The possibility of returning an SR-71 to flight

The possibility of returning a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird to flight after almost 27 years since its last flight represents one of the most interesting aeronautical challenges imaginable. The aircraft in question is SR-71A number 844, serial number 61-7980, one of the aircraft used by NASA as a research platform and the aircraft that made the last flight of a Blackbird. In 2026, the aircraft was removed from its display position and transferred to a hangar.

According to Aviation Week, some former SR-71 program technicians and engineers were also contacted as part of a possible reactivation project. NASA, however, has not officially confirmed a program to return 844 to flight.

The distinction is important. This is not a conventional restoration of a historic aircraft. An SR-71 cannot be regarded simply as an airframe to which its original mechanical condition can be restored. The Blackbird was an integrated system in which structure, propulsion, air inlets, fuel, hydraulic and electrical systems, flight controls, thermal management and operating procedures were designed to work together in an extremely particular environment: above Mach 3 and at altitudes exceeding 80,000 feet.

Returning 844 to flight condition would therefore mean rebuilding a technological capability that has not been maintained operationally for decades.

An airframe designed to become hot

The first element to consider is the structure.

The SR-71 was designed for an operating environment in which aerodynamic heating was a fundamental part of the design problem. At Mach 3, the aircraft’s surface temperature can exceed 300 °C under certain operating conditions. For this reason, the structure makes extensive use of titanium and titanium alloys, materials selected for their mechanical and thermal resistance.

The issue is not simply determining whether the titanium is still intact after decades. The primary material can be in excellent condition while a secondary part of the system is compromised. The entire structure would therefore have to be inspected: panels, joints, rivets and fasteners, structural attachment points, control surfaces, landing gear, engine nacelles, ducts and internal areas where moisture, contaminants or corrosion may have accumulated.

Extensive non-destructive inspection campaigns would be required, including, depending on the area and component, ultrasonic testing, radiography, eddy-current inspection, high-resolution visual inspection and dimensional checks. It would not be enough to verify the absence of an obvious defect: the available structural margin would have to be reconstructed and compared with that specified by the original design.

Another difficulty is the aircraft’s thermal history. During a high-speed mission the structure underwent significant heating and was subsequently cooled. The materials therefore did not exist in a static thermal condition, but through repeated cycles. An aircraft that has been grounded for almost three decades does not necessarily have the same condition as one that remained in service, even though it accumulated no additional flight hours.

The fuel tank is part of the structure

There is also the environment in which 844 was stored. Aviation Week reported observations from former NASA personnel according to which the aircraft may have accumulated water, sand and contaminants in some internal areas over the years. Before even considering flight, it would therefore be necessary to establish precisely what happened to the airframe during its long period on the ground.

One of the Blackbird’s most characteristic problems concerns fuel.

The SR-71 used integral fuel tanks incorporated into the aircraft structure. The system was designed to take into account the thermal expansion produced by supersonic flight. On the ground, with the aircraft cold, some joints could therefore leak, with the leakage decreasing as the structure reached operating temperature.

For a conventional aircraft this would be an unacceptable condition. On the Blackbird it was a consequence anticipated by the design.

The problem is that after decades it is not enough to know that the system was designed to operate in this way. The condition of sealants, joints and contact surfaces must be verified. Don Campbell, a longtime Blackbird maintenance manager, explained to Air & Space Magazine that resealing the tanks could require approximately 10,000 man-hours of work.

Maintenance of the fuel system would therefore become a genuine structural overhaul activity. Every intervention would have to preserve the ability of the joints to behave correctly as the airframe heats during flight.

JP-7

Fuel introduces a second problem as well: JP-7.

JP-7 was not simply the liquid that powered the engines. It was part of the aircraft’s overall thermal-management system. The fuel had very low volatility and was also used as a heat sink to absorb heat before combustion.

Consequently, replacing it with a modern fuel that merely appears equivalent would not necessarily be possible. Density, viscosity, thermal stability, volatility, behavior within the fuel circuits, compatibility with seals and materials, and its ability to absorb heat according to the system’s design parameters would all have to be evaluated.

The same applies to triethylborane, or TEB, used to ignite the J58s. It is a pyrophoric substance requiring specific procedures and infrastructure for storage, transfer and use.

The fuel system therefore cannot be considered separately from propulsion. It is one of the clearest examples of how the SR-71 was an interdependent collection of systems.

J58 and air inlets: Propulsion is a single system

The Pratt & Whitney J58 is probably the Blackbird’s most famous component, but simply calling it “the SR-71’s engine” does not convey the complexity of the system.

At low speeds the J58 operates as a conventional turbojet with afterburner. As speed increases, however, air is managed through the inlet and bypass system in such a way as to make increasing use of the compression generated by the dynamics of the airflow.

The engine’s behavior is therefore inseparable from that of the inlet.

The long forward nacelles of the SR-71 contained systems in which the position of the centerbody spike, shock waves and air bypass had to be controlled with extreme precision. The objective was to deliver sufficiently stable airflow to the compressor under the expected operating conditions.

When this balance was lost, the famous inlet unstart could occur: the shock wave inside the inlet would move out of its intended position and the airflow to the engine would be drastically altered. The result could be a loss of thrust and a significant aerodynamic disturbance.

The system therefore incorporated automatic controls specifically designed to manage these conditions.

Overhauling the entire propulsion chain

After decades of inactivity, it would consequently be necessary to overhaul not only the J58, but the entire propulsion chain. Compressor stages, turbines, combustors, bearings, seals, pumps, lubrication systems, accessories and afterburner components would have to be inspected according to criteria compatible with an engine intended to operate once again under extreme conditions.

Particular attention would have to be paid to components exposed to the highest temperatures. The afterburner operates in a thermal environment in which the metallurgical properties of the materials are critical. After decades, even a component that has apparently suffered no damage must be evaluated against its service and storage history.

But the most delicate problem remains integration. An overhauled engine is not enough. It must operate with an air inlet whose actuators, sensors, control systems and geometry are equally functional.

The problem you cannot buy: Spare Parts

The greatest difficulty may not, however, be technical in the strict sense. It may be industrial.

The SR-71 program ended decades ago. Most of the supply chain that produced, overhauled and supported those aircraft no longer exists in its original form.

According to Aviation Week, large quantities of Blackbird program spare parts were destroyed in 2007, with an estimated value of approximately $600 million. The figure makes the present situation clear: many components simply cannot be ordered.

It would first be necessary to establish which parts of 844 are recoverable, which could be taken from other aircraft and which would have to be rebuilt.

But rebuilding an aircraft component does not mean producing an aesthetically identical copy.

The alloy, manufacturing process, heat treatments, tolerances, surface characteristics and the criteria according to which the original component was tested must be known. If a drawing specified a particular metallurgical property, obtaining the same shape does not automatically guarantee the same behavior.

The same problem applies to seals, connectors, relays, sensors, actuators and other components that are apparently much less spectacular than a J58 engine. Obsolescence can in fact affect precisely the smallest and most ordinary elements.

A connector that is no longer manufactured can become a problem if its replacement changes electrical characteristics, vibration resistance or thermal behavior. A modern seal may be incompatible with a particular fluid. A contemporary sensor may have electrical characteristics different from those expected by the original architecture.

Every replacement would therefore become a qualification problem.

And then there are the equipment and tools that no longer exist

The same situation applies to ground support.

A complex aircraft is not maintained only with wrenches and general-purpose tools. There are dedicated pieces of equipment for lifting sections of the airframe, removing engines, working on air inlets, servicing hydraulic systems and accessing difficult-to-reach components.

Many of these items were designed specifically for the program.

If they were dismantled or dispersed, they would have to be rebuilt.

And here again, a geometrical replica is not necessarily sufficient. Lifting equipment must have the correct capacity, rigidity and load-application points. A support that lifts the structure at the wrong point can cause deformation. A maintenance tool that is not correctly dimensioned can damage precisely the component it is supposed to make it possible to repair.

Reconstructing the ground-support system would therefore be an integral part of the reactivation.

Hydraulic, Electrical and Avionics Systems

After decades of inactivity, secondary systems also become critical.

Hydraulic lines must be inspected. Seals and elastomers can degrade over time even without significant use. Wiring must be checked for insulation deterioration, connector corrosion and contamination.

The electrical and avionics architecture presents an additional problem: it belongs to a design era technologically very different from the present one.

The SR-71 used a combination of analog, electromechanical and primitive digital systems compared with contemporary standards. It therefore cannot be assumed that every component can simply be replaced with a modern equivalent.

An avionics upgrade can modify power supplies, signals, interfaces, redundancy, electromagnetic compatibility and system behavior. On an ordinary aircraft this is already a complex issue; on an aircraft in which propulsion, control and mission management are strongly integrated, it is even more so.

The most rational solution might be a combination of preserving original systems that remain reliable and selectively replacing components that are genuinely beyond recovery. But every modification would have to be evaluated as part of the entire system.

The Hardest part to rebuild is the human one

There is finally an element that cannot be purchased or manufactured: experience.

The SR-71 was operational for decades. Thousands of people learned how to maintain and operate it. Those skills formed a fundamental part of the operational capability, but not all of that knowledge is contained in the manuals.

A document can prescribe a procedure. An experienced technician may also know which anomalies to look for before a problem becomes obvious, which behaviors are normal and which require investigation.

For this reason, the report that NASA may have contacted former program specialists is particularly interesting.

The generation that built and maintained the Blackbird is naturally disappearing. Every former technician or engineer still available therefore represents a body of knowledge that cannot simply be recovered from an archive.

The same applies to the crews.

The pilot and reconnaissance systems officer were not operating a conventional aircraft. The mission required an understanding of the relationship between speed, altitude, temperature, fuel consumption, fuel transfer, propulsion and air-inlet behavior.

Returning the aircraft to flight would therefore also require transferring that knowledge to a new generation of operators.

The 1995 Precedent is important, but it is not the same thing

In 1995, two SR-71s were returned to service for the U.S. Air Force and were again used for NASA activities.

It is an important precedent, but it does not demonstrate that the current operation would be simple.

In 1995, the program had been retired only a few years earlier. Qualified personnel, infrastructure, spare parts, equipment, procedures and operational knowledge still existed. The industrial and human system had not yet completely disappeared.

844, by contrast, has not flown since October 9, 1999.

Almost 27 years represents an enormous difference when dealing with such a complex aerospace system.

The comparison with 1995 is therefore useful above all for understanding how much the context has changed: then, the task was to reactivate a capability that still existed; today, it would largely involve rebuilding it.

From the Hangar to Mach 3

Even if all the preceding problems were solved, returning to flight would not be immediate.

The first phase would inevitably take place on the ground: structural inspections, tank checks, system tests, electrical and hydraulic verification, flight-control checks, engine tests and verification of the air-inlet control systems.

Taxi tests and progressive trials would follow.

The first flight would have a very different purpose from the one we imagine when looking at an SR-71 photograph: it would not be a spectacular demonstration, but an extremely controlled experimental test.

The aircraft would have to be progressively returned to the flight envelope, collecting data on vibration, temperature, pressure, structural behavior, propulsion and control systems.

Only on the basis of the data obtained would it be possible to progressively increase speed and altitude.

Reaching Mach 3 would therefore require a genuine flight-test campaign. It would not be the starting point, but the final result of demonstrating that every component of the system continues to behave as intended.

Why 844 might still have scientific value

The reason why the operation could have significance beyond simple historical preservation is connected with the aircraft’s NASA history.

The Blackbirds were used as flying laboratories to study high-speed aerodynamics, propulsion, structures, materials, aerodynamic heating and measurement systems.

The SR-71 was a particularly interesting scientific platform precisely because it could carry instruments and sensors into an environment that is difficult for other aircraft to reach.

One of the most significant examples was the LASRE program, the Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment, in which an experimental apparatus was carried beneath a Blackbird to study propulsion technologies intended for future aerospace systems.

This body of experience could acquire new significance as the United States returns to investing in high-speed aeronautical research.

Aviation Week has linked the possible interest in the SR-71 to NASA initiatives associated with Jared Isaacman and the rebuilding of research capability through new X-planes. The coincidence is certainly interesting, but it does not constitute official confirmation that 844 is intended to return to operational service.

And this is precisely where the possible reactivation becomes technically fascinating: a functioning Blackbird could be used not only to celebrate a technology of the past, but as a platform for experimenting with technologies of the future.

Returning an SR-71 to flight: Not a restoration

In the end, the problem can be summarized in a single consideration.

Restoring an SR-71 means preserving a historic object.

Returning an SR-71 to flight means rebuilding a system.

The difference is enormous.

The airframe, designed to operate at extreme temperatures, would have to be inspected; integral fuel tanks and sealants restored; JP-7 and TEB availability re-established; J58s overhauled; air inlets and their control systems returned to working order; obsolete spare parts obtained or reproduced; support equipment rebuilt; electrical and hydraulic systems checked; procedures reconstructed; technical knowledge recovered; and personnel trained.

But above all, it would have to be demonstrated that all these elements can once again function together.

That is the real difficulty.

The technology required has not been completely lost. Documentation, drawings, experimental data, photographs, manuals, NASA archives and people who worked directly on the program still exist. What has disappeared is the ecosystem that held all this knowledge together.

An SR-71 was not simply the sum of extraordinary components. It was the product of an industrial supply chain, a technical culture, operating procedures and human expertise built over decades.

For this reason, the possible return of 844 would have a significance far greater than that of an ordinary historic aircraft returning to flight.

Returning SR-71 number 844 to flight is officially unconfirmed

It would be an experiment in the ability of modern aerospace industry to reconstruct an extremely complex technology after its original industrial base has disappeared.

And it would also be an experiment in the transmission of knowledge: how much of what is required to make a machine such as the SR-71 work is still contained in the documents, how much can be reconstructed using modern technologies and how much, instead, depended on the experience of the people who had actually built and operated that system?

At present, we do not know whether 844 will actually return to the sky. The transfer to a hangar and the involvement of former specialists are documented elements; the existence of a complete return-to-flight program, however, remains officially unconfirmed.

But this uncertainty is precisely what makes the story interesting.

Because returning 844 to flight would not simply mean restoring an aircraft. It would mean demonstrating that, more than half a century after its design and almost 27 years after its last flight, it is still possible to reconstruct the entire technical, industrial and human capability required to make it fly at Mach 3.

Sources

• Aviation Week — Steve Trimble, “NASA Asked Several Former SR-71A Staffers To Help Secret Restart”, 29 Sep. 2026
• Aviation Week — “NASA Quietly Removed SR-71 From Storage Amid X-Plane Push”, 24 Sep.2026
• Defence UA — “Restoring SR-71 Blackbird After 27 Years May Be Harder Than It Seems: Spare Parts Scrapped, Fuel Out of Production”, 1 Oct. 2026
• NASA Technical Reports Server — Peter W. Merlin, Design and Development of the Blackbird: Challenges and Lessons Learned
• NASA — “SR-71B Flight With F-18 Chase Aircraft”
• Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine — Don Campbell, “Keeper of the Blackbirds”
• Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine — “What a Blackbird Drinks”
• NASA — “Where Are They Now: SR-71A #844”
• NASA — “SR-71 Blackbird Simulator Leaves NASA Dryden for New Home”
• NASA Technical Reports Server — Flight Testing the Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment (LASRE)
• NASA — “Seven-Ton LASRE Pod Hoisted Above SR-71 #844”
• NASA Technical Reports Server — LASRE Propulsion Hazard Mitigation
• NASA — “NASA Center Boosted YF-12 Supersonic Engine Research”
• NASA — Armstrong / SR-71 research program
• NASA — Armstrong Milestones

Photo credit: NASA

Flying the Line

Jay Lacklen is a retired Air Force reserve pilot with 12,000 military flying hours. He grew up in Arlington, VA, and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel in 1969. He entered service in 1970 and retired in 2004 as a Lt Col with 12,500 flying hours. Lacklen taught Air Force T-1 pilot training simulators at Columbus AFB, Mississippi from 2005-2014. He grew up in Arlington, VA and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1969. In addition to pilot training aircraft, he flew 330 hours in the C-7 Caribou, 2000 hours in the B-52 bomber, and 9,500 hours in the C-5 Galaxy transport.

He flew in all major military actions from Vietnam to the Iraq War. Lacklen lives in northern Virginia and is married with four adult daughters and two granddaughters.

Lacklen is also the author of three books, Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey, Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey Volume Two: Military Airlift Command and Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey Volume Three: Air Mobility Command. The following story comes the last book of the trilogy.

T-38 Student Pilot, 1971

“Leaving the Tweet [as the T-37 was nicknamed] behind, we moved down the flight line to our T-38 flight rooms to meet our instructors. Mine was 1st Lt. Tom Jones, and I would be his first student after FAIP training. The squadron commander, also named Jones (his first name was “Sir” to me, and he was not related to Lt. Jones), pulled me aside and told me Lt. Jones was one of the best students to go through FAIP training recently; I soon found this to be true.

“Lt. Jones […] treated me as a fellow pilot and comrade, […] He never played “gotcha” on me to make himself look good by making me look bad. At any rate, as a strict Mormon, his strongest epithet was, ‘You tuna!’

“Several instances of flying the T-38 stand out in my memory. First, on an instrument ride, when I had to fly in the back seat instead of the front and with a curtain pulled the entire length of my canopy to block any outside view, I almost did the unthinkable. Since it was a smooth day, I felt no sensation of speed as the IP flew on the initial climb out. I then noticed that part of the instrument curtain was caught under the canopy.

“Reflexively I started to reach for the canopy handle to raise the canopy and free the curtain. My hand got nearly to the handle before I froze. Had I lifted that handle, my canopy would have opened into the 250-knot wind stream and instantaneously departed the aircraft, leaving me directly exposed to that air stream. I almost threw up right there in terror of what I’d been about to do. I’d never have lived that down.

First solo

“Second, on my first T-38 solo, I got into multiple troubles. In one of the maneuvering areas, I decided to do repeated loops, merrily climbing and losing ten thousand feet in each loop. As you pull through the top of the loop, you must look up to see the earth coming back into view. As you finish the loop, there is nothing but earth before you as you streak straight down. I was having a fine time until Center called me and asked which area I was supposed to be in. I gave him the area name, and he informed me I had strayed into the adjacent area in my frolic, and why didn’t I get my butt back into my own area.

“That, however, was mild compared to what was coming. I returned to the Webb pattern, shot an instrument approach, and requested the closed (close in) visual pattern to get another quick landing. As I rolled out on final, I noticed the controls were behaving very strangely. I had to use huge control stick movements to get my desired response from the plane. As I pondered this, the RSU officer came up on tower frequency and asked, ‘T-38 on final, confirm no-flap?’

Exceeding gear maximum extended speed limit

“AAAAAAH! I had forgotten to put the flaps down to improve lift for the slow final approach and now, belatedly, realized I was about to stall the plane a few hundred feet above the ground, something that could have fatal consequences. I slammed the throttles forward into full afterburner, orange shot out the back of the plane’s engines, and I felt a blessed power surge that pressed me back into my seat. Stunned at my lapse and whispering, “Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!” to myself, I heard the RSU controller on the radio again a moment later. ‘On the go, [meaning me], gear?’

“AAAAAAH again! I had forgotten, in my panic, to raise the gear and had now exceeded its maximum extended speed limit. However, it did come up and eventually go down one more time as I full stopped.

“I wobbled away from the plane after landing and skulked back into the flight room. I didn’t know if I could possibly get away with this. As it turned out, I could not.

“One of the loudest, most obnoxious of our section’s IPs had been the RSU officer asking me the questions from the tower, and he soon arrived to skewer me in front of the entire flight. ‘Lieutenant Lacklen, were you Rod 22?’ he asked loudly, knowing full well I had been. ‘Er, yes, sir, I was,’ I said. “Did you write up a gear overspeed when you landed?” he pressed glaring at me angrily as if he had just caught me in bed with his wife. ‘Er, no, sir.’

Three U’s on one solo ride

“As he looked around the room to ensure everyone was listening, continued, his voice rising, ‘Well, let me count up the busts for you on flight—one for flying an illegal [for a student] no-flap, one for over-speeding the gear, and one for not writing it up in the maintenance forms. That is three U’s on one solo ride, mister. Where the hell is your IP? Now, get your ass back out to that airplane and write up that gear!’

“Captain Obnoxious had known he had a student by the balls when, after asking for no-flap confirmation of me on final, he had seen the orange flare explode from the back of my engines, a sure sign I had hit afterburners; I didn’t even need to answer him. Had he not seen that, and had I not answered, his next, panicked command would have been ‘T-38 on final, burners now!” because, as my nose-high, wallowing aircraft movement warned, I’d have soon started stalling and falling. But I beat him to the punch. Then, as I streaked past the RSU with my gear still down, he knew he had me again and he did.

“Earlier in the T-38 program, he had grilled three of us by asking question concerning some button you had to push at a given groundspeed to activate nose wheel steering when taxiing the aircraft. When none of us knew the answer, he stood up and erupted with a shout of, ‘You guys don’t .. know… shit!’ that startled everyone else in the flight room. Now, alas, I had run afoul of him again.

The only U’s

“Argh—the only U’s I received in UPT aside from the initial T-37 bust and they all came on one solo flight.

“We did our solo out-and-back to Amarillo, and I managed to embarrass myself yet again. Fort Worth Center cleared me for a visual approach to the airport that I claimed I could see but had misidentified. Now clueless what to do, I called the IP on the ground with the other cross-country solos and told him I didn’t know where the airport was.

“I was close enough he could see me, so he said, ‘Look at your three 0’clock, Tort 08.’ ‘Oh, now I see you,’ I said. I wished that conversation had not transpired where my peer group could listen to it. I became one of Little Bo Peep’s lost sheep in the retelling of the story at the bar.

A final treat before graduation came on my T-38 cross-country to Hamilton AFB, CA, just north of San Francisco. This flight would transverse the continent and provide a visual approximation of a space trip as we fear westward at 42,000 feet on a clear winter night with another T-38. The sky turned a deeper and darker blue as the sun moved farther below the horizon, and soon it seemed we might be in orbit, far above the earth in our small craft, dwarfed by the immensity of the sky and dark earth below. Can it get any better than this, I wondered, flying a sleek aircraft eight miles above the route to San Francisco?“

Photo credit: Terry Wasson, Civilian / U.S. Air Force

The most important of the Griffon powered Spitfires

The legendary Spitfire entered service with the Royal Air Force in June 1938 with 19 Squadron at Duxford. It proved capable of remarkable development, and was the only allied fighter in full production throughout the Second World War. The Mark I had a maximum speed of 355 mph at 19,000 feet with a 1050 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The final Spitfire, the F.24, had a maximum speed of 450 mph with a 2350 hp Rolls-Royce Griffon engine. More than 22,000 Spitfires (including Seafires) were built.

The Mk.XIV was the most important of the Griffon powered Spitfires, and the only one to see significant wartime service.

Only 957 production Mk.XIVs were built. It was the first Spitfire in large-scale production with the V-12 Rolls Royce Griffon 65 engine, and entered service in 1944. The Mk. XIV was the most successful of all the variants at destroying V-1 flying bombs, accounting for 300 kills. In October 1944 a Mk. XIV had the distinction of being the first to destroy a jet-powered Messerschmitt Me 262.

Given her incredible achievements and capabilities could the Spitfire Mk.XIV have been the best piston-engined fighter of WWII in Europe?

High performance fighters

There were around 20 high performance fighter types at least nominally in service in Europe when Wolrd War II there came to an end:

• Supermarine Spitfire LF.IX
• Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XIV
• Hawker Typhoon Mk.lb
• Hawker Tempest V
• Gloster Meteor F.3
• North American P-51D Mustang
• Republic P-47D Thunderbolt
• Lockheed P-38L Lightning
• Lockheed P-80A Shooting Star
• Bell P-63A Kingcobra (an American fighter but initially flown almost exclusively dive by the Russians)
• Lavochkin La-7
• Yakovlev Yak- 3
• Yakovlev Yak-9U
• Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-9
• Focke-Wulf Fw 190 D-9
• Ta 152 H-1
• Messerschmitt Bf 109 K-4
• Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a
• Messerschmitt Me 163 B-1
• Heinkel He 162 A-2

Which was the best?

According to Dan Sharp’s book Spitfires Over Berlin, from among the 20 aircraft listed here, there are some obvious dropouts when it comes to deciding which was best. The British Hawker Tempest V was a better fighter than the Typhoon, so the latter can be safely ruled out.

The same applies to the Focke-Wulf Ta 152 and both of the Fw 190 types. The A-9 and the D-9 can be ditched. Similarly, the Me 262 would have been the better fighter even if the He 162 could have been made to work flawlessly so the notorious Volksjager has got to go. The Me 163’s endurance was too brief to make it an effective fighter so it can also be taken out of contention.

US fighter types

The slowest of the American types was the P-38 Lightning. It climbed well but was surpassed as a dogfighter, therefore it too has to go.

Though they were good at low-level fighting they were not superior to the most exceptional of their contemporaries, so all three of the Soviet types (as well as theP-63A) can be excluded too.

This leaves a top 10 of the Tempest V, Spitfire IX and XIV, Meteor F.3, P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang, P-80 Shooting Star, Me 262 A-1a, Ta 152 and Bf 109 K.

The non-operational Meteor F.3 and P-80 can probably be ruled out due to ongoing development issues, the Bf 109 K could not be said to have surpassed the Ta 152 in performance, the P-47 Thunderbolt was less manoeuvrable than the P-51 and the Spitfire IX lacked the raw speed to keep up with the new German jets, so a reasonable top five would be the Tempest V, Spitfire XIV, P-51 Mustang, Me 262 A-la and Ta 152.

Here, narrowing down gets more difficult. The Ta 152 was designed as a high altitude fighter and relied heavily on its complex engine to give it an amazing turn of speed. Its guns were prone to jamming and its reputation rests on only a handful of accounts by decidedly partisan witnesses. It ought therefore to be excluded.

The Tempest V was fast and deadly but it lacked performance at high altitude and straight line speed. Would it have been able to best a Spitfire XIV in a dogfight? Maybe, maybe not.

Me 262, P-51

The choice really conies down to three machines – the Spitfire XIV, the P-51 Mustang and the Me 262 A-1a. All three were potent dogfighters, loved by their pilots and feared by their enemies. The P-51 was the best aircraft in the world for its particular role – escorting bombers over long distances at high altitude -but was it the best fighter of the three finalists?

It lacked the speed of either the Spitfire or the Messerschtnitt and its rate of climb was significantly below that of the other two. Its manoeuvrability was excellent but it did not surpass that of the Spitfire.

The Me 262 represented the future of air combat. It could outrun almost anything and its armament was second to none – yet it had serious problems in operational service. Built by dedicated German engineers, flown in numbers from well-defended airfields and kept well supplied with fuel and fresh engines, it would undoubtedly have had the edge over the Spitfire, but in reality Germany’s war situation, coupled with its own design flaws, served to handicap the world’s first truly successful jet fighter.

Me 262 Vs Spitfire Mk.XIV

In the final analysis, there have to be joint winners – the British Supermarine Spitfire XIV and the German Me 262. The Spitfire Mk.XIV was faster than any other piston engine aircraft bar the Ta 152, its manoeuvrability was outstanding, it could perform exceptionally at any altitude and its rate of climb was stupendous. Its short range made it unsuitable for escort missions but in a straight fight it was simply very hard to beat. Nevertheless, in one-on-one combat, a Spitfire Mk.XIV pilot would have found it very difficult to best a Me 262 – particularly with the latter able to fly 93mph faster. The Spitfire pilot would have enjoyed greater horizontal manoeuvrability and acceleration but would still have had to surprise the Me 262, or the Me 262 pilot would have had to make a fatal error.

After the war, former Luftwaffe General of Fighters and Me 262 pilot Adolf Galland said: “The best thing about the Spitfire XIV was that there were so few of them.”

Photo credit: Rob Hodgkins via Wikipedia, Crown Copyright Top image via Scale Hobbyist

The Tomcat

Advancements during the Cold War in Soviet long range patrol and bomber aircraft dictated a requirement for a fleet defense fighter that could engage high-altitude bombers from well beyond visual range. The iconic F-14 Tomcat was Grumman’s answer. Equipped with long range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles, F-14s could engage multiple hostiles over 90 miles away. Needing an interceptor’s high speed while carrying this heavy ordnance, Grumman produced the highly effective variable sweep wing of the F-14, enabling it to operate at a wide range of airspeeds.

The F-14 saw its first combat in August 1981, downing two Libyan Su-22 fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. It saw considerable duty in the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System

According to Home of M.A.T.S., until introduction of a replacement on the F/A-18, the Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System (TARPS) was the only possibility for the Navy to get tactical information about an area or target via a fast flying aircraft, the F-14. Since the retirement of the RF-8, the RF-4B and various A-3 Skywarrior variants, the F-14 was the only aircraft for this role (and can carry at the same time a complete range of air-to-air weapons!) until the introduction of a F/A-18 recce aircraft with reconnaissance equipment instead of a gun!

Taken in 1985 by a TARPS equipped VF-103 Sluggers F-14 Tomcat the IR photo featured in this article shows the Egypt Air Boeing 737 carrying the Achille Lauro hijackers after landing at Sigonella.

During CVW-17’s August 1985-1986 Med deployment, CVW-17’s aircraft were responsible for the successful intercept and forced landing of the Egyptian airliner carrying the infamous Achille Lauro ship hijackers.

More details on the operation are featured in Mike Crutch’s book CVW: US Navy Carrier Air Wing Aircraft 1975-2015.

As Crutch explains in fact, CVW-17 embarked aboard USS Saratoga (CV-60) entered the Sixth Fleet’s area on Sep. 2, 1985, and air wing Tomcats met their first Soviet Tu-95 BEAR three days later west of Gibraltar. During this period, VF-103 sent their TARPS F-14As on a long range recce mission to photograph ships of the Soviet battlecruiser Frunze surface action group.

Achille Lauro hijacking

After turnover with USS Nimitz (CVN-68, with CVW-8 embarked) on Sep. 13, the ship and air wing returned to the massive, ongoing NATO wargames and took part in Exercise DISPLAY DETERMINATION ’85. It was as the final phase of that exercise ended – on Oct. 8 – that the Italian passenger liner MS Achille Lauro was hijacked by Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) terrorists off the Egyptian coast.

As contingencies were drawn up by the Pentagon, Saratoga sailed eastwards from the Ionian Sea that same day – promptly running into two prowling Soviet Il-38 MAYs operating out of Syria, both of which were intercepted by F-14s. The following day, Saratoga was southeast of Crete and launched S-3 Vikings from VS-30 Diamond Cutters to locate the cruise liner, only to receive word that evening that the Achille Lauro had made Port Said in Egypt at the orders of PLF leader Abu Abbas. After the ship docked, the terrorists fled in one of the harbour vessels, and the Achille Lauro’s crew and passengers were free to disembark; the brutal murder of passenger – and US national – Leon Klinghoffer some hours beforehand was not apparent to Italian and US government officials until later that night.

Despite intelligence to the contrary, the Egyptian government stated that the terrorists had already left the country and no prosecutions would be possible. President Ronald Reagan was not going to let a second American’s murder at the hand of Middle East terrorists go unpunished, as had the killing of Navy diver Robert Stethem – a passenger aboard hijacked TWA Flight 847 earlier that year at Lebanon’s Beirut airport.

Egypt Air Boeing 737 SU-AYK

US intelligence – almost certainly aided by Israel’s Mossad – soon learnt of the Egyptian government’s deception and that Cairo’s Almaza airbase would be the point from which the terrorists would depart the country. An Egypt Air Boeing 737 (registration SU-AYK) was observed making an unusual positioning flight for such an airliner to the base from Cairo’s main airport, and a flight plan filed with a destination of Tunisia – a country with close Palestinian connections and known haven for Abu Abbas’ PLF terrorists.

At the direction of the National Command Authority, Commander Sixth Fleet in Naples was ordered to intercept and divert the Boeing to the US base at Sigonella, Italy where US forces would take the terrorists into custody. On course for a port call in the Yugoslav city of Dubrovnik, Saratoga was tasked to carry out the intercept; CAG of CVW-17 – CDR Bob Brodsky – planned to launch seven F-14s (drawn from both VF-74 and VF-103, including a TARPS bird from the latter), supported by KA-6D tankers of VA-85 Black Falcons and three E-2Cs of VAW-125 Tigertails. Knowing that the Boeing would route around Libyan airspace to the north, an airborne ‘gate’ was established south of Crete through which all traffic was monitored. The CO of VAW-125 – CDR Ralph Zia – was airborne in one of the E-2Cs, callsign TIGERTAIL 603 (BuNo 161547), and led the efforts to identify all airborne contacts.

One VF-74 Tomcat pilot would later remark “It was amazing how many aircraft were flying without lights over the Mediterranean that night – from Russian Il-76 transports to even a pair of USAF C-141s that we later realised had onboard members of the special ops teams waiting to capture those onboard the 737.” 

Photos of Egypt Air Boeing 737 taken by VF-103 F-14 TARPS fighters

Intelligence assets had reported that around 2200hrs local time, the Egypt Air Boeing 737 had taken off from Almaza (using the callsign EGYPTAIR 2843) and had set course for Tunisia as flight planned.

After a number of intercepts, one of the VF-103 Tomcats (reportedly CLUBLEAF 205 – F-14A BuNo 160904) finally visually identified the Egypt Air Boeing 737 – cruising at 34,000 feet – and confirmed its registration as SU-AYK back to Zia onboard TIGERTAIL 603. They were soon joined by the other F-14As and, after conducting visual intercept manoeuvres to ‘follow me’ as well as a brief radio exchange between Zia and the 737’s captain, all headed for Sigonella.

After some one and a quarter hours under Tomcat escort, the Boeing 737 touched down at 0040hrs local time on 11 October. TARPS imagery (taken from CLUBLEAF 214 – F-14A BuNo 161134) recorded the stand-off on the ground between US special forces – intent on capturing the terrorists – and Italian security forces, who were acting on the orders of their furious government who had received no prior briefing on the USA’s actions and use of Italian territory. The US forces were eventually withdrawn after a long standoff, and the terrorists passed into the hands of the Italian authorities.

Larry Neal, former VF-103 F-14 crew member who took part in the intercept, explained to me: ‘The day prior to the intercept, we had in fact tracked down the Achille Lauro and using a stand-off LOROPS TARPS system had imaged the ship in anticipation of a rescue attempt. When the ship pulled in and was surrendered, the rescue mission was canceled and we reassumed Alert 60, and headed to Dubrovnik.

Looking for a civilian airliner

‘Later that day, the 1MC launch order came about 7pm. Crews were scrambling to jets in a “fast as you can get there” mode. There was no brief. All I was told prior to launch was “you’re looking for a civilian airliner and you may be cleared to fire.” As I manned up Hummers and tankers were launching. The first F-14 airborne was a Devil (VF-74), but in their rush to be first, they’d launched without a system. CDC decided they couldn’t participate and parked them overhead for the duration.

‘The next 4 aircraft airborne were Sluggers (VF-103). I was in that bunch and was airborne about 7:25 or so in a TARPS jet. We tanked overhead then proceeded to CAP stations, two aircraft at the eastern end of Crete and two at the western. Several intercepts were made of passing comm air. Two bogies popped up to the east. One Slugger was sent out to id. Midway through the intercept the pilot realized that the bogies had their lights off. Ours were immediately turned off as well. That intercept went as described…lights out.

‘Final id with a flashlight and then using the engines as a distinguishing indicator. Four under the wings. We saw these guys again later. The Slugger was called off and told to return to station. About that time, I was given a vector for a bogie climbing NE out of Benina. We were all still midnight. Early contact on the bogey. Id’ed as a Flogger. Ran the intercept to about 35-40 mi, when he turned and RTB’ed.

Lights out Slugger

‘I reset to the western CAP station. We waited a bit. A new contact was detected coming north out of Egypt. It turned west and was immediately joined by a lights out Slugger. The pilot reported the tail number and unusual tail design back to CDC. As the 737 turned and proceeded west, the other three Sluggers all joined up still lights out and basically surrounded the 737. Zia spoke with the 737 on VHF and us on UHF. The conversation and the lights on went as described [in our previous article].

‘Once the 737 pilot had been convinced to proceed to Sig, it became pretty quiet. One of the Slugger jets had been loaded with 20mm tracers but they weren’t necessary. The Italian controllers did at first refuse entry but one of the Slugger back seaters declared “emergency fuel” as a ploy to get us clearance. It worked. We’d left the descent too long not realizing the limitations of the 737. The 737 was too high on its first approach to the westerly runway (27?) and took it around. Over shot the second approach and finally landed on his third attempt.

‘As he landed, two lights out 141s landed behind him and turned their lights on as they rolled out. I was overhead taking pictures at 4K’. We all rtb’ed. No F-14s landed at Sig. Called Hotshot on the way back…straight in. OK 3 NC. It didn’t count towards the line period because it had officially ended. Pissed me off. 5 hrs of night time.’

Another attempt to intercept the 737

Noteworthy as Crutch points out in his book, some sources paint a picture of another attempt to intercept the 737 – confirmed as carrying PLF leader Abu Abbas – as it positioned to Rome on Oct. 11. Some reports even state that F-14s tried to disrupt escorting Italian F-104 Starfighters in an attempt to secure the Boeing airliner. Saratoga had anchored off Dubrovnik earlier that day, and no other US carriers were in the Mediterranean at the time, so a work of fiction or a still-classified incident involving forces of a fellow NATO member? Perhaps we will never know.

Photo credit: Larry Neal, SRA Chris A. Putnam, PH1 William A. Shayka and Lt. Cmdr. Dave Parsons / U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force

Navy aces Randy Cunningham and Willie Driscoll first aerial kill

On Jan. 19, 1972, two VF-96 F-4Js from USS Constellation flying MiGCAP for a 19-plane Alpha strike flying escort on a Blue Tree mission (pre-strike reconnaissance flight) engaged enemy jets for the first time since Beaulier and Barkley’s fight in March 1970. As told by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver in his book The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, the crews were Lieutenant Randall H. “Duke” Cunningham with RIO Lieutenant (jg) William P. “Willie” Driscoll, and Lieutenants Brian “Bulldog” Grant and Jerry Sullivan. The “protective reaction strike” was being flown in retaliation for the shoot-down of a VA-165 A-6A Intruder participating in Operation Proud Deep Alpha, a series of limited-reaction strikes.

Constellation’s Alpha strike’s target was caves suspected of housing MiGs, as well as three SAM sites in the Quan Lang area. They had been briefed to expect SAMs while inbound and had changed their flight profile to avoid the threat, flying inbound over northern South Vietnam then turning up into Laos, then back east toward the target. Cunningham later recalled, “We were told that we would encounter AAA, SAMs and MiGs in the target area. Two MiG-21s were known to be operating out of Quan Lang field and six were based at Bai Thuong, about 60 miles to the north.”

MiGCAP

Cunningham had joined the Navy in 1966, but had not flown in Vietnam before the end of Rolling Thunder. He had been known in his previous squadron for wanting to engage MiGs and had a reputation for flying as close to North Vietnam as was allowed in 1969. His first RIO later recalled that Cunningham had been one of the few in the previous squadron who had applied himself to reading all the secret information that was supplied to the fleet from the Have Drill and Have Doughnut programs regarding enemy fighters, a habit he maintained in VF-96, where he was assigned to fly with Driscoll.

The MiGCAP flew behind the F-4s escorting the RA-5C recon aircraft, flying above and behind the Alpha strike package. Once over Point Alpha, the Vigilante drew fire. The A-7 Iron Hand and F-4 flak suppression flights aircraft began their run into the target, while the rest of the force continued to Point Bravo, 30 nautical miles south-east of Quan Lang. As the strike divisions turned toward the target, the two MiGCAP Phantoms made a slow, descending turn to approach the target north of the strike track, passing just north of the airfield and establishing an orbit point between the target area and the MiG base at Bai Thuong, thus positioned to intercept any jets coming from Bai Thuong.

SAM sites

Fifteen miles west of Quan Lang, Cunningham started picking up AAA radar on his Radar Homing and Warning (RHAW) gear. They were right between two SAM sites. Cunningham was northwest of the Quan Lang airfield when he received a SAM-launch warning and spotted the missile when it was launched from the northern site. “The missile was coming right up under Grant’s belly – he couldn’t see it. I called, ‘Break left,’ but he didn’t break hard enough, so I called for a harder break.”

The missile passed ten feet from Grant’s canopy and detonated at 25,000 feet. Cunningham then got a warning that the southern SAM site had him locked-up and he soon saw another SAM launch. He and Grant broke right and down. “This one kept tracking – I wasn’t defeating it. So, I rolled inverted, waited until it was within half a mile of us, then pulled hard into a split-S. I put the stick in my lap and pulled about 9G’s.”

The SAM flashed past and exploded 1,000 feet above the Phantom. Cunningham recovered and headed northwest, spotting another SAM launched at him from the northern site. “The F-4 can pull only about 3–4G at 300 knots, so I engaged burner. I still had the tank, so I unloaded; I was hanging in the straps. I rolled into the missile, and as it approached me, I buried the stick in my lap.” The SAM detonated nearby, flipping the Phantom from a nose low left bank to a 45-degree right bank, nose high, but caused no damage.

Moments later, Cunningham spotted what he initially identified as two A-7s three miles away, heading north through a canyon at 500 feet. “It dawned on me that those two birds were in afterburner, and the A-7 doesn’t have a ‘burner!’”

MiG-21s

The “A-7s” were two silver MiG-21s, with the leader on the left at about 500 feet, while the second was in a fighting wing 300–500 feet above his leader. Cunningham called “Blue Bandits! North of the field!” Diving to about 200 feet, he accelerated to 500 knots and closed on the lead MiG from behind.

“I thought about punching off my tank, but at that speed we were having problems with it hitting the stabilator.” Driscoll hit the boresight switch, calling “Locked-on, 50 knots closing – shoot, shoot, shoot your Sparrow.” Instead, Cunningham hit the “heat” switch. “From the tail aspect I was much more confident with the Sidewinder than I was with the Sparrow.” The F-4 was 300 feet over the jungle making 500 knots when Cunningham launched an AIM-9G at the lead MiG two miles ahead. When the missile launched, the wingman called it and the lead MiG broke hard to the right. The enemy fighter turned in front of him, still in afterburner, as the Sidewinder hit the ground. “They must have been H or J-model MiGs (MiG-21bis or MiG-21MF), as the MiG-21 just can’t turn that fast without hydraulically-boosted controls.”

Cunningham pulled up into a high-speed yo-yo and barrel rolled left to maintain position. “I expected the big cross-turn – they were trying to bring me right down between them. Instead, his wingman just left him – he pushed over and ran.” The lead MiG reversed its turn and continued toward Bai Thuong. The reversal repositioned the MiG directly in front of Cunningham less than a mile distant, and he fired a second AIM-9, which went directly up the tailpipe. “The aft section of the MiG appeared to come off, the nose tucked down violently, and the aircraft hit the ground, tumbling head-over-tail – no ’chute was seen.”

Warm welcome back aboard Constellation

Cunningham quickly turned right and spotted the second MiG dead ahead, fleeing the fight, headed northwest and pulling away. Cunningham was doing 450 knots, still in afterburner. He chased the second MiG for about 30 nautical miles:

‘I was going to chase him right to Bai Thuong but my RIO asked me for our fuel state. I said, “Willie, don’t bother me now. I’m chasing a MiG,” and he replied, “No shit. I want your state RIGHT NOW!” I glanced at it and was astounded to see that we were down to 6500 pounds. We now barely had enough to exit through the SAMs to a tanker.’

The Phantom was now at tree-top height and taking ground fire from both sides, with tracers passing over the canopy. Driscoll had a full system lock-on, and Cunningham tried a desperation shot. They were at 200 feet with the MiG at 400 feet three miles away. The Sparrow failed to launch, due to what was later discovered to be a shorted cable which prevented the ejector cartridge firing. Cunningham made it to the tanker with less than five minutes’ fuel remaining when he hooked on.

Cunningham and Driscoll received a warm welcome back aboard Constellation. “It was the first kill in almost two years, and we had quite a welcoming committee. In fact, one of the enlisted men knocked the Admiral over to jump up and grab my arm to say ‘Mr Cunningham, we got our MiG today, didn’t we?!’”

The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force

Peacemaker

Conceived during 1941 in case Germany occupied Britain, when US bombers would then have insufficient range to retaliate, the B-36 was to be primarily a ‘10,000-mile bomber’ with heavy defensive armament, six engines and a performance that would prevent interception by fighters.

The Peacemaker provided the US nuclear deterrent until the faster B-52 became available in 1955.

As explained by Peter E. Davies in his book B-36 ‘Peacemaker’ Units of the Cold War, serious opposition to the B-36 came from the US Navy, which had feared the loss of its naval air forces to the USAAF after President Harry S Truman’s 1945 policy of uniting the US armed forces. The US Navy had ordered the AJ Savage, with twin piston engines and one jet unit, to carry the Mk VI atomic bomb.

P2V Neptune

As the Savage was not available until 1949, the P2V Neptune, with a wingspan of 100 ft, was seen as an interim nuclear bomber. It certainly fulfilled the range requirements. Prototype XP2V-1 Truculent Turtle flew 11,235.6 miles from Columbus, Ohio, to Perth, Western Australia, unrefuelled in September 1946. The flight lasted 55 hrs 17 min, creating a record that stood for almost 20 years.

Neptunes were then flown from the flightdeck of USS Coral Sea (CV-43) in April 1948. Shortly thereafter, 12 P2V-3Cs were ordered, these aircraft being specially modified to carry the 9000-lb Mk 8 nuclear bomb. Weighing up to 74,000 lbs, these bombers demonstrated the ability to deliver the weapon against targets up to 2200 miles distant from the carrier in several flights during 1949. Although this performance did not seriously rival the USAF’s heavy bombers, it showed that a purpose-built attacker like the AJ Savage did present a potential alternative strike capability from Midway-class carriers.

USAAF’s monopoly over the nuclear deterrent

The USAAF’s monopoly over the nuclear deterrent, with the B-36 as its centrepiece, also threatened US Navy plans established in 1945 for four supercarriers beginning with the 65,000-ton USS United States (CVA-58), primarily armed with 100,000-lb long-range nuclear-capable bombers. CVA-58’s keel was laid in April 1948, but the ship was cancelled five days later without consultation with the US Navy on the grounds that it duplicated the USAF’s nuclear role.

Defense Secretary Louis A Johnson, who had been a director of the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation from 1942, had also reduced other aspects of naval power to save money, whereas his predecessor (until March 1949) James V Forrestal had received Congressional funding for balanced US forces including USAF nuclear bombers and CVA-58 for the US Navy. Forrestal and Secretary of the Navy John Sullivan fought to stop the B-36 despite strong Congressional opposition. The strain on Forrestal eventually contributed to his mental breakdown and suicide.

A bitter inter-service struggle continued, inflamed by many published articles and unfounded claims by the US Navy that the B-36 contract was the result of financial incentives to several influential Congressmen by Consolidated Vultee. Adm Arthur Radford, one of the many opponents of the B-36 (he called it the ‘billion dollar blunder’ and a ‘1941 airplane’), was the US Navy’s spokesman at the October 1949 committee hearings at which the US Navy case was argued.

US Navy Vs B-36

Disputing the USAF’s claims regarding the bomber’s survivability, he asserted that Soviet forces would easily be able to intercept it within five years. He advocated smaller, faster tactical bombers such as the US Navy’s planned Model 593-8 (XA3D-1 Skywarrior), although they would have attacked targets that suited naval objectives rather than the urban strategic targets that SAC would have tackled. It was accepted that smaller aircraft than the B-36 would have to fly one-way nuclear delivery missions, although their higher speed might at least allow them to reach a target without being intercepted.

To challenge the B-36’s survivability, the US Navy proposed test interceptions on the aircraft by its new F2H-2 Banshee fighter. Simulated interceptions using another Banshee as a B-36 substitute at 45,000 ft had revealed that the fighter could bring its 20 mm guns to bear on a high-flying bomber, and also manoeuvre at that altitude. US Navy F9F Panther pilots reported that the bomber filled their gunsights at a range of one mile. McDonnell had intended to fit afterburners to the Banshee, enabling it to reach 40,000 ft within three minutes, but the afterburner installation was cancelled.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff bowed to USAF pressure and refused to allow actual interception tests in case the B-36 was shown to be too vulnerable in daylight attacks against targets with good ground-controlled radar systems. Many years later, Gen LeMay recollected that he had told the Secretary of Defense that the only way to solve the Banshee versus B-36 argument was for the fighter to fire live ammunition at a bomber flown by LeMay himself. His real point was that a simulated interception exercise would have been impractical since actual wartime combat was the only definitive way of evaluating a new weapon.

Shallow turns to evade fighters

However, in unofficial practice interceptions of B-36s by US Navy fighters at high altitudes, it was found that shallow turns were sufficient to enable the bomber, with far greater wing area than any fighter, to evade many fighters that struggled to manoeuvre in the thin air. The bomber had to maintain maximum speed. The B-36 was known for slow-acting flight controls and engine acceleration responses, and it could lose speed rapidly if the throttles were cut and the huge drag of the propellers took effect.

For the defence, as Rear Adm Don Engen later stated; ‘The Air Force made great pronouncements about the B-36. It was going to do away with the need for fighters. No fighter could fly in the wake of a B-36 without its wings coming off because of the turbulence of the props and jets. We were tasked to go up and show that the wings wouldn’t come off the airplane. So, we would use the ship’s CIC [radar control] on USS Valley Forge [CV-45] or USS Boxer [CV-21] to try to vector us [F9F Panthers of VF-51] to the B-36s. If that failed, we could always see a B-36 up there because the contrail was just humongous. If we didn’t have a ship out at sea to vector us, we kept two airplanes on the flightline to go up and intercept a B-36.

Gun-camera film

‘We had gun-camera film, and our chore was to intercept the B-36 and then fly in the wake with our gun cameras running, taking pictures all the time to show us battling with the wake and in the contrail. Then we would fly right by the B-36 and come down and land. That film would be flown non-stop to Washington and shown the next day by the admirals. They kept asking for more gun-camera film, so we just kept sending it over a period of weeks.

‘[The B-36 pilots] would usually look up at us and wave as we’d go by. We would fly right underneath the No 4 engine. I usually favoured going up the starboard side, and I would usually fly in the wake of the No 3 engine and then slide over under the No 4 engine. Usually, you had so much more speed than them that we’d just pull up and do a chandelle and look down at them. We’d wave, they would wave back and we would then go about our business.’

F3D Skyknights

A rumour that US Navy jets were actually trying to shoot down B-36s was current after several returned from flights with holes in their rudders that looked like 20 mm cannon hits. It was eventually found that globules of oil leaking from the inboard engines were congealing in icy high-altitude temperatures and penetrating the skin of the rudder. Because the oil then liquified at lower altitudes and ran down inside the rudder, the phenomenon was not discovered until cameras were fitted to a B-36.

By October 1949 US Navy F3D Skyknights had made successful night radar interceptions of B-36s at 40,000 ft. Naval fighters tended to have lower wing loading than contemporary USAF interceptors, giving them better high-altitude manoeuvrability. Air Defence Command’s F-89 Scorpions had particular difficulty in reaching the altitude of 99th SRW B-36s during practice interceptions over Michigan in December 1956.

Within a few years the rapid progress in Soviet fighter development would limit the B-36’s superiority in altitude over enemy territory.

B-36 ‘Peacemaker’ Units of the Cold War is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

The Tomcat

Advancements during the Cold War in Soviet long range patrol and bomber aircraft dictated a requirement for a fleet defense fighter that could engage high-altitude bombers from well beyond visual range. The iconic F-14 Tomcat was Grumman’s answer. Equipped with long range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles, F-14s could engage multiple hostiles over 90 miles away. Needing an interceptor’s high speed while carrying this heavy ordnance, Grumman produced the highly effective variable sweep wing of the F-14, enabling it to operate at a wide range of airspeeds.

The F-14 saw its first combat in August 1981, downing two Libyan Su-22 fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. It saw considerable duty in the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Oct. 1, 1985 Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-15 fighter-bombers destroyed the PLO HQ in Tunisia during Operation Wooden Leg. While the PLO restrained from exacting revenge, one of its offshoots — the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) — did not. Working along a plan for a suicide attack on Israeli soldiers in the port of Ashdod, developed over nearly 11 months, four of them hijacked the Italian liner MS Achille Lauro off the coast of Egypt on Oct. 1, 1985. After directing the vessel to Tartus in Syria, the hijackers demanded the release of 50 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.

On Oct. 8, the Syrian government refused permission for Achille Lauro to dock at Tartus: the hijackers then murdered the 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer a retired wheelchair-bound Jewish American businessman and forced the ship’s barber and waiter to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. Subsequently, the hijackers ordered the ship towards Port Said in Egypt: after two days of negotiations, they agreed to give up in exchange for safe conduct to Tunisia.

Navy F-14s trailing Achille Lauro Hijackers airliner

On Oct. 10, the four hijackers boarded an EgyptAir Boeing 737 airliner, which took off from Cairo and headed for Tunisia. US Navy F-14 Tomcat carrier-based fighter jets located the airliner 80 miles south of Crete and, without announcing themselves, trailed the airliner in darkness as it sought and was denied permission to land at Tunis. After a request to land at the Athens airport was likewise refused, the fighters turned on their running lights, flew wing-to-wing with the airliner, and ordered it to land at the Naval Air Station and NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily.

Unbeknown to the terrorist a US Navy SEAL Team Six assault force was also trailing behind them and the F-14s in two US Air Force C-141 transport aircraft. When all aircraft landed somewhat simultaneously at Sigonella, the SEAL assault force immediately surrounded the escape plane with all intentions of capturing the terrorists and taking them into custody.

Territorial rights

Simultaneously, however, Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi claimed Italian territorial rights over the NATO base, and deployed Italian Air Force personnel and Carabinieri (the national military police of Italy), who lined up surrounding the SEALs. A delicate international standoff ensued, but the situation was resolved before an assault became necessary. The US eventually capitulated to the Italians and allowed the hijackers to be taken into Italian custody after receiving assurances that the hijackers would be tried for murder.

While most stories about the Achille Lauro Affair usually end after the two USAF C-141s carrying the SEAL Team Six flew away from Sigonella, the drama surrounding the Egyptian Boeing 737 SU-AYK actually went on. Around 0550 on Oct. 11, the four hijackers finally emerged out of the aircraft and surrendered to the Carabinieri and the Italian Judge Roberto Pennisi. However, PLF-leader Abu Abbas and PLO representative Hani el-Assan remained on board, together with 17 Egyptian crew and soldiers. After negotiations that lasted for most of the day, and in the light of Egyptian authorities officially requesting the return of the airliner while threatening not to release Achille Lauro, which was still docked at Port Said, the decision was taken to let the Boeing 737 return to Cairo.

Escort

As told by Tom Cooper, Albert Grandolini and Arnaud Delalande in their book Libyan Air Wars Part: 2 1985-1986, the airliner took off from Sigonella around 2155, followed by a Piaggio PD.808 carrying Admiral Martini. Suspicious about US intentions, Martini requested a fighter escort — and was soon proven right.

A North American T-39 Sabreliner of the USAF that had remained at Sigonella took off from there around 2204 — without authorisation from the Italian flight control. After a few minutes, it caught up with the airliner carrying the hijackers and began shadowing it from a very close position, apparently calling the crew and trying to divert the Boeing to a USAF base in Spain. Only the arrival of two F-104S Starfighters from the XII Gruppo/36th Stormo, scrambled from Gioia del Colle AB, saved the situation, forcing the Sabreliner away.

Navy F-14s clashed with Italian F-104s

The Egyptian pilot meanwhile turned his aircraft east and into Italian airspace, and only then continued north again. Minutes later, the Boeing was joined by a pair of F-104s from the X Gruppo/9th Stormo, scrambled from Grazzanise AB. When this formation of six aircraft approached Rome, it suddenly sighted shadows of two additional unknown fighters approaching through the darkness from the rear. One of the Italian pilots involved later recalled:

“It was dark but there was enough residual light to see for a few hundred metres. Two F-14 Tomcats appeared from the rear with their navigational lights out. One passed by me and took a position very close to the Boeing 737. We called them on the radio, several times, warned them, and wiggled with our wings to attract their attention to us: I gave the front Tomcat hand signals to distance. But its pilot reacted with [a] sharp turn to the side and positioned behind our Number 4 Starfighter.

“As the Number 4 turned to the side, I’ve heard Number 3 calling, ‘This Zombie is still behind you and doing so as if he can’t hear us, that idiot!’ The other American exploited this confusion and attempted to get close to the Boeing, but I manoeuvred my Starfighter inbetween him and the airliner. He evaded to the side and accelerated. [I’d] had enough, and screamed on the radio in English: `Get lost before we collide, you piece of shit!’”

Answer

This time there was an immediate answer from the Americans:

“You damn sons of bitches! This aircraft is mine. Do you understand? Mine! Get out of my way!”

Meanwhile, all eight aircraft approached within about 40km of Rome and the Egyptian pilot of the Boeing 737 began to descend for landing. Realising the Italian Starfighter pilots would not give up, the two Tomcats descended too; accelerating away at very low altitude, they disappeared under the radar horizon of the Italian flight control — supposedly with the help of electronic countermeasures.

SU-AYK landed safely at Ciampino IAP around 2306 local time. Only seven minutes later, a T-39 Sabreliner — apparently the same that took off from Sigonella and shadowed SU-AYK on the first part of her trip to Rome — appeared over Ciampino, as recalled by the same Italian pilot:

“The American demanded permission to land, but his request was turned down. Then he declared [an] emergency and turned off his radio. He landed and rolled towards the Boeing with [no regard] for everybody else, prompting [the] local authorities to temporarily close the airport. Finally, he stopped close to [the] Egyptians but by then Carabinieri were in position: they surrounded the Sabreliner, and the crew was taken away. I don’t know what happened to them, but guess that affair was quickly swept under the carpet.”

Not prosecuting Achille Lauro Hijackers

Although US officials presented recordings to Craxi of intercepted radio messages between Abu Abbas and the hijackers while the latter were still onboard Achille Lauro on the morning of Oct. 12, the suspicious Italian Prime Minister declared them insufficient to prosecute Abbas and el-Assan. On the contrary, the Boeing 737 was quickly refuelled and transferred to Fiumicino IAP near Rome, where the two Palestinians boarded a Yugoslavian airliner for Belgrade under false names. The EgyptAir airliner was left to return to Cairo, where the pilots received a hero’s welcome.

Libyan Air Wars Part: 2 1985-1986 is published by Helion & Company and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Navy and Mike Freer Via Wikipedia

The Tomcat

Advancements during the Cold War in Soviet long range patrol and bomber aircraft dictated a requirement for a fleet defense fighter that could engage high-altitude bombers from well beyond visual range. The iconic F-14 Tomcat was Grumman’s answer. Equipped with long range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles, F-14s could engage multiple hostiles over 90 miles away. Needing an interceptor’s high speed while carrying this heavy ordnance, Grumman produced the highly effective variable sweep wing of the F-14, enabling it to operate at a wide range of airspeeds.

The F-14 saw its first combat in August 1981, downing two Libyan Su-22 fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. It saw considerable duty in the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Achille Lauro hijacking

On Oct. 1, 1985 Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-15 fighter-bombers destroyed the PLO HQ in Tunisia during Operation Wooden Leg. While the PLO restrained from exacting revenge, one of its offshoots — the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) — did not. Working along a plan for a suicide attack on Israeli soldiers in the port of Ashdod, developed over nearly 11 months, four of them hijacked the Italian liner MS Achille Lauro off the coast of Egypt on Oct. 1, 1985. After directing the vessel to Tartus in Syria, the hijackers demanded the release of 50 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.

On Oct. 8, the Syrian government refused permission for Achille Lauro to dock at Tartus: the hijackers then murdered the 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer a retired wheelchair-bound Jewish American businessman and forced the ship’s barber and waiter to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. Subsequently, the hijackers ordered the ship towards Port Said in Egypt: after two days of negotiations, they agreed to give up in exchange for safe conduct to Tunisia.

As told by Tom Cooper, Albert Grandolini and Arnaud Delalande in their book Libyan Air Wars Part: 2 1985-1986, although condemning the Israeli attack on the PLO HQ in Tunisia, President Reagan put the US Navy’s SEAL Team Six and the US Army’s Delta Force on alert for a possible rescue attempt when Achille Lauro was hijacked. F-14 Tomcats and Lockheed S-3A Vikings from the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-60) tracked the liner for two days until it reached Port Said. Subsequently, Saratoga was released from her station and departed for a port call at Dubrovnik in Yugoslavia.

Military assets on alert

However, when it became known that the hijackers had murdered one of the hostages, the White House and Pentagon put all suitable military assets in the Mediterranean Sea on alert. The Italians deployed four HH-3F helicopters of the 15th Stormo at Akrotiri in Cyprus, with a team of the Italian Navy diver commandos (COMSUBIN). During the day, three Boeing EC-135 and RC-135 ELINT/SIGINT gatherers with Arab linguists on board and one Boeing E-3A Sentry airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft of the USAF were recorded patrolling off the Egyptian coast. Eventually, US intelligence found out that the Egyptian government decided that a chartered Boeing 737-226 of EgyptAir, registration SU-AYH, would take four hijackers of the Achille Lauro and two Palestinians to Tunisia, during the evening of Oct. 10.

The US Commander-in-Chief Europe (USCINCEUR) in Vahingen, West Germany, called the Commander-in-Chief US Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) in London, and he in turn communicated with the Commander of the USN’s 6th Fleet in Gaeta, Italy, and on to the Commander of Saratoga Carrier Battle Group (CVBG), Rear Admiral David E. Jeremiah, embarked on Saratoga. On their order, Commander, Carrier Air Wing 17 (CVW-17), Robert `Bubba’ Brodsky developed a plan to intercept the Egyptian airliner, and this was approved by the White House.

The first Grumman E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft of the USN’s squadron VAW-125 Tigertails was catapulted from Saratoga less than an hour from the moment its crew was put on alert, followed by two F-14A Tomcats, around 1845 local time. The second Hawkeye was catapulted around 2130. One of the two E-2Cs took up a position over the Strait of Otranto (the southern entrance into the Adriatic Sea) and acted as a back-up, while the other continued further south.

The most sophisticated anti-terror operation ever undertaken

Around 2200, Saratoga launched four additional F-14As from VF-74 and VF-103, at least two Grumman EA-6B Prowlers from VAQ-137, two additional KA-6D tankers and one Douglas EA-3B Skywarrior electronic warfare aircraft from VAQ-33 in quick succession. Three further Tomcats followed about an hour later. The southern E-2C, meanwhile, reached a position off the coast of Crete and scanned the sky for any airliners emerging out of Egyptian airspace, while the first two F-14As — supported by one of the KA-6Ds established a barrier combat air patrol (BARCAP) roughly north of Benghazi.

Operating as a team in the darkness of night, the other aircraft launched what was the most sophisticated anti-terror operation ever undertaken until that date, as explained by Sam ‘Spoon’ Witherspoon, one of the F-14-pilots involved:

“Underway in total radio silence, Tomcats occupied four BARCAP stations. Our only communication to the E-2C that controlled the entire operation was via data-link. The Hawkeye from Tigertails Squadron vectored us from one airliner to the other. I was appointed the southern-most BARCAP-station and intercepted several Il-76s at first, all of which were underway to Libya. Each time I would approach from behind and below, and then my RIO (radar intercept officer) would shortly turn on a flash-light in order to read their registration. Each time we quickly disappeared without being noticed.”

The EA-3B and one of the USAF’s EC-135s carried Arab linguists who were listening to Egyptian air traffic control. Sometime after 2200 local time, they intercepted a communication between a Boeing 737 of EgyptAir and Tunisian flight control, which indicated that the Tunisians forbade an entry into their airspace. Shortly afterwards, the EA-6Bs jammed all further transmissions from the 737, de-facto isolating the airliner from the outside world.

Navy F-14s Intercepting Egyptian Boeing 737 Carrying Achille Lauro Hijackers

Meanwhile, the E-2C quickly vectored four F-14As to intercept. The next airliner they found was ‘wrong’ again, and there was nearly a mid-air collision, but the Americans continued, as Witherspoon explained:

“After a while, the Hawkeye ordered us in [a] north-eastern direction, and my RIO to search with radar for a target some 77 miles (124km) away. Shortly after, the Tomcat modex ‘AA205′ — flown by our CO, `Skid’ Massey, with ‘Dog’ Cloud as RIO — found the ‘right’ Boeing 737.”

Massey and Cloud intercepted the Egyptian airliner while it was at an altitude of 10,363m (34,000ft), south of the island of Crete. They approached it from the rear and below with their navigational lights turned off and then used a hand-held flash-light to identify it as SU-AYH from a vertical separation of only 4.5m (15ft), while both aircraft were at an airspeed of 740kmph (400 knots). Five other F-14s, the EC-135, the EA-3B and one of the EA-6Bs then joined the emerging ‘formation’, while the southern E-2C took over all communications with the Boeing using a very high frequency (VHF) radio channel.

Boeing 737 touching down at NAS Sigonella

Intimidated by the terrorists, the Egyptians initially refused to follow American instructions: the E-2C then ordered all the USN aircraft around the Boeing to move forward of the airliner and turn on their navigation lights, and advised the pilot to land at Naval Air Station (NAS) Sigonella, a major NATO air base on Sicily. The Egyptians attempted to contact Cairo and Tunisia, but without success: their radio remained jammed by the EA-6B. Finally, they gave up and agreed to follow US orders.

The Boeing 737 touched down on the runway of NAS Sigonella at 0015 on Oct. 11, as three F-14s circled overhead, effectively closing the airspace for all other aircraft — except two Lockheed C-141 StarLifters of the USAF, which carried SEAL Team Six. An additional Tomcat equipped with a TARPS-reconnaissance pod flew overhead to take photographs of the Boeing and two StarLifters on the runways of Sigonella.

Down on the ground, US special forces quickly surrounded the EgyptAir Boeing, but were in turn surrounded by Italian Carabinieri who requested the hijackers to be delivered to them. In the following minutes, tensions increased to a point where soldiers of two allies nearly opened fire at each other. Italian authorities were meanwhile insistent on getting the hijackers. While the US intercept operation was developing, the US Ambassador to Rome, Maxwell Rabb, attempted in vain to contact Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi in order to inform him about what was going on, and to express US insistence on the arrest of the hijackers.

‘Why Sicily?’

Eventually, Colonel Oliver North, who oversaw the entire operation at the Pentagon, was forced to contact Michael Leeden in Maryland, who used to know Craxi personally from the time when he was working at the US Embassy in Rome. Leeden finally managed to make a call to a surprised Craxi, who answered with a question, ‘Why Sicily?’ The American offered a laconic answer, `Because there is nowhere in the world a place which combined such beautiful weather, rich cultural heritage and good food.’

Not amused, Craxi immediately made a call to the Director of the SISMI, Admiral Fulvio Martini, and ordered him to enforce Italian sovereignty in Sigonella. That was the reason for the Carabinieri surrounding US special forces that encircled the Egyptian Boeing, almost causing a mutual fire-fight in the process. Even a telephone call from President Reagan, who first attempted to cajole and then threaten Craxi, failed to change the opinion of the Italian Premier: he refused to extradite the hijackers, claiming that because Achille Lauro was an Italian ship, they should be put on trial by an Italian tribunal. Around 0400 on 11 October, shortly after Admiral Martini arrived in Sigonella, the Americans finally embarked the two C-141s and flew away.

Libyan Air Wars Part: 2 1985-1986 is published by Helion & Company and is available to order here.

Photo credit: Larry Neal / U.S. Navy

Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft

The SR-71, unofficially known as the “Blackbird,” was a long-range, Mach 3+, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft.

The first flight of an SR-71 took place on Dec. 22, 1964, and the first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., in January 1966.

Throughout its nearly 24-year career, the SR-71 remained the world’s highest-flying and fastest operational aircraft. From 80,000 feet, it could survey 100,000 square miles of Earth’s surface per hour.

Today the Blackbirds remain the world’s fastest and highest-flying production aircraft ever built. The Blackbirds were designed to cruise at Mach 3.2, just over three times the speed of sound or more than 2,200 miles per hour and at altitudes up to 85,000 feet.

SR-71 flying at Mach 3.4+

Today there are many rumors about just how fast the SR-71 could go. The J58 engine temperature limited the top speed. The speed limit for the airplane ironically had nothing to do with the airframe; it had to do with the engines. Right in front of the engine compressor was a temperature probe that reported the temperature to the pilot; when the temperature was around 427C, 800 degrees Fahrenheit, that’s as fast as they were allowed to go.

However, a cold blast from frigid weather could make a difference in reducing the temperature. This would enable the airframe to go faster without harming the engines.

David Peters, former SR-71 Blackbird pilot, explained to me;

‘A little clarification on the speed thing. You are absolutely correct on the 427C. The issue is that I have been limited to less than Mach 3 on a few occasions because the outside air temperature was quite above standard and 427C came up at about 2.95. On other occasions like the Murmansk deal I got above 3.4 (3.49 on the one occasion) and wasn’t close to 427C. The actual limiting airspeed is around 3.55 that is where the spike being at full retraction loses the intercept on the shock wave and can no longer position it correctly in the inlet. ‘Also the overflow of the shock starts to go over the wing and interfere with the flight controls. So the limiting speed as configured would be about 3.55 so long as you don’t exceed 427C.’

Mike Relja, who worked on in with the SR-71‘s for over 30 years, added;

‘I don’t know of any warranty that P&W had or any other parts manufacturer for that matter.

Warranty on the engines

‘On the March 6th [Mar. 6, 1990] speed run Ed Yeilding stated that Don Emmons gave them permission to fly the max limit of 3.3 M, they asked Lockheed if they could exceed that number and Lockheed said no if the aircraft had an unstart above 3.3 it may go out of control and come apart hard to keep the pointy end forward. Also, no fuel flow limits established above 3.3 M were ever tested.

‘P&W did give them clearance to exceed 427 CIT for 30 minutes to a limit of 450 CIT but that wasn’t needed they stayed at the book limit of 427 CIT.’*

The engines maker Pratt & Whitney would not warrant or guarantee anything beyond 427; after that, all bets are off the engine could come unglued or you could shed turbine blades. The SR-71 crewmembers were too responsible to risk and exceeded the temperature limit. They wanted to keep the warranty on the engines, the J58’s.

*SR-71 pilot Ed Yeilding (who along with JT Vida as RSO flew the Blackbird during the speed run of Mar. 6, 1990) told me that another reason they didn’t exceed 3.2 is that they were afraid they’d run out of gas before they got to Dullas airport.

Be sure to check out Linda Sheffield Miller (Col Richard (Butch) Sheffield’s daughter, Col. Sheffield was an SR-71 Reconnaissance Systems Officer) Twitter X Page Habubrats SR-71, Instagram Page SR71Habubrats and Facebook Page Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder Habubrats for awesome Blackbird’s photos and stories.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

Thailand’s Queen flies JAS-39 Gripen fighter solo

Brought to my attention by Alberto Bazzacco (a reader of The Aviation Geek Club), the interesting photos in this post feature Thaliand’s Queen Her Majesty Queen Suthida Bajrasudhabimalalakshana doing her first solo flight training session in a SAAB JAS-39C Gripen fighter jet at Wing 7 in Surat Thani province on Oct. 8, 2026.

Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn not only witnessed the Queen’s first solo flight in a Gripen, but also presented her with flowers and the Gripen Order Golden Patch, an honorary gold-embroidered badge awarded to those who have flown the Swedish-built aircraft.

The milestone highlights Her Majesty’s exceptional aviation prowess, with over 1,188 accumulated flight hours.

Queen Suthida is the first reigning queen in the world to fly a high-performance JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircraft solo.

She prepared through two periods of Royal Thai Air Force training in the province, including simulator sessions under close expert supervision.

The Queen received a briefing on the flight plan and checked the jet before taking-off in the single-seat fighter.

Royal Thai Air Force Gripens

According to Bangkok Post, Queen Suthida has considerable flying experience with a total of 1,188.48 hours in different aircraft including flying Cessna, Pilatus and Piper aircraft, as well as Boeing 737 passenger jets.

On May 13, 2010, she flew a Cessna T-41D aircraft at Wing 6 in Bangkok when she first took to the skies as a pilot. She also flew a two-seat JAS-39D Gripen before doing her first solo flight in the single-seat version.

The Queen has served as a co-pilot alongside the King on domestic and international flights for royal duties. The couple also jointly operated a royal aircraft during a visit to Bhutan in April last year, landing at Paro Airport, which is known for its challenging approach.

The Royal Thai Air Force currently fields 11 JAS-39 Gripen fighter jets and dozens of American F-16 and F-5 jets, some of which have been in operation since the late 1980s.

As already reported, Thailand has chosen to acquire the SAAB Gripen E/F from Sweden over the US-made Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70/72 to replace its aging fighter jets.

The plan is to acquire 12 new fighter jets by fiscal year of 2034 to replace the service aging fighters.

Gripen E

According to SAAB, Gripen E re-defines the rules of the game.

The Gripen E incorporates cutting-edge technologies, the latest systems, sensors, weapons and pods to ensure combat advantage, delivering air superiority in highly contested environments. Silent networking and total sensor fusion across a tactical air unit to blind and confuse the enemy. One aircraft active, the others go passive. Together the team gets the first missile launch opportunity and the first kill.

The aircraft has the powerful GE F414G engine, great range and the ability to carry an impressive payload with its ten hard-points. It also has a new AESA-radar, InfraRed Search and Track System (IRST), highly advanced electronic warfare and communication systems. The E-series redefines air power for the 21st century by extending operational capabilities.

Gripen’s embedded AI capability and its future-oriented cockpit design that features the Wide Area Display (WAD), facilitate the pilot’s decision-making process and provides crucial assistance in the midst of a complex mission. The WAD presents the information in a user-friendly way, which supports the pilot’s ability to select, launch and guide weapons in perfect coordination with other members of a tactical air unit.

The Gripen E has 10 hard-points; offers the best in class weapons and pods from around the world; and has an unrivalled ease of stores integration. Gripen E can conduct air-to-air, air-to-surface and reconnaissance missions. Air supremacy is achieved with the carriage of up to seven Meteor Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missiles and two Within Visual Range IRIS-T missiles. Weapons like these, combined with the ability to use offensive and defensive means simultaneously, enables Gripen E to detect, engage and suppress or destroy targets effectively.

Photo credit: Bureau of the Royal Household

YF-23A thermal designer on why Black Widow II lost ATF competition

The YF-23A competed in the late 1980s/early 1990s against the YF-22A in the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program.

The Northrop YF-23A, unofficially named the Black Widow II, emphasized stealth characteristics. To lessen weight and increase stealth, Northrop decided against using thrust vectoring for aerodynamic control as was used on the Lockheed YF-22A. Northrop built two YF-23A prototypes.

The four-way ATF competition pitted the Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23A “Black Widow II” team against the Lockheed/Boeing/General Dynamics YF-22A “Lightning II” team. The Pratt & Whitney YF119 engine competed with the General Electric YF120 engine. At the end of the competition, the YF-22A “Lightning II” (The YF-22 was originally given the unofficial name “Lightning II”, after the World War II Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter, which persisted until the mid-1990s, when the USAF officially named the aircraft “Raptor”) and the Pratt & Whitney YF119 engine were the winners.

Nevertheless, the YF-23A remains one of the coolest (and most intriguing) aircraft ever built.

Retired Aeronautical/Aerospace Engineer and now owner of Skytamer.com aviation website John Shupek was hired by Northrop in 1985, at the start of the ATF competition to do the thermal design of the back end or “aft decks” of the Northrop ATF.

As Shupek tells The Aviation Geek Club, Northrop built two YF-23A prototypes. “YF-23A PAV-1 (with the Pratt & Whitney engines) was actually referred to as “Spider” and its callsign was painted on the inside of the nosewheel door. YF-23A PAV-2 (with the General Electric engines) was actually referred to as “Gray Ghost” and its callsign was painted on the inside of the nosewheel door.”

“Name the plane” contest

“Collectively both aircraft were referred to as the Black Widow II.” He explains “Why do I know this? I won the contest for the naming of the aircraft. Back around 1987, we had a “name the plane” contest in an obscure building referred to as “AL” which was located about a half a mile away from the main Northrop campus. This AL building is where the initial design work on the ATF program was conducted in utmost secret.”

Shupek continues providing some interesting information about both the role he played in the YF-23A program and the “name the plane” contest. “Basically, my job was to make sure that the backend of the airplane didn’t burn off. I evaluated various types of cooling designs for the aft deck and eventually came up with the decision that “transpiration cooling” was the most effective method of cooling the aft deck of the proposed Northrop ATF design. As time passed, the initial eight airframers boiled down to 2-teams: the Lockheed team with the YF-22A (Lightning II) and the Northrop Team with the YF-23A (Black Widow II).

“By the way the official designations for the two aircraft were YF-22A and YF-23A, not YF-22 and YF-23 as painted on the tails. My California automobile license plate for ten years was YF23A (the correct designation). One of my ATF co-team members chose YF23 as his license plate and was really upset when he found out it was the wrong designation. After the final two teams were selected, we held an in-house competition to determine what supplier would be chosen to build the transpiration cooling tiles that were to form the aft deck of the YF-23A.

TSSAM

“We eventually chose Allison, located in Indianapolis. The Northrop chosen name for the YF-23A aircraft (Black Widow II) was not officially announced until a short time before the original photographs of PAV-1 were made public.” 

“At that time, my design work on the YF-23A was complete, and I moved on to become a Thermal Manager on the TSSAM (Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile) subsonic stealth cruise missile program.” Shupek explains. “While on the TSSAM program circa 1989, I received a phone call from Robert R. Sandusky, Jr’s. (Robert was Northrop’s ATF Chief Engineer) secretary (Greta Kane), informing me that I had won the naming contest. The name “Black Widow II” was quite appropriate because it shared many of the same characteristics of its namesake, the Northrop P-61 “Black Widow” World War II night fighter. Both aircraft had two engines, both aircraft were extremely lethal, both aircraft were all weather aircraft, and the coup de grace for the YF-23A was that it’s RCS (Radar Cross Section) signature looked just like a spider web. The name was perfect!”

“One day I was having lunch with Tom Rooney (former Northrop Aircraft Division vice president) in the Northrop cafeteria and I told him about my YF23A California license plate. I asked him if it was possible to get a picture of the license plate hanging off the nose of the YF-23A. Tom instantly said yes. He wanted to do this because it was a California plate, not a Missouri plate. This goes back to all of the legal problems between Northrop and McDonnell Douglas when the USAF Northrop YF-17 Cobra morphed into the USN F/A-18 Hornet. It was a bitter battle between the two companies that lasted many years.

The Missouri plate

“McDonnell Douglas ended up being the prime contractor, while Northrop (the initial designer of the airplane) was referred as the major subcontractor. For the ATF, these roles were reversed, thus Tom’s statement about the Missouri plate. The only reason we didn’t fly the YF-23A with the license plate hanging off the nose, was we could not find the mil-specs for a ‘License plate hanging off the nose of an airplane going over Mach 2.3.’ Well, at those speeds the string holding the license plate probably would’ve broken anyway. Needless to say Northrop ATF team was really proud of our aircraft. We absolutely knew that it was the better of the two airplanes,” he recalls.

About the US Air Force (USAF) ATF requirements Shupek explains that “the USAF ATF requirements did not require the ATF design to have a lot of agility. The USAF was looking for a stealth fighter that would have a significant time differential between the ATF and the bandit’s discovery of the ATF. For Northrop, the aft deck of the YF-23A was one of the key stealth features of Northrop’s ATF design. Northrop chose stealth over agility to meet the USAF specifications. Northrop’s aft deck design shielded the aircraft from horizontal and look up threats by hiding the exhaust. Lockheed did the opposite, they chose agility over stealth for the design of the aft section of their YF-22A.”

ATF designs

As explained By Shupek one statement, that really tells in just a few words iust how lethal the ATF designs were, was made by Norhtrop Program Manager, Dell Jacobs, circa 1986 for a Wright-Patterson briefing about the ATF program. “The ATF will have the same tactical advantage over the F-15 that the F-15 has over the Goodyear blimp. Believe it or not, that’s a true statement. The statement applies to both of the ATF designs. The first sign that a MiG pilot would have that an ATF was in the area, would be its engine blowing up from a missile hit!”

“The real reason we (Northrop) lost the program was that Lockheed had no new fighter programs at that time, while Northrop had the F/A-18E/F and the B-2.” Shupek reveals. “It was in the national interest of the U.S. to keep Lockheed alive as an airframer. We were told through unofficial channels after the competition, that our design actually met the specs better than the Lockheed design. Believe it or not, Northrop actually won by losing the ATF competition.

“The Soviet threat that the ATF aircraft were designed for evaporated in 1989 as Humpty Dumpty fell off the Berlin Wall and all the Kremlin’s resources and the Kremlin’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again. After Humpty Dumpty, the U.S Congress reduced ATF funding thus forcing the USAF to reduce the number of F-22s that were to be purchased. Meanwhile the Boeing/Northrop-Grumman team kept on building the F/A-18E/F/G’s and everybody seemed to want some of these aircraft for their tarmac.”

P&W jet engine design team for the SR-71

During his 36-year career Shupek was also part of the Pratt & Whitney (P&W) jet engine design team for the CIA/USAF’s Lockheed A-12/SR-71A “Oxcart/Blackbird” engines (J58/JT11D-20), as he recalls. “In my earlier years, as a brand new engineer fresh out of the “Cookie Jar”, I worked at Pratt & Whitney in Florida on the SR-71A Blackbird engines. My job was to design the cooling for the first stage turbine blades and vanes. Again, like the YF-23A, it was my job to make sure that the JT11D first stage turbine blades and vanes didn’t burn up and cause a big boom.

“Keep in mind, during this era, our computers were in their infancy. Both Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney engineers used slide rules for the majority of their calculations. At Pratt & Whitney, we had an IBM 1600 “16K” card reader computer, and an IBM 360 mainframe computer with an amazing “360K” of computing power. My God, who could ever need more computing power than that!”

Going back to the YF-23A program, Shupek says that testing of the ATF aft deck tiles was made at P&W’s FRDC (Florida Research and Development Center) behind Pratt’s YF119 ATF test engines. “We tested several designs behind the engines and found out that the “transpiration cooled” aft deck tile design did the job. I still remember the exact moment when I called Bob Sandusky back in California and all I said was “Bob, we have an airplane!” Needless to say, Sandusky was extremely pleased and we continued on from there. If the tile design had not worked, we most likely would have had to redesign the back end of the aircraft, which most likely would’ve increased the RCS signature of the aircraft, thus making it less stealthy.”

Testing of the aft deck tiles

Shupek adds some interesting details about the testing of the aft deck tiles. “When we did the testing of the aft deck tiles down at Pratt, the YF119 was in the full afterburner mode. This might help you to imagine what it looked like. Imagine a 50 foot long exhaust flame plume coming out of the backend of the engine with seven or eight shock diamonds visible in the exhaust plume. Of course the sound that the engines produced was extreme. For example, when I worked on the Blackbird engines, I lived in Jupiter, Florida which was about 20 miles away from the P&W plant, and the test cells were an additional 4-5 miles back into the Everglades. At night, 25 miles away, we could hear the SR-71A engines being tested.”

“Time marched on, and I eventually retired from Northrop-Grumman in 2000 with the title of Northrop Grumman Program Director F/A-18E/F Super Hornet,” Shupek concludes. “Working for Northrop was one of the “funnest” times of my life. Believe it or not, it was one of those jobs that you looked forward to going to work every day just for the adventure of it. Who could ask for a better job?”

Photo Courtesy of John Shupek

Additional images: U.S. Air Force

Voodoo

Designed to serve with the Strategic Air Command as a long-range escort and “penetration” fighter, the F-101 Voodoo was developed subsequently for both tactical and air defense roles. At the time of its introduction into service, it was the heaviest single-seat fighter ever accepted by the USAF. McDonnell engineers began design studies of a penetration fighter in 1945, and detailed design work started in June 1946. Two prototypes of this design were built as the XF-88 and XF-88A, flight trials started on October 20, 1948, but a change in tactical requirements and a shortage of funds led to the cancellation of the project in 1950.

In 1951, a new USAF requirement for a long-range fighter to serve with SAC as a B-36 escort led to a revision of the original XF-88 design. With an additional fuselage bay for extra fuel and J57 turbojets in place of J34s, it was designated as the F-101.

The F-101 made its first flight on Sept. 29, 1954. The first production F-101A became operational in May 1957, followed by the F-101C in September 1957 and the F-101B in January 1959. By the time F-101 production ended in March 1961, McDonnell had built 785 Voodoos, including 480 F-101Bs, the two-seat, all-weather interceptor used by the Air Defense Command. In the reconnaissance versions, the Voodoo was the world’s first supersonic photo-reconnaissance aircraft. These RF-101s were used widely for low-altitude photo coverage of missile sites during the 1962 Cuban Crisis and during the late 1960s in Southeast Asia.

A great deal of neglect

In the aftermath of the nuclear confrontations over Berlin and Cuba, the 1960s began to see both sides backing away from the threshold. The F-101 Voodoos of the 81st TRW at the twin bases of RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge continued to stand Victor Alert with live nuclear weapons, but the nature of the confrontation was changing. The set of consequences that nuclear weapons imposed were seen to restrict political and military options rather than acting as a stabilizing force of unquestioned American strength in the face of the large numerical superiority of Soviet and Warsaw Pact conventional ground forces.

As told by Ronald Easley in his book The F-101 Voodoo an Illustrated History of McDonnell’s heavyweight Fighter, since the 1950s, Air Force tactical fighter units depended upon the nuclear delivery mission as their only means of demonstrating the relevancy upon which their survival depended. The traditional skills of dogfighting and conventional warfare had, by the early-1960s, suffered from a great deal of neglect. Many recognized this deficiency and its potential consequences within the different branches of the American military, but their views went nowhere within an ossified bureaucracy. Among these young mid-level commanders was World War II ace Robin Olds, who took command of the 81st TFW in August 1963.

Lt. Col. Daniel “Chappie” James becomes Robin Olds executive officer

The 81st TFW had long held reputation of being one of the finest units not only in USAFE, but the entire Air Force. Charismatic, aggressive, and above all, capable, Colonel Olds began to put his stamp on the 81st TFW and hone and polish the unit to an even sharper edge. He brought on Lt. Col. Daniel “Chappie” James as his executive officer and together they set to work. Realizing both the need to maintain proficiency in the skills of conventional warfare and the limitations of the Voodoo, Olds began training the pilots of the 81st TFW in gunnery and conventional weapons delivery for potential close air support missions. However, the nuclear delivery mission remained paramount as the unit sharpened its skills.

By the middle of his two-year tenure as wing commander in the summer of 1964, the decision had been made to replace the F-101s of the 81st TFW with far more capable F-4C Phantoms. Just as capable in the nuclear delivery role as the F-101, the F-4C could also carry a mind-boggling array of short to long-range air-to-air missiles and conventional ordnance to perform the much broader set of missions that NATO would require in the coming years.

Thunderbirds-style show with F-101s

In his mid-40s as his tenure with the 81st TFW was coming to a close in 1965, the war in Vietnam was heating up. Although he had what was arguably the best job in the Air Force, the only thing that Col. Olds wanted to do while a fight was on was to lead men in combat. After World War II, he was assigned to an air defense unit when the Korean War broke out and could never manage to find his way there.

At the stage of his career in 1965, he knew that the next step ahead of him would be to become a general and remain at a desk, rather than leading from the front as was his nature. Almost desperate to get into the fray in Vietnam, Robin Olds took a tremendous gamble. He saw an opportunity to not only enhance the proficiency and esprit de corps of his pilots, but to publicly demonstrate their capabilities and at the same time, use what he saw as the risk-averse mindset of his leadership to get off of the promotion list for brigadier general and remain a colonel, by remaining in position to become a combat wing commander in Vietnam.

Removed from the promotion list to general

With the spring Open House season coming up, Col. Olds decided to form and lead an aerial demonstration team of four F-101s. C.R. Morgan, Tom Hirsch, and “Ski” Fantaski would be the other pilots of the four-man group, with Fantaski designated as the “slot” pilot.

As they practiced their routines, the story goes that the reports got all the way up to General Gabriel P. Disosway, the USAFE commander and an old friend, who quietly relayed back to Olds that what he was doing was against safety regulations and that he should cease immediately before someone got hurt. Olds and his team showed up for their scheduled appearance at the open house at RAF Mildenhall, but rather than the standard fast low-level pass, they performed what Olds has since termed a “nice, safe formation barrel roll” over the runway, then returned to Bentwaters to put on a spectacular Thunderbirds-style show ending with the signature “bomb-burst” maneuver. The performance had the desired effect.

While his immediate superior demanded a court martial for Olds, USAFE Commander Disosway called the famously obdurate colonel into his office for an epic reaming. His Legion of Merit citation to be presented at his change-of-command ceremony was torn up, an extremely negative performance review was filed, and Olds was then notified that he was removed from the promotion list at which point Olds stood up, saluted smartly, told General Disoway that was what he wanted all along, and dismissed himself from the general’s office.

Robin Olds combat wing commander in Vietnam

Col. Olds’ change of command in August 1965 coincided with the retirement of the F-101 from the 81st TFW. Sent to 9th Air Force headquarters at Shaw AFB to cool off until the matter blew over, the wild old combat ace made arrangements to transfer to a unit in Southeast Asia and six months later was on his way to command the 8th Fighter Wing, an F-4C unit in Thailand that was experiencing morale problems, among other issues. Given the excellent leadership team forged at the 81st TFW, Olds brought in Chappie James once again, and as “Blackman a and Robin” they began to turn things around.

Meanwhile, the old Voodoos were destined for conversion into reconnaissance aircraft to serve out their remaining years with the Air National Guard. For both men and machines, the rest is history.

The F-101 Voodoo an Illustrated History of McDonnell’s heavyweight Fighter is published by Schiffer Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force and RuthAS Own work via Wikipedia

America’s submarines

America’s submarines have come a long way since the first hand-cranked wooden rigs. Today’s state-of-the-art vessels are able to support hundreds of sailors working and living together under the sea for months at a time.

Serving on a US Navy submarine crew takes courage, stamina and deep expertise — literally.

Ruptured appendix while on patrol

If a crew member or officer dies on a US nuclear submarine what are the protocols? Do they return to port? Do they meet with a Navy ship?

Eric Hart, former US Navy Submariner on Sturgeon (637 Class) Nuclear Attack Submarine, recalls on Quora;

‘We had a guy die of a ruptured appendix while we were on patrol. It happened very quickly after he went to the med bay*. He was sick but effectively hid it from everyone. Because of where we were, we could not surface to have the body removed. The “Chop” (the Officer over mess deck) had all of the ice cream & some other items removed from the freezer. If I remember right it included a lot of 5-gallon containers of ice cream, sherbert plus steaks, shrimp, crab and other items.

Navy Submariner recalls body bag with crewmate dead body being placed in freezer

‘The items that could be cooked were. This was so the food could be stored in the coolers (fridge). We ate the defrosting deserts right away. What could not be consumed or put in the coolers was tossed overboard. The body (in a body bag) was placed in the freezer in the available space. It stayed there until we made port. The body was then removed while all of us stood honors along the boat deck and on the pier. It was a tough couple of weeks.

‘This was in 1983, 43 years ago. After military service then 20+ years as a cop you become very hardened and impartial to death.

‘We had a job to do. Where we were at, we could not make a mistake. It could have gotten us killed.’

Would a burial at sea through a torpedo tube still be a possibility?

‘The pressure necessary to shove a torpedo out of the tube is a couple thousand PSI. It would literally shred the body in the tube. Forget what war movies show. A body cannot be launched from a modern torpedo tube in 1 piece. It would create a hell of a mess which could disable the tubes usage. I would imagine we would have to be in combat to authorize it.

Very limited options

‘In the Navy any garbage going “overboard” covers submarines who use a compactor and a 10″ tube to eject it out while submerged. The tube uses about 100 psi to eject the garbage out of that tube. Just think of it as a really really small and low-pressure torpedo tube. No, it cannot be used to eject a human body.’

Hart concludes;

‘The options on a submarine are very limited depending on where we are and what mission we are undertaking. It can be months before we see the sun again. If we are under ice, tracking an enemy submarine or enemy surface fleet we cannot surface. Doing so could risk the boat or cause a huge international incident.’

* The Med Bay on a 637 Class sub is a big closet off of the mess deck. It had a sign on the door that said “Medical Bay”. It sounds better than calling it the “Medical Closet”.

Photo credit: U.S. Navy

Su-57: a world beating, game changing aircraft in 1985

The Sukhoi Su-57 (NATO reporting name: Felon) is a twin-engine stealth multirole fighter aircraft developed by Sukhoi. It is the product of the PAK FA (”prospective aeronautical complex of front-line air forces”) programme, which was initiated in 1999 as a more modern and affordable alternative to the Mikoyan Project 1.44/1.42. Sukhoi’s internal designation for the aircraft is T-50. The Su-57 is the first aircraft in Russian military service designed with stealth technology and is intended to be the basis for a family of stealth combat aircraft.

The configuration of the Sukhoi Su-57 Felon is an evolution of the Su-27’s shape adapted for the requirements of low visibility and supersonic speed and agility.

The aircraft is expected to succeed the MiG-29 and Su-27 in the Russian military service and has also been marketed for export. The first prototype aircraft flew in 2010, but the program would experience a protracted development due to various structural and technical issues that emerged during trials, including the destruction of the first production aircraft in a crash before its delivery. After repeated delays, the first Su-57 entered service with the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) in December 2020. The fighter is expected to have a service life of up to 35 years.

How does the Sukhoi Su-57 compare to the US’ F-22 and F-35?

Damien Leimbach, former USAF Avionics Technician, explains on Quora;

‘I think it’s safe to say that the Su-57 Felon is a world beating, game changing aircraft that is the most dominating fighter plane in the sky at the present time.

‘Assuming the present time is 1985.

‘Because in 2024? Not so much.

Su-57 Vs F-22 and F-35

‘First, Comrade Stalin himself said that quantity had a quality all its own. And in this regard, the quality of the Felon just does not measure up. Since the question specifically asks to compare the jet to the F-22 and the F-35, the numbers just aren’t even in the same ballpark.

‘The Felon was supposed to have 150 aircraft built by 2025. So far, they’ve only produced 20. Meanwhile, Lockheed delivered the last of the 180 production F-22’s, twelve years ago.

‘The F-35? Get out of here. Over 1000 have been produced so far, with a total of 3000 ordered that will be delivered by the end of 2045.

‘From an avionics standpoint, The Su-57 isn’t terrible. But it lacks the sensor fusion of the F-35, which inarguably is the best in the world. Even the F-22 doesn’t compare, and is being retro-fitted to make it more compatible and capable.

‘The issue really is money, not engineers. The west has a lot of it and Russia does not. Despite their size, Russia’s economy is about the size of Spain. They can’t afford to invent the best stuff, but the west can. So everyone wants to buy the F-35 and no one wants to buy the Su-57, which only makes the lack of money issue worse.

A re-skinned Su-35

‘The US has 17 countries currently approved to buy the F-35 and at least six more that want it. Russia had one partner on the Felon, India, who dropped out when the plane would not meet production targets.

‘There are deeper issues as well. The F-22 and F-35 were designed from the ground up with state-of-the-art computers and modeling to be top of the line stealth fighters.

‘The Su-57 was largely a re-skinned Su-35, which itself is an upgraded and modernized Su-27, first flown in the 1977. The reason this is important is that there is only so much you can do to reduce Radar Cross Section when your major structural components were designed in the 1970’s, before stealth was a design consideration. It’s the same issue with the F-15 Silent Eagle, a “stealtherized” version of the F-15. You can adapt the airframe to have stealthier components, but it will never have an RCS as small as an F-22 or F-35.’

Leimbach concludes;

‘In short, the F-22 and F-35 have frames designed for stealth, and the Su-57 has stealth adapted to a pre-existing 1970’s frame. Better than any 4th gen fighter to be sure, but it’s never going to be as good as a 5th gen that’s purpose built.

‘A perfect example of this is the rear aspect of the Felon. Half the engine is left exposed. There is no attempt at reducing radar or IR signatures at all.

‘Compare this to the F-22:

‘Or another purpose built stealth plane, the F-117.

‘It’s just not even apples to oranges, it’s apples to bowling balls.’

Photo credit: Mark Knight via Quora, Capt. Dale Greer / U.S. Air Force, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

Harrier GR.7

Famous throughout the world as the first jet fighter capable of vertical take-off and landing, the Harrier was utilised by the Royal Air Force as a ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft in the Close Air Support role (CAS).

The Harrier GR3 was a development of the Harrier GR1, being fitted with improved attack sensors, electronic countermeasures and a more powerful engine over the GR1.

These qualities came into their own during the Falklands War. RAF Harriers were deployed to the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, as part of the Task Force sent to recapture the Falklands Islands. The Harrier GR3 performed attack sorties from the aircraft carrier, and later from basic landing strips on the islands, often in conditions that would have grounded conventional aircraft.

The GR.7 series is part of the second generation of Harriers and replaced the older GR.3. This variant is quite similar to the American designed AV-8B but is built under license and equipped with RAF specific navigation and defense systems and added under-wing pylons. The GR.7 is capable of carrying twice the load of the GR.3 or the same load twice as far. The GR.7 first flew in 1989 and entered service in 1990. Of the 96 GR.7 Harriers belonging to the RAF 62 originally were GR.5s that were upgraded to GR.7s.

The Harrier GR.7 was at the ‘tip of the spear’ for the RAF when it came to employing weapons against well-equipped standing armies and irregular forces in the 1990s and during the first decade of the new millennium. Assigned to the Harrier Force, the GR.7 aircraft undertook No Fly Zone patrols over northern Iraq.

RAF Harrier pilot witness to unfortunate incident

As told by Michael Napier in his book Harrier GR 7/9 Units in Combat, on Apr. 14, 1994, Harrier GR.7 pilots were witnesses to unfortunate incident.

‘On the day in question’, recalled Sqn Ldr I MacDonald, ‘I had just exited northern Iraq to begin the long transit home. I was flying in a pair. There had been a fair bit of operational chatter, so we were aware there was something going on. Just after exiting Iraq, AWACS informed us two “Hinds” [Mil Mi-24 gunship helicopters] had been shot down, and they tasked us to carry out a recce of the crash site. This was obviously an exciting development, so we took on more fuel from the tanker and re-briefed.

‘Our simple plan was to fly over the coordinates at high-level taking pictures, followed by a rapid descent in a “safe area” to ultra-low level for a second recce run. We had often discussed tactics during the tour, and decided there was no middle ground when it came to heights. It was either well above small arms/MANPADS or “on the deck”. We duly flew over the target area at height, “all cameras blazing”. Our return run was flown at ultra-low-level over the target in a battle pair, remaining low until we reached the border with Turkey. We did not see any wreckage, although I recollect the other pilot did see some smoke. The low-level recce was operationally sound (and, in the event, produced pictures confirming the aircraft as UH-60 Black Hawks).’

US Army UH-60s shot down in error by two USAF F-15s

MacDonald;

‘The mission was very exhilarating, and we were “on a high” when we were met back at Incirlik by the RAF Commander (group captain rank) and a very serious looking US Army major. We were not invited to view our films with the group captain and the major, but it was obvious something was up.’

In fact, the F-15s had shot down two US Army UH-60 Black Hawks in error.

Harrier GR 7/9 Units in Combat is published by Osprey Publishing is available to order here.

Photo credit: SAC Scott Travis / Crown Copyright, Sgt. Janel Schroeder and MSGT STEVEN TURNER / U.S. Air Force, U.S. Department of Defense

Flying the Line

Jay Lacklen is a retired Air Force reserve pilot with 12,000 military flying hours. He grew up in Arlington, VA, and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel in 1969. He entered service in 1970 and retired in 2004 as a Lt Col with 12,500 flying hours. Lacklen taught Air Force T-1 pilot training simulators at Columbus AFB, Mississippi from 2005-2014. He grew up in Arlington, VA and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1969. In addition to pilot training aircraft, he flew 330 hours in the C-7 Caribou, 2000 hours in the B-52 bomber, and 9,500 hours in the C-5 Galaxy transport.

He flew in all major military actions from Vietnam to the Iraq War. Lacklen lives in northern Virginia and is married with four adult daughters and two granddaughters.

Lacklen is also the author of three books, Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey, Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey Volume Two: Military Airlift Command and Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey Volume Three: Air Mobility Command. The following story comes the last book of the trilogy.

Traverse City Air Show

There are moments from all careers where you think back and cringe at some of the things you have done over the years. “How could I have done that?” you ask yourself.

My prime example happened at the Traverse City, MI, air show in July 1987, held in conjunction with the National Cherry Festival. […] Air shows are second in danger only to combat. The crews’ guard is down, and thousands of people are watching, a sure mix for disaster. Although this fiasco would be almost entirely self-inflicted.

Air show planners wanted us to arrive early in our C-5 out of Dover. We could wind up blowing little airplanes away if we tried to maneuver into parking by the passenger terminal after other show aircraft had arrived.

We arrived in bright sunlight Friday morning. The “Follow Me” led us to the side of the terminal, where the final marshaller guided us in close to the structure. As the pilot in command in the left seat, I had concentrated on the marshaller so I could follow his instructions precisely. I had no idea where he was taking me; he was in control.

Finally, he raised his arms above his head in an “X” with his wands, and I set the parking brake. As I looked around after running the shutdown checklists, I grew concerned over how close we were to the terminal. The marshaller’s responsibility was to get me into the spot, not out of it. That was on me, but I had let them park me without surveying the spot first.

Rope-a-dope

As I deplaned I walked to the right wing and saw trouble. Although we were well clear of the main terminal building, a covered concrete passenger walkway descended down a small hill by the terminal to the ramp about a hundred feet from the cockpit. I saw immediately we could not clear it horizontally with our right wing. I could taxi over it and probably make it, but that would be highly illegal and I might learn why they attach pilot wings with Velcro patches; so they can rip them off if you screw up.

This was the era of “rope-a-dope,” where we had lengths of rope to gauge if we had enough room to clear obstacles by our dictated minimum of 25 feet. (The rope-a-dope term came from the 1974 Ali vs. Foreman fight where All lay on the ropes and let Foreman punch himself into exhaustion). I didn’t need the rope to know the score, however. At least 10 feet of wing would pass over the tunnel with about 10 feet of clearance, if I was crazy enough to try it.

I decided I’d just have them back us up with a tug at the end of the air show and that would be that. On Sunday when I contacted ground control, however, they said they didn’t have a tug big enough to move us. I was on my own.

Flying up a tug

In my right mind, which I usually am, I would have called Dover and explained my plight, and asked for them to fly up a tug. This would be excruciatingly expensive and the air wing would squawk mightily about how I had let myself get cornered like this. However, I had no choice; that is where they parked me! In addition, however, there were several reservists on this large air show crew who had to be back at work on Monday morning, and that wasn’t going to happen if I had Dover fly in a tug. Then, the final wrinkle appeared that pushed me into insanity.

In talking to the air show manager trying to obtain a tug, he told me CINCMAC was flying in Monday to address the Traverse City Chamber of Commerce. What? You’ve got to be shitting me! The four-star? Here tomorrow? I could just see him spotting my C-5 pinned to the terminal and strolling over to ask me how I had been so stupid to get myself boxed in like this.

[…] I kept contemplating doing the unthinkable… and then I decided I’d do it, taxi that wingtip over the tunnel and escape all heat, unless, of course, I hit the tunnel, and then the heat would be unbearable. Fuck it, I thought, I have ten feet of clearance, no way will I hit it. I let the improbable vision of Gen. Cassidy pinning me to the wall overcome my common sense. I would, however, have to convince the other two pilots, who were also evaluators, to go along with this.

C-5 using reverse thrust to back up from untenable parking spot

As this ill-advised plan unfolded, it got worse than I anticipated. So I took one more shot to avoid doing the unthinkable; I went for a final legal option. The C-5 can be backed up with reverse thrust if you are lightweight, which we were. It needed a higher headquarters waiver, however, because if you hit the brakes too hard, the plane would sit on its tail. I decided to ask because if I, as an evaluator, wasn’t qualified to do the maneuver, who was?

I called 21st command post and got connected, via the command post controller, with Zark the Shark, a long-time headquarters evaluator who would occasionally give no-notice evaluations on local training missions at Dover. If you showed up at base ops and saw Zark’s helmet bag, you knew you were “it” for a no-notice that day. Zark was actually pretty mild-mannered and easy to work with, but I was about to test him.

I told him that I had been taxied into an untenable parking spot at an air show, but I could extricate myself if he would waive me to back up the plane about fifty feet. His answer was swift: not only no, but hell, no, get yourself tugged out. I explained the airport didn’t have a tug. He told me to have one flown in. There went my last legal option to leave that day.

The unthinkable becomes the plan

I had discovered during my career that if I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I contemplated doing something dicey in an aircraft, I should heed that warning and NOT DO IT! Too often, alas, I did it anyway and usually got away with it. I would be playing Russian roulette with my career; I had five chances out of six of getting away with it to avoid a relatively minor sanction. I cannot fathom why I took that chance.

So, the unthinkable would become the plan. The other pilot evaluators shot glances at each other as I explained what I wanted to do. One was senior to me, one junior. After a few moments of silence, they said OK, they would join the conspiracy. They, too, thought the wing would clear the tunnel easily and we would be “outta here.”

Another problem

Surveying what I would have to do, I saw another problem. I had to make a very hard left turn to escape the spot. That would mean I’d have to use high power on engines three and four to overcome the drag of the nose wheels turned hard left. That meant hurricane-force winds would be unleashed behind the right wing, and in the direct path of that blast was a lot full of rental cars. Great! I walked into the rental office and told the manager he had to move all the cars because a hurricane was coming when we started to taxi. He soon had the cars moved.

The show ended and the small planes took their own sweet time clearing a path for us, but finally, it was show time at the air show.

The senior evaluator climbed atop the tunnel to wing-walk me over it. The scanner would clear from the ground. That scanner was a female sergeant nicknamed “Big Bird:’ and she positioned herself well in front and left of the aircraft nose.

Spectators running for their lives

We started engines and asked for taxi clearance to the runway. Ground cleared us to taxi and I started the power up. The turmoil in the pit of my stomach went into overdrive. I pushed up engines three and four, leaving one and two at idle for maximum differential power. The engines rose and fairly screamed before the friction of the cocked nose wheel finally broke loose and we started to slowly taxi out of the spot in a hard left turn.

The wing approached the tunnel and my “tunnel scanner” said it looked good. Just as the wing started over the tunnel, however, Big Bird suddenly screamed “Holy shit!!!” on interphone. My heart lodged firmly in my throat and I slammed on the brakes. The right wing shuddered and began flexing up and down over the tunnel.

“What is it, scanner?” I shouted.

“You should see the spectators running for their lives, pilot!” she said. Apparently a few hundred show-goers wanted to watch the C-5 taxi out and had gathered on the far side of the rental car parking lot I had insisted be cleared. As the engine blast swung toward them, the crowd caught the hurricane torrent sweeping across the lot as it picked up trash, debris and dirt and scoured them with it. Some turned and staggered away in the torrent of air, others dropped their belongings and fled. I’m sure it was quite a sight, but it came at exactly the wrong time. I wanted to kill Big Bird on the spot.

Only one guilty

“You’ve got it made, pilot,” said the tunnel scanner. “I’m coming back aboard.” I finished the turn and I had escaped; it had worked.

As Big Bird came back on board I upbraided her for shouting at just the wrong time for something irrelevant to our desperate task. I was wrong to do that. It was my fault. I did this to us and if anything happened, it was on me, as this was. I wanted to lambast her as a surrogate for blasting myself, instead, for doing this. There was only one guilty bastard here, and it was me.

So the reservists got home to go to work, I got to miss Gen. Cassidy arriving in Traverse City, and Zark the Shark apparently never checked to see how I got out of town. I had been ill-advisedly playing on my proverbial train tracks again, and the train had missed me yet again.

Photo credit: Staff Sgt. Tony R. Tolley, Tech. Sgt. Nathan Rivard, Lt. Col. Thomas Davis, Airman 1st Class Frankie D. Moore and Senior Airman Ashley N. Steffen / U.S. Air Force

Fighter pilots do not chat with each other

Radio signals can be detected. That alerts an adversary to your general location, at least. Banal chatter, on encrypted networks or open channels, is strongly discouraged, despite what you see in movies. Depending on the radiating power of the transmitter, encryption and encoding methods, altitude of both the receiver and transmitter, and weather conditions, signals can be detected up to hundreds of miles away.

Fighter pilots absolutely do not chat with each other in the way you see in the Top Gun movies: they know that anyone on the assigned frequency can hear what you say, unless you use encryption or other methods to conceal your communication.

Communications or radio broadcasts can reveal your location to the enemy

‘So,’ as former US Navy A-7E Corsair II pilot David Tussey says on Quora, ‘the rule of thumb is “no communications or radio broadcasts unless absolutely necessary as it can reveal your presence and possibly your location to the enemy.”

‘I’ve flown many sorties off the Carrier where not a word was spoken on the radio. We used standardized procedures, hand signals, and “in the blind” steering commands broadcast by the E-2 Hawkeye or AWACS. It was known as a “zip lip” operation, and that was the default.

‘The only time I’ve known of any chatting is perhaps on a cross-country flight in civilian airspace with 2 or more aircraft. There is some small talk on the squadron specific freq, but even that is kept to a minimum, such as “Dash 2, what’s your fuel state?” …”4.5″.’

Soviet Tu-95 Bears expected to overfly the aircraft carrier

He recalls;

‘Here’s a sea story: One tour I was the Asst CIC Officer onboard USS Forrestal. I was standing watch as the Tactical Action Officer (TAO), basically the guy who “fights the ship”, launches alert aircraft, etc. We were in the North Arabian Sea. It was just after dawn.

‘That day we were expecting Soviet Bears to overfly us. We knew that two Bears had forward staged to Tashkent, Uzbekistan the day before. But we didn’t know if the Bears would launch to overfly us or not. The policy was to always escort the Bears when they approached the battle group.

Soviet Tu-95 Bear bombers radio transmission detected by the aircraft carrier

‘It was a non-flying day, but aircraft were on alert. I was on watch. We detected an EW transmission in the frequency band we’ve seen Soviet Bears to use before. We could only tell that it was in the vicinity of the expected route from Tashkent to the carrier, not the exact position; probably hundreds of miles away. But that was enough to make the call – “Launch the alert aircraft”, and I had just sent the ship into ongoing flight operations on what was supposed to be a non-flying day.

‘Of course. the Captain and Admiral onboard called me on the phone. My immediate boss, the ship’s Operations Officer, felt my actions were a bit premature.

Don’t use your radio unless absolutely necessary

‘About 20 minutes after launch, the E-2 flying on the vector to the suspected radio transmission detected a pair of Tu-95 Bear aircraft inbound. The F-4s intercepted them at 250 miles from the battle group and they were escorted for the next couple of hours as they overflew our position. Success.’

Tussey concludes;

‘Moral of the story: The Soviet Bears were sloppy in their radio usage. Don’t use your radio unless absolutely necessary; it is likely to reveal your presence and position (and if the US can do this kind of EW intercept, I suspect the bad guys can too).’

Photo credit: U.S. Navy