|
|
| PACIFIC MISSILE TEST CENTER WHALES | |||||||||||||||||
| MISSILE CHASER | The 1989 Point Magu Open House was definitely a Skywarrior swan song with no less than five airframes on the airfield. RA-3B 142667 was the official Whale on display and I caught her as best I could, poorly positioned between other aircraft. She is unusual in that she belongs to the Pacific Missile Test Centre which was also based at Point Magu and whose mission was to conduct tests upon all new and research missiles intended for use by the United States Navy combat aircraft. The role of this RA-3B would have been to provide test instrumentation and surveillance for such trials. I was astonished to find on display at the same air show an ex. Japanese Air Self Defence Forces QF-86F Sabre which had been configured as a target drone, doomed to an eventual fiery death at the hands of a test missile. That rare beast caused much camera shake! Four years later they had a very neat looking QF-4N on display. | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| This is a closer view of 142667's nose section. It is immediately obvious that she is a very non-standard Whale by the addition of a fuselage mounted pylon just to the rear of the cockpit area, this carrying some sort of pod presumably filled with additional instrumentation or perhaps some sort of tracking device. The engine pod is a distinctive Whale feature, having originally been intended for the 7000lb thrust Westinghouse XJ-40-WE3 turbojet. This did not live up to its promise and was replaced by the 9700lb Pratt & Whitney J57-P-6 design which resulted in a delay of over a year to the Whale's introduction into service. Current A-3 marks are powered by the 12,400lb J57-P-10. | NON-STANDARD WHALE | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| PYLON DETAIL | The PMTC Whales are certainly non-standard in many ways. 142667 carried a very non-standard tail cone and also this wing pylon which carries yet another piece of range instrumentation equipment. I have checked many photographs of the Skywarrior in active USN service and I can not find any examples with wing pylons, leading me to assume that this is another local modification unique to the A-3s then based at Point Magu and currently at Van Nuys. So, what happened to 142667? You will need to look at the next page to find out! | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| Links to Mike's Other Skywarrior Pages | ||||||||||||||||
|
Skywarrior at Fairford
| |||||||||||||||||
