along it’s length. The
problem was that the swell meant
there was a very real risk that I
would get rolled upside down while
strapped in. I refused to allow my
arms to be strapped in, and kept
them outstretched as paddles to help
keep myself upright.
From there it was off to the
hospital and then the BOI….”BOI=Board of Inquiry
http://rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi?
_______________________________
board=Modelling&action=display&thread=1156480725&page=2
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PORT
SLAT
NATOPS A4G
Saturday, April 12, 2008
7$6N\KDZN5DWHRI±5ROO
)OLJKW,¶OO1HYHU)RUJHW
We just received our first TA-4J Skyhawk at VMAT-102 in June of 1980
fresh out of depot level rework. It was real different looking from the
rest of our aircraft. All of our other A-4’s and TA-4’s were grey. This
bird was camouflage green, tan, and brown. It stood out like a sore
thumb on the ramp among our other aircraft. But it looked good with
its fresh camo paint job. All of our TA-4’s were ‘F’ models. This new
aircraft was a “J” model. It had some upgrades and a newer model
engine. Of course that started a lot of chatter around the squadron that
it was really going to be the hotrod of all our training aircraft. While our
single seat A-4’s could fly mach speed, our two seat TA-4’s couldn’t. So
the big question going around was…could the new ‘J’ model make
mach? We would see…
Our new camo TA-4 on the VMAT-102 ramp just after it arrived.
It came in with several gripes so we had to do some maintenance work
on it for several days after it arrived. Then one of the first things we
had to do was perform an acceptance inspection on it since it was
coming in from rework. That involved taking it up for a test flight,
checking out all its systems, and performing a rate-of-roll check.
For those of you not familiar with an A-4 Skyhawk (and that is
probably most of you…), a rate-of-roll check is performed to simulate
loss of the aircraft hydraulic system. The aircraft hydraulic power is
disconnected from the flight controls in flight (similar to loosing the
power steering in your car) and the aircraft is flown manually with no
hydraulic assistance. It is much harder to fly the aircraft without
hydraulics, but if you loose hydraulics in combat, you would be happy
to have the opportunity to continue to fly the aircraft manually no
matter how hard it was!
To perform a rate-of-roll check, you trim the aircraft to level flight at a
safe altitude, pull the hydraulic disconnect, and the aircraft shouldn’t
roll any more than around 5 degrees per second (as I recall). If it rolls
more, then adjustments have to be made to so the aircraft rate-of-roll
is within acceptable limits. The idea is, when you loose hydraulic power
in an emergency, you want the pilot to disconnect hydraulics and have
a smooth transition from hydraulic powered flight controls to manual
flight controls. It’s hard enough to fly the aircraft manually; you don’t
want it to be any more difficult than it has to be—especially if the
hydraulics are disconnected in an actual emergency situation.
One of our squadron instructor pilots, Major Bossard, was given the
honor to take the new camo “J” model up for its test flight, and lucky
for me, I was also chosen to accompany him on the flight. Major
Bossard and I had flown on several flights before this one. I think about
five or six rate-of-roll flights. There was a lot of hype about this new
aircraft and the potential for it to make mach. So before our flight,
Major Bossard asked that the two 300 gallon drop tanks (external fuel
tanks) be removed. He wanted the aircraft to be in a “slick”
configuration with no extra drag to slow it down.
We suited up, briefed, and prepared for the flight. Major Bossard and I
were both excited about the flight and looking forward to the
opportunity to see what this bird could do. We did our preflight, started
up, performed our operational checks, and taxied to the runway.
Everything looked good so far. We had a lot of extra fuel so we took off
and headed north. Once we were clear of Yuma we dropped down to
low level and headed up the Colorado River to Blythe, California. From
Blythe, we continued west to Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base,
then over to Barstow, California flying low level all the way. Flying low
level was a thing with Major Bossard. He liked flying low so we could
see what was below us up close and personal. It was always fun and
interesting to fly with him! After we buzzed Barstow we headed back
southeast low level until we reached a restricted area near Yuma where
we could conduct some system checks and finish our test flight.
One of the things Major Bossard wanted to do was to see if this new
“J” model would in fact make mach speed. We were like The
Mythbusters. We had to test the aircraft out and return with the
answer…our squadron was counting on us! So we climbed, and
climbed, and climbed until we reached 43,500 feet. At that point the
aircraft wouldn’t climb any higher—it just shuddered. Major Bossard
came over the ICS and asked if I was ready to see what she would do
and I said yes sir! He rolled the left wing over, pointed the nose to the
ground, and pushed the throttle to 100%. In a few seconds we were
screaming straight down toward the ground at full speed!
It was a strange circumstance to be in…ground straight ahead in front
of you; looking at the very bottom of the meatball (the artificial horizon
in the instrument panel); altimeter needle zipping around
counterclockwise as fast as it can go; the ground coming up on you
faster and faster! I instinctively tightened my grip on the control stick
and the throttle thinking I needed to be prepared to pull up at some
point in case Major Bossard passed out or something. Our speed
increased passing through .85 mach, then through .90 mach, peaking
at .95 mach (around 700 miles per hour). That was it…it just wouldn’t
get past .95. Major Bossard pulled up at about 10,000 feet and started
climbing again. We decided to give the aircraft a second chance. Again
we climbed to max altitude, rolled over, nosed down and dived straight
toward the ground at max speed. It was very exciting! However, after
the second attempt, we finally gave up and decided that the myth was
busted. The new “J” model, even with the beefed up engine, just
wouldn’t quite make mach speed. The aircraft was just not capable.
The last check we had to do before heading back to the base was the
rate-of-roll check. As we had done several times before, we leveled out,
trimmed the aircraft where it was flying nice and straight, and were
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