In this article:
Roger Ball!
He was the second of two children and born on 25 January 1940 in Shandon Baptist Hospital in Columbia South Carolina. He, in every way, gave the appearance of a normal, healthy, well-developed kid of average height, slender but not skinny. History would show that he was anything but normal.
His name was John Monroe Smith, and “Roger Ball!” is his story—a tale that should be told. It intertwines the true, firsthand accounts and experiences of a fighter pilot with the significant developments in the fighter community and historical events in which Captain John Monroe Smith, USN, call sign “Hawk” was a part. Finally, it speaks to the men who laid their careers and sometimes their very lives on the line for their shipmates and their country.
Hawk was a legend in the fighter community. During his thirty-year career, he forged a reputation as a skilled and lethal aviator in the air-to-air combat arena, a natural tactician, and consummate leader. To many, he was one of the most essential pathfinders in the modernization of the naval air war arts.
He was just a man, but his story, his life adventure, is a high-fidelity history of personal achievements for naval tactical aviation, devotion to a cause, and service to his nation. It was a time during and shortly after the Vietnam conflict that America became ideologically divided. The military was disillusioned with the intrusion of nonwarriors in the White House over the conduct of the war, and tactical aviation of all the services was struggling to catch up to the realities of the war’s hard lessons. It was a time when the Navy needed leaders and tenacious thinkers to set things right again. It was Hawk’s time!
The Opposition
When last we left Hawk, he had just been assigned to VF-2 “Bounty Hunters.” The first fleet F-14 squadrons, VF-1 and VF-2 at NAS Miramar, were scheduled to deploy on Enterprise in September 1974. By the spring of 1973, the Joint Evaluation Team (JET) had conducted extensive weapons systems tests and engine and airframe performance evaluations with very favorable results. VX-4 had also completed limited handling characteristics and maneuvering analysis during one-versus-one engagements against a number of U.S. aircraft. The Tomcat wasn’t likely to fight any U.S. aircraft, however. What the program really needed was an opportunity to match the Tomcat against actual, real world threat aircraft. A highly classified program would allow that to happen.
Lieutenant Commander Jack “Stinger” Ready, one of Hawk’s best friends and his first pilot back in the Diamondback days, arrived at VX-4 in June 1973. This was an unexpected surprise and a pleasure for Hawk. He had no idea Stinger was coming to VX-4.
Actually, he wasn’t. Stinger was coming through VX-4 in a whirlwind visit to become familiar with the F-14 before he departed for parts east. He was assigned to start up, or restart, a program designed to evaluate the fighter performance differences between the Tomcat and other Soviet fighters, namely the MiG-17 and the MiG-21.
He had recently been reassigned from his test pilot instructor job at Patuxent River to head up a Navy contingent at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Stinger had but a short time to get his feet on the deck with the F-14 before he rushed to his new assignment in the desert.
Wringing out the Tomcat
In an interesting irony of life, Hawk, once Stinger’s RIO and protégé, and from whom Hawk had learned so much about carrier operations, fighter aviation, and staying alive, was now his mentor’s instructor in the Tomcat. Hawk had no misgivings about Stinger’s airmanship skills. He was unquestionably one of the most naturally gifted aviators Hawk had ever known.
Stinger and Hawk were scheduled for one flight, just one hop to teach Stinger everything he needed to know about the most technically advanced, most maneuverable, and lethal fighter in the world. This shouldn’t be a problem, though Hawk.
Stinger studied the F-14 manual, completed the required tests, and picked Hawk’s brain. Following a two-hour familiarization brief they were ready to fly. Stinger climbed into the front seat of VX-4’s Tomcat and Hawk strapped into the rear cockpit. It took little coaching to get Stinger through the cockpit checks and out to the runway. As soon as he taxied onto the centerline, Stinger began to discover many of the same problems Hawk had issues with. Stinger stepped on the brakes and smoothly pushed the throttles forward past the detent and into after-burner. “Hawk, please don’t tell me we’re going to hold this airplane on the deck with the brakes while we’re in burner.”
“Oh yeah, Stinger. We can do this all day long! These brakes are amazing!”
Stinger released the brakes. They rolled, rotated, and climbed into the air. Although disappointed by the lack of thrust, once in the air, Stinger’s mood was elevated by the handling qualities and overall performance of the Tomcat. Despite several restrictions on throttle modulation and flight control deflections—and there were several—Stinger wrung-out the Tomcat and Hawk.
The World’s Best Simulator
“The boy could flat fly the wings off an airplane,” Hawk recalled. “Stinger was not one bit apprehensive about yanking and banking that airplane around. The engine still had major restrictions, so we had to be careful about moving the throttles at high angles-of-attack. We also had a series of flight control limitations, but Stinger took the airplane right to the edge of those and was very comfortable with it. As a matter of fact—he was more comfortable than I was.”
During the debrief, Stinger summed up his F-14 ride in one sentence, “I have just flown the world’s greatest flying simulator.”
It was true. The Tomcat felt just like a simulator, not a real jet. Feedback through the stick and rudders seemed artificial. It wasn’t the feel of real airloads on the flight control surfaces and there was little sense of airspeed based on cockpit noise. Ordinarily the faster a jet flies the greater the cockpit noise and the heavier the air loads become on the stick. In the F-14, these were missing. The F-14, by both Stinger’s and Hawk’s appraisal, just didn’t have the tactile feedback of other Navy fighters. “It certainly flew like a real fighter. . In fact, it flew even better.”
The Air Force was still grappling with Pratt and Whitney TF-100 engine problems in the summer of 1973. Delivery of the F-15 Eagle was delayed because of it. But the Tomcat program, now managed within the guidelines of JET, appeared to be catching up with the fleet introduction schedule. VF-1 and VF-2 received their first jets in July 1973 and were already training for their September 1974 deployment on Enterprise.
In the Desert: F-14 Vs MiG-17 / MiG-21
The production Tomcat was deprived of the high-powered TF-100 engines, but they made do with the TF-30. This engine, at least, got them in the air and more importantly, helped maintain that desired symmetry between the number of take-offs and the number of landings.
In August 1973, at a small outlying field in the desert, Stinger Ready and Bob Temme commenced flight operations. At this time, there was still no complete understanding of what the Tomcat could do in the air combat maneuvering arena, especially against Soviet built aircraft. Theories on engine performance, modulation of throttles in the high-angle-of-attack regime, and ideas about changing wing-sweep angle while under “G” and during acceleration and deceleration abounded. Ideas, guesses, and engineering estimates populated the performance and maneuvering envelope where actual test data was missing. There was no document that comprehensively catalogued all authorized maneuvers or defined maneuvering restrictions.
Hawk was assigned the delicate task of writing a test plan. This project would help establish the maneuvering envelope, develop tactics against the MiG-17 and MiG-21, but violate none of the F-14 maneuvering … whatever they were. Performing simulated air combat was just one of those restrictions.
Hawk and Peeps completed and hand delivered the test plan to Rear Admiral “Red” Carmody, Commander, Operational Test and Evaluations Forces (COMOPTEVFOR), in Norfolk. The admiral wanted Hawk’s personal assurance that there would be no air combat maneuvering. Hawk assured him there would be only side-by-side performance comparisons.
On the long flight back to Point Mugu, Hawk and Peeps cogitated over a way to gather performance data and develop fighter maneuvers against real Soviet fighters without actually fighting.
Performance comparisons against the MiG-17
They began the performance comparisons against the MiG-17 in late August. The Tomcat launched from Pt. Mugu, and tanked enroute to the operating area over the Nevada desert. As briefed, Hawk coordinated with the tower controller to pick up the MiG-17, flown by Bob Temme, on the roll. After join up and a quick clean and dry inspection on the MiG, they were ready for the fight, … er, flight test.
The performance comparisons were completed but not without problems. They went quickly and as expected, and there was no ACM—absolutely none!
Hawk’s findings were not surprising. The MiG-17 was one of the first Soviet ventures into the production of jet fighters. It had a small, cluttered cockpit and the visibility outside the aircraft was terrible. The flight controls were not hydraulically boosted which kept all but the body-builder pilots from exceeding 450 knots. Despite the afterburner-equipped engine, it was not powerful. No US tactical pilot was concerned with being run-down by a MIG-17.
In a test of thrust-to-weight the Tomcat was the clear victor. It won the side-by-side acceleration checks from 200 to 450 knots and the zoom climbs hands-down.
MiG-17 distinct advantage over other jets
The MiG-17 had one distinct advantage over other jets, however. At forty-three pounds per square foot, the airplane had one of the lightest-loaded wings ever built. It could turn on a dime.
The turn comparisons were unsettling but not surprising. With the Tomcat’s wings manually set at thirty-five degrees, their forward sweep configuration, and both aircraft starting at ten thousand feet and 325 knots, the MiG 17 could maintain altitude and complete a max-rate 360-degree turn while the F-14 still had ninety degrees to go. The Tomcat also bled seventy-five knots and lost several hundred feet in the same turn. The MiG didn’t have much of a powerplant, but it had a terrific wing.
A second area that was disappointing was the roll rate comparison. The Tomcat, even with several modifications, had an exceptionally slow roll and one that could easily cause problems in a dogfight. Not only did the roll rate wash out after less than a complete 360-degree roll, occasionally the F-14 initiated its own roll. It was not uncommon to experience an uncommanded rolloff at high angles-of-attack while attempting to maneuver the airplane. Stick and rudder inputs opposite the direction of roll were ineffective until the pilot reduced back stick pressure. It wasn’t a violent maneuver and didn’t progress into a full-blown departure, but it was not reversible until back stick pressure was released.
Burner blowout
During the performance comparison against the MiG-17, Hawk had several burner mis-lights and burner blowouts. On jets with engines close to the centerline of the airplane, burner blowouts are not ordinarily catastrophic, but in the F-14, the engines sit nearly four feet from the aircraft centerline, eight feet from one another.
A burner blowout in full afterburner creates a spectacular yaw moment. If the pilot does not quickly reduce power on the engine still in after-burner—a fully developed spin can result in a few seconds. “When I had engine problems,” Hawk commented, “I first relied on the feel of the airplane to determine which engine. It was simple to tell which burner was out; a big yaw into the blowout was hard to ignore. You had to be quick, though, and if you waited too long you could turn yourself into a pinwheel.”
The rolling scissors showed mixed results. Hawk was distracted by two problems with the F-14. He was very busy monitoring his engines for burner-blowouts and responding to the tendency for the F-14 to roll-off at high angles-of-attack. Fighting the MiG in a rolling scissors was a distant third priority somewhere between keeping the engines running and the plane flying. That said, Hawk felt he could out-pitch the MiG-17 in any part of the maneuver.
The F-14’s performance margin was very evident in the flat scissors—the F-14 had a clear-cut advantage. “I felt I pretty much owned the flat scissors against the MiG-17. If I needed to, I could power myself above the fight at any time and stay in an altitude sanctuary.”
F-14 Vs MiG-21
Shortly after his sorties against the MiG-17, Hawk was scheduled to fly two missions against the MiG-21 flown by Stinger. If there was anybody that could coax a jet, any jet, even a foreign jet, to perform on the extreme edges of its maneuvering envelope it was Stinger. Hawk knew that the MiG-21 he faced was going to be tough, but he was now armed with lessons learned from flying the finicky Tomcat against the MiG-17.
The test sequence was identical to that of the MiG-17, but the results were much different. The Tomcat had a slight advantage in acceleration from 200 to 450 knots. The MiG-21 didn’t have a powerful engine, but it did have an after-burner, and the little fighter was slick as a greased frog. It was clearly faster than the MiG-17. Catching or running from a MiG-21 would not be easy.
In the pitch-rate and climb performance comparisons both jets started at four hundred knots, then made a quick four-G pull to bring the nose eighty to ninety degrees above the horizon. The F-14 still had an energy advantage in this test but like the acceleration comparison, not by much.
The Tomcat started to show its stuff in the turn and rolling scissors comparison. During the 325-knot turn comparison, the F-14 so overpowered the MiG 21 that Hawk had to modulate the burners to avoid overrunning it. Hawk flew formation on the MiG 21 and tried to match his turn and determine how much more turn-rate he had available. The MiG’s wing, although a good design for transient Mach, was not designed for slow-speed turning. The jet bled energy far faster than the Tomcat and had difficulty in rebuilding energy lost in the turn.
F-14 outmaneuvering the MiG-21
Hawk was pleased to discover that he could handily out maneuver the MiG-21 in a rolling scissors. “I found that I could control the fight by pulling hard and making tight turns over the top. I’d just pull like hell on top. I’d pull until my tongue hung out. When the MiG was almost under the nose and pulling in the vertical, I’d roll my wings level to match his and pull as hard as I could to take turning room away from him. It was really important to pull hard on the bottom. If you dallied there, all the positional advantage you built on top was lost and you’d flush out in front of him.
“It took about two big rolling scissor cycles to build a clear advantage and another cycle to be in gun position. This was a major test between the two airplanes because it showed the relational performance of the engines, the wing, the roll rate, and the pitch authority in one very demanding three-dimensional contest.
“When we flew against Stinger we knew the MiG-21 was being flown as good as it ever could be … at the very edge of the performance envelope. When the Tomcat outperformed the MiG-21 in all the test maneuvers, we knew the fighter community had a real killing machine.”
Photo credit: Capt. Dana Potts / U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force
