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An era in U.S. naval aviation came to an end 21 February 1990 when the last two active duty Marine Corps single-seat A-4Ms launched from MCAS Yuma, Arizona, for NAS Alameda, California, and duty with the Reserves.
The aircraft had been assigned to Marine Attack Squadron (VMA)-211, which had flown A-4s since September 1957. The squadron, which flew F4F-3 Wildcats in the defense of Wake Island in 1941, will transition to the AV-8B Harrier II. Its last A-4Ms went to VMA-133.
The A-4 served as a front-line attack aircraft with U.S. Navy and Marine Corps squadrons for almost 34 years, stretching back to the fall of 1956 when Attack Squadron (VA)-72 began flying A4D-ls. The first Marine Corps squadron to receive A4D-ls was VMA-224 in January 1957 at MCAS El Toro, California.
Ed Heinemann, who led the Douglas design team that produced the A-4, called it one of his winners. Bob Rahn made the first flight in the XA4D on 22 June 1954, and the last A-4M, U.S. Navy Bureau number 160264, rolled off the production line in February 1979. It was the last of 2,960 Sky- hawks, and it ended the longest production run of any tactical jet aircraft in history.
“The first time I saw the cockpit mock-up I knew that it would fulfill my dreams of lighter, simpler aircraft,” Rahn said recently. His experiences flying Spitfire Vs, VIIIs, and IXs with the U.S. Army Air Force 31st Fighter Group during World War II had convinced him of the soundness of this design philosophy.
Thirty-four years is a long time for an aircraft that banged on and off carriers, carried heavy ordnance loads, and endured the stresses associated with high-speed, low-level flight. But the A-4 story is far from over. Multiple versions of the aircraft remain in ser-
v'Ce around the world, from U.S. Navy adversary squadrons and Marine Corps Reserves in the United States to various jdr forces in the Far East. The Royal New Zealand Air Force is in the midst a major avionics upgrade of its p^Ks and the Royal Singaporean Air 0rce is flying A-4S-1 Super Skyhawks rcengined with General Electric F404 'urbofans.
Active forces of the U.S. Marine LorPs still operate two-seat OA-4Ms to c°°rdinate tactical air strikes.
That the little dive bomber with the . ' -5-foot wingspan is still going strong 111 1990 would have surprised some People responsible for its future in the early 1960s. A proposal made then to Cxtend the throw of the rudder pedals ?° that long-legged pilots would not aVe to fly with their knees in their lap 'Va-S rejected officially with the terse Raiment: “The expected service life of ae aircraft does not justify the cost of lls modification.”
The small, rugged, reliable aircraft ^as the workhorse of Navy and Marine ^°rPs attack squadrons throughout the ■etnam War, a decisive weapon for he Israeli Air Force in the 1973 Middle East War, and a mainstay for the Argentinian forces in the Falklands Conflict in 1982.
Pilots found it a joy to fly. It was agile, responsive, forgiving, took a good cat shot, and was stable on the ball. It could also take a hit, and it was one of the few jet aircraft with a manual backup for its hydraulic flight control system. It was a handful in a strong 90° crosswind, and shore-based pilots automatically sucked up the flaps on touchdown to get the weight on the landing gear as quickly as possible.
The tendency to arc downwind under those conditions was the aircraft’s only bad habit—and it went away when they retrofitted spoilers.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, the aircraft’s primary mission was nuclear weapons delivery, and pilots spent entire two-week deployments at Yuma and Fallon, Nevada, practicing loft maneuvers from standard entry conditions of 500 knots and 100 feet above ground level. There was little emphasis on conventional weapons delivery until after the Tonkin Gulf incident in August 1964.
Carrier-based A-4s played a key role
Skyhawks in peace and war—a VMA-211 A-4M over the Chocolate Mountains, California; a VA-72 A4D-1 with the early rudder and no probe; the last A-4 with the Douglas team that developed it (l-r) Bob Canaday, R.G. Smith, Leo Devlin, and Ed Heinemann. A VMA-311 A-4E on a JATO launch from the aluminum matting strip at Chu Lai, Vietnam; a VA-93 A-4E taxiing to the catapult on the USS Hancock (CVA-19) on Yankee Station; and Lt (jg) Michael Weakley (VA-23)—all smiles after his A-4 got him back to the USS Midway (CVA-41).
in the Navy’s share of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign of North Vietnam beginning in 1965. When Marine Corps infantry units went into South Vietnam, Marine fixed-wing air went with them; home for the Marine A-4s became the base at Chu Lai, on an aluminum matting strip that had evolved from the pierced-steel plank Marston matting of World War II.
Navy A-4s flew day and night missions from Seventh Fleet carriers though alternating cycles of the monsoon that dominates Southeast Asia. They were used on every kind of mission, from Alfa strikes into the heart of the SAM (surface-to-air missile) ring to night road reconnaissance missions over Laos carrying flares to illuminate the targets for their wingmen. Everett Alvarez, who was shot down on 5 August 1964 and spent more time as a prisoner of war than any other American, was a Navy A-4 pilot. The Navy was still flying A-4s when Alvarez came home in the spring of 1973.
The Marines concentrated on close air support with Snakeye retarded bombs and napalm but flew many day and night missions over Laos. When portions of the matting runway at Chu Lai were closed for repairs, the A-4s strapped on JATO (jet-assisted takeoff) bottles, launched with full ordnance and reduced fuel loads, pickled the JATO bottles in the South China Sea, and topped off from KC-130 tankers before proceeding on their way. When they came back, they made short-field arrestments.
The Navy lost 195 A-4s in combat, most of them over North Vietnam, and the Marine Corps lost 62, mostly over South Vietnam. Navy A-4 squadrons made 107 cruises during the war, topping all other Navy units; Marine A-4 squadrons were continuously in action from the spring of 1965 until the ceasefire was signed in January 1973; they led all other Marine fixed-wing units in missions flown.1
The final flights of two A-4E pilots, First Lieutenant Augusto Maria Xavier, U.S. Marine Corps, and Commander Wynn Foster, U.S. Navy, may serve to illustrate the confidence pilots had in the aircraft. One pilot made it home; one did not.
Flying in support of the Special Forces unit at A Shau in northern 1 Corps in the pre-dawn hours of 10 March 1966, Xavier left his wingman on top of the overcast, punched through despite the mountainous terrain surrounding the camp, and dropped his bombs on a low-level pass aided by flares dropped from an Air Force C-123. He stayed underneath for a strafing run in the face of heavy ground fire and never pulled out of his second run. Xavier had been flying from Chu Lai with VMA-311 since June 1965.
Foster, who commanded VA-163 on the USS Oriskany (CVA-34), was on his second combat tour when he launched into North Vietnam on 23 July 1966. Pulling off the target, his aircraft was ripped by antiaircraft fire that also tore off his right arm. He got the aircraft under control and headed for the Tonkin Gulf. Foster felt that he had to get as close as possible to a surface ship before ejecting—he knew that he could not last long in the water. Although he was bleeding heavily, he nursed the aircraft almost overhead a rescue destroyer before ejecting and was picked up within minutes.
Foster survived, won a fight to remain on active duty, and retired as a captain. Xavier did not come home; ironically, as a child in the Philippines during World War II, he had survived internment by the Japanese. Both were awarded the Silver Star for gallantry.
While most aircraft were tailored to carry specific weapons in the days before digital avionics, U.S. A-4s stayed around so long that they were modified to carry virtually every weapon in the inventory. Sometimes, A-4s were the only aircraft that could carry a particular weapon. A section of A-4s laying smoke to screen a helicopter landing or pick-up zone often proved more effective than gunships or bombers in suppressing accurate enemy fire.
In time, it became difficult for pilots to keep up with all the procedures. Specialization was the order of the day and kneeboard cards with “the gouge” proliferated. Navy A-4 pilots flying from the USS Hancock (CVA-19) took a reasonable approach—VA-55 specialized in Iron Hand SAM suppression missions carrying Shrike missiles; VA- 164 pilots became the laser-guided bomb experts; and VA-212 concentrated on the Walleye television-guided bomb.
When the Ault report resulted in renewed emphasis on air combat in the Navy, A-4s were pressed into service as adversaries, a mission they still perform. The aerodynamics slats, so effective in the landing pattern—half-way out and you were on speed—underwent stresses on a sustained basis that they were never designed for; asymmetric slat extensions under high-g conditions caused some wild departures but unloading the aircraft usually solved the problem. The Blue Angels could not afford such excursions and simply bolted their slats closed.
Navy light attack squadrons transitioned to the A-7, but the Marines stayed with the A-4 for various reasons. Their last version, the A-4M, was every cross-country pilot’s dream—it had a self-starter. But it also had every forward air controller’s dream—a VHF/FM radio that eliminated the requirement for ground units to rely on UHF radios. It also had an improved armament system. But the Marines never bought the one piece of gear that would have made the aircraft effective in the face of modem threats—an inertial navigation system. Dead-reckoning using little more than a wet compass and an elapsed time clock was a way of life, even though some A-4Es and all A-4Fs had been fitted with analog navigation computers and Doppler radar in the mid-1960s.
On the other hand, the A-4 never did get very complicated. Other than the spoilers, it got a new engine, a hump to carry electronic countermeasures gear, nose-wheel steering to eliminate the requirement for differential braking, a modified bubble canopy, and an electronic constant speed drive to replace the mechanical one that had proved a weak link in the high temperatures of Southeast Asia. Its avionics were upgraded and radio failures became a thing of the past. But they never did extend the throw of the rudder pedals.
Inevitably, the aircraft’s basic weight had to go up to meet new requirements, and the difference between the aircraft’s actual weight—including drop tanks, bomb racks, and unexpended ordnance—and its maximum arrested landing weight narrowed. Since this difference equals the maximum weight of fuel with which a pilot can trap, as the aircraft’s basic weight went up, the carrier pilot’s margin for error went down. That A-4 carrier pilots were able to operate with this decreasing margin as long as they did is a tribute to their ability, to the nerves of the carrier skippers, and most of all to Ed Heinemann’s relentless drive to keep the A4D-l’s weight as low as possible to allow for growth.
The last Navy Skyhawk Ball was held at NAS Lemoore, California, in 1975 when the Navy decommissioned its last operational A-4 squadron following the Hancock's return from her final “last annual cruise.” Although he was still recovering from a stroke, Ed Heinemann was there.
The A-4 is one of the few postwar tactical aircraft that stayed simple, a virtue that will keep it flying well into the 21st century.
‘Cdr J.B. Nichols, USN, (Ret.) and B. Tillman, On Yankee Station, The Naval Air War over Vietnam, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987, pp. 163-172.
LtCol. Brendan M. Greeley, Jr-* U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)