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Roger Ball!
He was the second of two children and born on 25 January 1940 in Shandon Baptist Hospital in Columbia South Carolina. He, in every way, gave the appearance of a normal, healthy, well-developed kid of average height, slender but not skinny. History would show that he was anything but normal.
His name was John Monroe Smith, and “Roger Ball!” is his story—a tale that should be told. It intertwines the true, firsthand accounts and experiences of a fighter pilot with the significant developments in the fighter community and historical events in which Captain John Monroe Smith, USN, call sign “Hawk” was a part. Finally, it speaks to the men who laid their careers and sometimes their very lives on the line for their shipmates and their country.
Hawk was a legend in the fighter community. During his thirty-year career, he forged a reputation as a skilled and lethal aviator in the air-to-air combat arena, a natural tactician, and consummate leader. To many, he was one of the most essential pathfinders in the modernization of the naval air war arts.
He was just a man, but his story, his life adventure, is a high-fidelity history of personal achievements for naval tactical aviation, devotion to a cause, and service to his nation. It was a time during and shortly after the Vietnam conflict that America became ideologically divided. The military was disillusioned with the intrusion of nonwarriors in the White House over the conduct of the war, and tactical aviation of all the services was struggling to catch up to the realities of the war’s hard lessons. It was a time when the Navy needed leaders and tenacious thinkers to set things right again. It was Hawk’s time!
F-14 IOT&E
Hawk took copious notes during a long and detailed flight brief with Hal Farley in preparation for his first flight in the Tomcat and the first flight of VX-4’s IOT&E. Hal would fly in the rear cockpit during the first sortie. There were two phases to the flight: a familiarization phase followed by a performance comparison phase against a VX-4 Phantom. When the brief ended, Hawk and Hal manned up.
Hawk was less than enamored with what he discovered initially. “When we took the runway and throttled up, the thrust was underwhelming. You could sit on the runway in zone-two of the afterburner and hold the airplane in place with the brakes. By comparison, you couldn’t keep the Phantom from skidding on down the runway leaving a huge black rubber layer behind the mainmounts even at military power. So, I figured that the F-14 either had mighty good brakes or it had no muscle.
“And the airplane was huge! With the wings extended it had a sixty-four-foot wingspan. It was the biggest tactical fighter in the world. In fact, it was so big a few pilots suggested that if the Tomcat was above you, it would block out the sun. We sure weren’t going to sneak up on anybody. “The acceleration of the F-14 was nearly identical to the F-4 in the performance comparison. We thought the F-14 would be a little quicker with the Tomcat’s wings swept back. We figured out that while drag was reduced, it didn’t make up for the Tomcat’s heavier airframe.
F-14 IOT&E flight number six
“The climb comparison was more impressive, though. The F-14 at 350 knots could match the climb-rate of the F-4 at 450 knots. The F-14 would actually win a climb to altitude race. It climbed at a slower airspeed but reached its best climb speed quicker and started climbing while the F-4 was still accelerating to its best climb speed.”
Hawk and Gordo were teamed together for IOT&E sorties two through five flown from Point Mugu. These flights assessed the radar suite in various scenarios, operating modes, and environments. The tests were carefully scripted: overland, multi-bogey scenarios that thoroughly wrung out the radar and weapons system. This was definitely the strong suite in the platform-to-weapons system integration. The airframe and engine had some bugs to work out, but the AWG-9 radar and weapons suite was everything Hughes Corporation said it would be.
The last of the IOT&E flights, number six, would be flown from the Grumman “Iron Works” operational center at Riverhead, Long Island. This flight was designed to better explore the true performance envelope of the Tomcat and evaluate flying qualities and handling characteristics.
There were many uncharted regions in the F-14 maneuvering envelope. The initial envelope was largely theoretical and based on engineering and test data Grumman and Patuxent River test pilots had compiled.
Test sortie six was scripted to accomplish three primary goals. First, to fly the Tomcat to the extreme edges of its performance envelope in order to assess its flying qualities and maneuvering capabilities. Second, to build more first-hand flying experience and establish an aircraft performance baseline. This was critical in order to compare performance and flight characteristics of the F-14 against other fighter aircraft in later tests. Finally, flight six would evaluate the Tomcat’s performance against the TA-4J Skyhawk.
Black holes in the Tomcat performance envelope
The fighter maneuvers would be kept basic. There were still many black holes in the Tomcat performance envelope and a full-blown ACM engagement could invite disaster. Hawk and Baby Jeff Holstein manned up VX-4’s TA-4, made the long haul to Riverhead and met Grumman’s F-14 test pilot, Kurt Schroeder.
Kurt presented Hawk and Baby Jeff with a long and detailed mission brief. The brief took three hours. The flight would be longer. Due to the duration of the flight, and to comply with a long list of test items, Grumman’s chief test pilot, Chuck Sewell, and retired Marine Marty Lachow, flew a KA-6 tanker dedicated to the Tomcat.
Following the brief, Hawk and Kurt took off in Tomcat number six. Baby Jeff in the TA-4 and Chuck and Marty in the KA-6 met them in the working area. During the first phase of the test, they evaluated full deflection roll rates, wing sweep, acceleration rates, climb-rates, turn-rates, and flew to the “Q” limit, the maximum airspeed limit of the airframe. Results of this phase were well within specifications with the exception of several non-trivial issues associated with roll rate. By Hawk’s recollection, “The roll rate slowed after the initial onset, and if full lateral stick deflections were held in, a hellacious adverse yaw developed.” Some Project Tomcat pilots described the slow roll rate as comparable to a hippo rolling in a river with a crocodile in its mouth. “It was obvious they were going to have to work on the roll rate problem.”
One-versus-one engagement
Phase three, the one-versus-one engagement with the TA-4, was altogether a different story. The one-versus-one was flown against Baby Jeff Holstein in a TA-4. Baby Jeff was one of a handful of VX-4 pilots qualified to perform dissimilar air combat maneuvering in the TA-4. He was an exceptional fighter pilot in whose hands the TA-4 took on a new life form. This particular TA-4 was equipped with a P-8 engine instead of the standard P-6. This upgrade added another six hundred pounds of thrust to the Scooter which only made Baby Jeff more dangerous.
While Hawk and Kurt hit the KA-6 tanker, Hawk replayed his game plan. “I just wanted to control the fight and remain offensive, something the F-4 couldn’t always do well against a properly flown Scooter. It wasn’t necessary to win, but I wanted to at least hold Jeff off. When it was time to leave the fight, I wanted to leave in a hurry and not have to worry about looking over my shoulder wondering if Jeff was going to get a shot on me.”
Hawk finished tanking, got a visual on Jeff, and took a split. He completed the combat checklist, built airspeed, and with a “Ready. Fight’s on!” from Jeff, Hawk turned in.
Slow speed maneuvering, vertical maneuvering
There were several engagements that day and many data points. “All in all, I was impressed with the Tomcat. It was really a relief to find that the Tomcat could do something much better than the Phantom—much better than any U.S. fighter. The Tomcat’s profuse use of the vertical and slow speed maneuverability really distinguished itself from the Phantom. If we had 350 knots, the Scooter couldn’t match our vertical extension, and we could pretty much drive the fight anywhere we wanted. The F-4 could do something similar, but it needed at least 450 knots.
“During slow speed maneuvering, I immediately noticed I could move the controls a lot more and didn’t have to worry about departing. Not so in the Phantom. Horsing that airplane around at slow speeds and high angles-of attack would surely take you for a ride.
“In vertical maneuvering, the F-14’s engagement and fighting speed was about a hundred knots less than the Phantom’s. In horizontal maneuvering, the F-14’s turn was far superior to the TA-4. With the wings extended forward the F-14 didn’t bleed airspeed like the TA-4, and it could regain it faster.
Visibility outside of the airplane
“One of the most important design points, unrelated to airframe and engine performance, is visibility outside of the airplane. In this area the F-14 was better than any airplane I’d ever flown, except maybe the F-86. In the F-4 you had to rely on the RIO plenty when the bogey was behind the wing line. But on the F-14 the pilot could keep sight of the bogey all the time and he was therefore less reliant on the RIO.
“And as big as the Tomcat was, we were also very happy to dispel the myth that if the Tomcat went for the sun, it caused an eclipse.”
Test Flight Six took over three hours. Hawk and Kurt thoroughly exercised the jet and themselves. When it was over, Hawk’s opinion of the big jet had jumped exponentially. “We reported that the time to climb, though only slightly better than the F-4, required far less distance over the ground to arrive at the target altitude. Further, slow speed handling characteristics and stability were far superior to the Phantom. The F-14 had excellent point-ability, good vertical capability, and superb visibility. And all this would significantly improve survivability in a multi- bogey scenario.
Confidential F-14 IOT&E report
“There were two nagging problems that needed fixing, though. The roll rate was slow, and the engines were underpowered.” Hawk and Gordie assessed and documented the test results in a confidential Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) report. That report, joined with the Patuxent River Navy Preliminary Evaluation, concluded that with rare exception, the Tomcat had met or exceeded design specifications and performance criteria. It was not without its share of hiccups, but even with the engine and roll rate problems, it was a very significant milestone in the development of the Tomcat and a monumental win for the program. The F-14 was showing true promise. Continued modifications and enhancements would only make it better.
Better unfortunately comes with a price tag. Some offices and agencies were opposed to acquisition of the Tomcat from the start. In spite of the reports trumpeting the Tomcat’s superior performance and tactical agility they did nothing to satiate the GAO’s thirst for ways to cut Department of Defense spending. GAO, always a believer in the half-empty glass, was one of those offices that argued that the Tomcat was far too expensive!
Photo credit: U.S. Navy
