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| AN ANCIENT WHALE - THE DOUGLAS A-3 SKYWARRIOR | |||||||||||||||||
| MENACING WHALE! | Welcome to my Douglas A-3 Skywarrior pages, my own personal tribute to another U.S. Navy "Classic Jet" that has been in service for nearly half a century. All the photographs on these seven pages were taken by myself during various visits to the United States starting in 1987 up until October 1999. Links to the other pages are at the bottom right corner of this page. Except this page! The occasion is the famous International Air Tattoo at Fairford in July 1991. A dull overcast day - but not for us enthusiasts. The Skywarrior was a rare visitor to British shores but here was a very rare EA-3B model from VQ-2 based at Rota in Spain. And wearing a menacing shark's mouth as well! | ||||||||||||||||
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| Perhaps not a smile! This nose perspective gives a good idea of the general layout of the EA-3B model, not really that different to the original Douglas XA3D-1 which first flew on 28th October 1952. A capacious fuselage on a tricycle undercarriage, swept shoulder mounted wings, a conventional tail and two underwing podded jet engines. The A3D resulted from a 1947 US Navy requirement for a carrier based attack aircraft to combine jet power with the ability to deliver nuclear weapons. Now, remember that in 1947 we Brits were still flying Meteors and Vampires while the US Navy had only just got the McDonnell Phantom and Banshee into the air. The carrier based nuclear requirement was incredibly advanced and only an innovative and talented company such as Douglas could hope to meet it - and they did! | SMILE? | ||||||||||||||||
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| ALL THREE DEAD? | You really have to admire these guys. It is 1991, the Cold War has not been ended that long, the Russians are still a suspicious force to be reckoned with. So, your mission is ECM (Electronic Counter Measures) - four specialists sitting in a bomb bay cabin with God knows what snooping equipment - which makes this aircraft a very sensitive, expensive and high value target. You take a 1950's vintage bomber, remove all her armament, paint on a menacing shark mouth and name her "Killer Whale". You had cojones gentlemen - big ones! Why "All Three Dead"? Well, the A-3 was never equipped with ejector seats. Max take-off weight was 82,000 pounds, landing at slightly less. Imagine trying to land this beast on a wet pitching carrier deck on a dark night. Cojones indeed. | ||||||||||||||||
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| Although the general layout of the Skywarrior has not changed greatly over the years the tail end has. Original armament was 12,000lbs of bombs as well as twin tail mounted radar directed 20mm cannon in a Westinghouse Aero-21B ball turret that was operated by the Navigator who also doubled as a gunner. The tail armament was removed from the A3D-2P and A3D-2Q versions to give a little extra speed. This Whale is a war veteran. If you look closely you can see the Saudi Arabian palm tree symbol along with the legend "Operation Desert Storm" in red. As it turned out the Iraqi air force put up little resistance, but I would not have liked to be in a venerable unarmed Whale had they come up in force. | WHICH IS THE SHARP END? | ||||||||||||||||
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| THE SANDEMAN MAN? | I have always admired the artwork carried by US Navy planes and EA-3B 146454 was no exception. I have called this the "Sandeman Man" because it is the same symbol used to market Sandeman port in this country. Presumably it is some sort of local Spanish symbol which was adopted by VQ-2 by virtue of being based at Rota. So what happened to this lovely old Whale when she was replaced by the EP-3E version of the Orion soon after? She was flown back to the Naval Air Depot (NADEP) at Alameda in San Francisco then was bailed to Hughes and is currently at Van Nuys Airport. Her civil registration is N574HA and she serves as an active test bed; she is currently fitted with an F-15 nose. And she still carries those Desert Storm markings. | ||||||||||||||||
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| Links to Mike's Other Skywarrior Pages | ||||||||||||||||
| Skywarrior at Fairford
Hits on this page since 8th Dec 2000. | |||||||||||||||||
