The Airplane Thread

[Llarry]

The problem with dropping a high-explosive bomb at low altitude is that the airplane that dropped the bomb may be damaged or destroyed in the explosion. The solution, conceived in the early 1960s and still in use today is the Mark 15 Snake eye (alternative spelling Snakeye) add-on kit for the regular Mark 82 500-pound bomb.

The Snake eye replaces the conical tail cone of the bomb with spring-loaded air brakes that pop out after the bomb is dropped, slowing the forward progress of the bomb -- and allowing the aircraft that dropped the bomb to make a safe escape.

An alternative device for the same purpose was the air-inflated retarding ballute (balloon/parachute) similarly attached to the rear of the bomb. It is unclear to me whether this kit is still in use.

Of course, flying an attacking airplane at low altitude over an enemy target may be hazardous; these days it is much more likely that an attacking aircraft would use a GPS-guided bomb dropped from a much higher altitude.

[Llarry]

Red Rippers then and now...

F3F-1 of VF-4 "Red Rippers" landing aboard USS Ranger (CV 4), 1938. The tail surfaces are green and the lower engine cowling is red.

F/A-18F of VFA-11 "Red Rippers" landing aboard USS Nimitz (CVN 68)

[Llarry]

I've previously explained the three-color camouflage scheme used by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft -- and some Allies -- in the Pacific in World War II: sea blue as seen from above, white as seen from below and intermediate on the sides to blend the two. But there was one more feature, a bit less obvious, to help make the aircraft a bit of an indistinct blob when seen at a distance. That feature was called countershading. Horizontal features such as wings and horizontal tails naturally produce a dark area underneath due to the shadow of sunlight; countershading attempts to minimize this with a white area that is designed to lighten the shadow effect.

Here are several illustrations of countershading on TBMs. Note the white areas on the fuselage where the wings and tail join. In the last photo, there is a small area of countershading on the PBY's tail.

[Llarry]

A U.S. Air Force E-9A Widget of the 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group at Tyndall AFB, Florida. The two E-9As are Bombardier Dash 8s that have been modified with sea surveillance radar for range clearance duties in the Gulf of Mexico. An underside view shows the radar antenna well.

[Llarry]

The U.S. Coast Guard is retiring its fleet of Eurocopter MH-65 Dolphins and transitioning to an all-Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk force.

The current fleet is about 100 MH-65D/Es and about 45 MH-60Ts so the transition will take quite some time. The MH-60T total includes some airframes that were retired Navy SH-60s modified to MH-60T standard; there should be quite a few retired USN SH-60Bs and SH-60Fs that would be candidates for such modification. In addition, the Coast Guard bought 12 new MH-60Ts in 2023. The goal is 127 MH-60Ts, so they've quite a way to go to get to their desired number.

Three stations have already transitioned to all-MH-60Ts with Kodiak, Alaska, in the midst of becoming the fourth.

[Llarry]

Goodness gracious, I don't know what's become of me... I'm late for Tomcat Thursday again!

[Llarry]

In 1986, the U.S. Navy relinquished its last operational F-4 Phantoms when Carrier Air Wing 5, homeported in Japan and operating from the USS Midway (CV 41), gave up its two F-4S Phantom squadrons and gained three F/A-18C squadrons. For several years, the Midway and sister USS Coral Sea (CV 43) embarked air wings with three F-18 strike fighter squadrons and two small A-6 Intruder attack squadrons.

Here's a photo of one of the last Navy Phantoms of VF-151.

[Lady Jane]

A C-124 Globemaster II and a mystery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_A..._disappearance

[Llarry]

Virtually all of the many photos I've posted of World War II Navy and Marine Corps aircraft have been of squadrons in the Pacific, but the units in the Atlantic had a different paint scheme.

Pacific: Dark sea blue on top, white on bottom and intermediate blue along the sides to blend the two. Late in the war transitioning to all dark sea blue.

Atlantic: Mostly white with a little gull gray on upper surfaces. Some types had small areas of dark gull gray on top. No blue.

Here is a scanned page showing Atlantic scheme aircraft, along with a photo of a Consolidated PB4Y-1 patrol plane.

The mission in the Atlantic was quite different than that in the Pacific; Atlantic aircraft were primarily sub hunters for German U boats.

[Llarry]

The second-oldest strike fighter squadron in the Navy is VFA-31, the Tomcatters. They use "Felix" as their callsign and over the years have adorned their aircraft with the vintage cartoon Felix the cat carrying a lit bomb.

They span the period from yellow-winged biplanes to the Super Hornet of today. Their aircraft have not always featured the insignia. As I have posted before, during World War II squadron insignia were limited to several inches in size. During the 1950s Navy carrier aircraft frequently displayed no insignia at all.

Nevertheless, here are some aircraft of the Tomcatters over the period 1930 to today displaying the Felix insignia.

[Llarry]

The U.S. Navy Test Pilot School is located at Naval Air Station Patuxent River and has a wide variety of aircraft to expose students to types they have not previously flown. USNTPS also periodically borrows aircraft that offer unique problems or issues to expose to students.

Here are some of the school's aircraft...

The first photo, a Grumman OV-1B that originally served with the Army, dates from 1986 and may no longer be used.

The USNTPS graduates not only test pilots, but test engineers, including those of other services and other nations.

[Llarry]

Talk about bad timing...

Edo Corporation, which had previously manufactured seaplane floats, finally designed their own floatplane in 1946. The Edo XOSE-1 was a single place aircraft which could be fitted with a pod to carry a rescued aviator.

The Curtiss SC-1 was the standard floatplane by then but was soon to be replaced by the helicopter.

Needless to say, Edo did not win a production contract.

[Llarry]

The nose compartment of a Boeing B-17G bomber. I believe there were only two crewmen in this space: a bombardier and a navigator. Under some circumstances they would be awfully busy. There is not only a bomb sight for the bombardier and a table for the navigator's charts, but there are cheek-mounted machine guns on each side plus controls for the twin machine gun turret that is under the nose. So: Operating bomb sight, keeping track of navigation, and operating four machine guns against attacking fighters. Wow!

[Llarry]

The Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II is on its last legs, with just two squadrons remaining and both scheduled to transition to the F-35B fighter within the next year or two. VMA-231 concluded the final deployment of the AV-8B earlier this year.

The AV-8B was a developed version of the original UK Harrier that featured an increased thrust engine, a graphite composite wing, etc. It first flew in 1981 and entered service with the Marines in 1985. The Marine Corps took delivery of 306 aircraft and they have served well for almost 40 years. The few remaining AV-8Bs are the final version fitted with radar and night attack capabilities.

In addition to the end of the line for the AV-8B, this will also mark the end of the line for Navy/Marine attack squadrons after an 80-year history. Former attack squadrons have become strike fighter (Navy) or fighter attack (Marine) squadrons.

[Llarry]

Tomcat Thursday!

During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, there was a substantial increase in the military budget. So much so that the U.S. Navy decided to stand up an additional carrier air wing with two fighter squadrons, two strike fighter squadrons, etc.

The two new fighter squadrons were VF-191 Satan's Kittens (my Dad's old squadron of 1944-1947 resurrected) and VF-194 Red Lightnings. They were established in 1986 as part of Carrier Air Wing 10. CVW-10 proved to be short-lived as budget realities caused the wing and its squadrons to be disestablished after only two years. VF's -191 and -194 were the only F-14 fleet squadrons to never deploy.

Here they are in all their brief glory: F-14A Tomcats of VF-191 and VF-194.

[Llarry]

The disposition of 15 of Canada's CT-155 Hawks has been announced; they will go to CFB Borden, Ontario, for use as instructional airframes. I suspect the remaining two CT-155s will end up in museums or as gate guards.

(Old photo)

[Llarry]

The 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw AFB, South Carolina, has painted its F-16C Viper demonstration team aircraft for the 2024 show season in the same red, white and blue scheme used for the very first YF-16 back in 1973. Look for this aircraft around the country at air shows this year.

[Llarry]

A test F-18 from the Strike Directorate at Patuxent River, Maryland, drops five Mark 83 thousand-pound bombs at a test range in the Atlantic. The large number of small markings on aircraft and bombs are used to track everything on high-speed cameras and mark this as a test run.

[Llarry]

McDonnell Aviation would go on to fame as the designer/manufacturer of the F2H Banshee and the F-4 Phantom II, among others. But the company had an inauspicious beginning in the midst of World War II with their first aircraft, the USAAF XP-67 Moonbat. The XP-67 was a radical design with blended wing and fuselage and used experimental Continental XIV-1430 inverted V-12 engines. The single prototype first flew in January 1944 and proved to be underpowered. Flight tests continued for months; the engines proved to be the undoing of the XP-67. McDonnell wanted to fit more conventional engines, but the Army refused. In September of 1944 the XP-67 suffered a fire which destroyed the aircraft.

A bit of the DNA of the XP-67 made it into McDonnell's successful early jet FH Phantom and F2H Banshee fighters for the Navy and Marines.

[///d]

Duluth Air Show this past weekend.

[Llarry]

It's Tomcat Thursday, but I think I will try something a bit different: A history of the versions of the Grumman F-14 Tomcat...

The first prototype F-14A first flew in December of 1970. On its second flight, the aircraft crashed at low level approaching to land; fortunately, the two crewmembers were able to safely eject. Lessons were learned and F-14A #2 first flew several months later in May 1971. The F-14A became operational with fleet squadrons by 1974.

A total of 557 F-14As were delivered to the U.S. Navy, the last coming out of the Grumman factory in March 1987.

The Navy recognized the shortcomings of the F-14A's Pratt & Whitney TF30 afterburning turbofan engines early on -- the TF30 was prone to compressor stalls -- and developed an F-14B model which used an improved P&W F401 with more power and fewer glitches. A single prototype F-14B flew in 1973 but suffered developmental issues. In addition, Congress balked at the cost of developing and producing a more expensive F-14B and the B model never saw service.

The Navy also planned a weapons system upgrade for the F-14 and preliminarily planned to succeed the F-14B with an F-14C model with new radar and other avionics. The C model never materialized.

So, the F-14A continued in service, although improvements were made over time to the TF30 engines. They remained troublesome throughout the life of the aircraft, but crews learned workarounds.

The answer came from Pratt & Whitney competitor General Electric. The predecessor was the B-1 bomber's F101 engine, which was slightly larger than the TF30. But GE developed the F101 into a derivative fighter engine which became the F110 and was usable in the F-15, F-16 and the Navy's F-14.

Since the F-14B designation had already been used, the F110-powered F-14 was designated the F-14A+ at first. The first flight with the new engines was in December 1986 and the Navy found money to buy 36 factory-fresh F-14A+s, which were soon redesignated F-14B. They also converted 32 F-14As to F-14Bs for a total of 68 F-14B aircraft. The last F-14B was delivered in 1990.

That left the matter of the F-14As older radar and avionics and the Navy tested new systems in four prototypes before ordering new production F-14Ds. The original plan was to buy 127 F-14Ds and to remanufacture 104 F-14As to F-14D -- sometimes seen as F-14D(R) -- for a total F-14D force of 231 aircraft. But budget limitations once again limited the program and only 37 factory F-14Ds were purchased, along with 18 F-14As converted to Ds for a total of just 55 F-14Ds.The last D was delivered in June 1997 and the Navy finally (after 27 years!) had the ideal fighter aircraft, although the limited number of F-14Bs and Ds meant that many squadrons continued to fly with F-14As.

In addition, the F-14 had originally been designed with little thought given to attack missions; for years it flew strictly air-to-air missions. In the 1980s, testing was conducted with carrying bombs and the attack mission was added to the F-14 toolbox.

But overall, the Tomcats were getting old, maintenance was getting onerous and there was a new player in the game: The F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet. The decision was made to procure the Super Hornet to replace the F-14s, as well as earlier Hornets. The first Super Hornet squadrons became operational just after 2000 and the F-14As began to be retired. The last F-14B and F-14D squadrons finally converted to the Super Hornet in 2006, ending over thirty years of F-14 service in the U.S. Navy.

[ezaircon4jc]

Right before graduating Air Intercept Controller school, we were shown a picture similar to this one and "advised" to never let our fighter get in this position to the enemy...