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The Skyhawk
Douglas built 2,960 A-4 Skyhawk aircraft between 1954 and 1979. Built small to be cost effective and so that more of them could be accommodated on a carrier, the lightweight, high-speed bombers were affectionately nicknamed “Heinemann’s Hot Rod” (after Douglas designer Ed Heinemann), the Bantam Bomber, Mighty Mite and Scooter.
A small package with a powerful punch, the Skyhawk enjoyed many advantages over larger Navy planes. A-4s were easy to manage on an aircraft carrier deck and their stubby modified delta wings didn’t need to be folded for storage. Without complex wing-folding mechanisms, the Skyhawk was even lighter and simpler to maintain. These attributes allowed it to stay in operational service with the U.S. and several other countries for over 35 years. The Skyhawk had one of the longest production runs of any American combat aircraft, with 2,960 built over 26 years.
Skyhawks provided the US Navy and Marines and friendly nations with maneuverable, yet powerful, attack bombers that had great altitude and range capabilities, plus an unusual flexibility in armament capacity.
The Marine mechanic who stole an A-4M
On Ju. 4, 1986 21-year-old Lance Cpl. Howard Foote, a Marine mechanic at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) El Toro, stole an A-4M Skyhawk, an $18 million military jet, for a 45 minute joyride during which time he performed several aerobatic maneuvers. He had wanted to be a fighter pilot but an injury prevented him from qualifying.
On Ju. 4, 1986 21-year-old Lance Cpl. Howard Foote, a Marine mechanic at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) El Toro, stole an A-4M Skyhawk, an $18 million military jet, for a 45 minute joyride during which time he performed several aerobatic maneuvers. He had wanted to be a fighter pilot but an injury prevented him from qualifying.
The 21-year-old Los Alamitos native was fulfilling his lifelong dream of being at the throttle of a fighter jet, albeit a stolen one. “I had worked my entire life for this flight,” Foote said to Los Angeles Times. “There was nothing else.”
Foote, who flew gliders in his spare time, suffered an aerial embolism, a form of bends, in February 1986 while attempting to set a glider altitude record. In late June, doctors told Foote that the injury would prevent him from being able to qualify as a Marine Corps pilot. Several days later he stole the Skyhawk.
According to Military.com, Foote drove up to the plane in a vehicle used to take pilots to their aircraft wearing a flight suit to dress the part.
He flew the A-4 for 50 miles, roughly a half-hour, doing loops and barrel rolls over the Pacific Ocean. He then landed it after making five passes of the runway.
No one tracked the plane. They didn’t send any other fighters to intercept it. Foote brought it back on his own.
His stunt cost him over four months in the brig and an other-than-honorable discharge.
Legend on a small scale
A former VMA-242 A-6 Plane Captain who served with Foote remembers: ‘I personally knew Lcpl Foote as he and I became friends. I very much remember this event. We both served in VMA-242 as Plane Captains on A-6 Intruders at MCAS El Toro. I helped train him when he first came to the squadron and we became friends. Thereafter, I learned he was a gifted and talented high altitude glider pilot with aspirations to be a Marine pilot. The upper leadership on base got introduced to him and began grooming him to be a future pilot […]. After finding out he was no longer qualified to be a Marine pilot, he stole the Skyhawk and became a legend on a small scale. I rarely spoke about him to others because I thought people would not believe the story.’
Foote tried to fly for Israel and Honduras after his discharge. Foote later qualified as a test pilot in more than 20 different military and civilian aircraft, and became a contractor to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He holds patents in aviation design and engineering technology.
The following video by The History Guy tells Foote’s story.
Photo credit: U.S. Navy
