SeaWings: A-5 Vigilante

the origin of the Vigilante program can be Loosely traced to an event that would become America's answer to Pearl Harbor on the afternoon of April 18 1942 Jimmy Doolittle and his crack volunteer group prepared to embark on a surprise attack on Tokyo this was no ordinary air raid the attack was to be carried out by 16 Army Air corps bombers deployed from an unlikely airstrip the USS Hornet the events of that rainy afternoon were unprecedented not only because of the unique inter-service cooperation but it proved that a Navy carrier was an effective platform for long-range bombing the American strategy was effective Doolittle's Raiders had dealt an important psychological blow to a seemingly invulnerable adversary the role of the aircraft carrier in this attack would not be forgotten just three years later American planes again dropped bombs on Japan only this time the symbolism of the attack was overshadowed by the destructive power of the weapon used the onset of the nuclear age brought with it a fundamental change in military thinking having delivered the final blow to Japan the U.S Air Force assumed the mantle as the sole possessor of the nuclear end game as post-war Euphoria gave way to Cold War reality the con bear B-47 and later the Boeing B-52 strato Fortress were fit for the role of nuclear delivery long-range strategic bombing became a defense priority now equipped with an aircraft that could reach the Soviet Heartland from American bases the aircraft carrier was deemed redundant struggling to find a role in the era of the Strategic bomber the Navy put forth a nuclear-capable aircraft of its own the North American AJ Savage was clearly the result of the desire for a nuclear bomber combined with an inherent distrust of pure jet aircraft the two piston engines provided the security of low-speed carrier operations while a single jet engine mounted in the center of the fuselage provided the speed with two turning in one burning The Savage was a clever hybrid however by the time it reached the carrier decks it was already becoming obsolete by 1949 the Douglas company began developing its jet-powered follow-on the a3d Sky Warrior when the Navy ordered the Douglas Sky Warrior in 1949 it was clear that pure jet propulsion was gaining trust aboard carrier dicks like most early nuclear bombers the Sky Warrior was a massive plane 76 feet in length and a 72-foot wingspan made it the largest plane ever to be deployed from the deck of a carrier however like most early large Jets the Sky Warrior was relatively slow unable to reach supersonic speeds it was deemed vulnerable to rapidly improving Soviet air defense because of its sheer size the Sky Warrior was disliked by deck handlers the absence of an ejection system was unsettling to its three crew members in fact many Pilots joked that a3d stood for all three dead while the mammoth Sky Warrior assumed the more passive roles of electronic warfare and tanking the Navy set out to find a nuclear bomber that would go faster than ever before at the North American Aviation plan in Columbus Ohio the challenge of creating a new nuclear bomber was given full priority headed by Frank Compton the Columbus designers took the initiative in preempting the Navy's request for a new bomber beginning with sketches and slide rules the small group delved enthusiastically into the uncharted waters of the aerodynamic unknown by 1954 the implications of technological growth had a profound effect on American bomber tactics advancements in radar-guided surface-to-air missiles had all but nullified the safety of high altitudes with this in mind the Navy conducted a secretive mission to explore the alternative to a high altitude nuclear attack on this Mission an AJ Savage would take off from Spain fly all the way to Paris and back under the French radar the plane was never detected the implications of low altitude penetration for nuclear delivery were noticed by the engineers of Columbus this low altitude requirement was incorporated into their initial design which was dubbed North American general purpose attack weapon or nagpal we initially designed a low altitude version with all of the systems in it the inertial navigation the automatic systems we had the rocket engine in it and all of those things and we call that the nagpaw and that was presented to the Navy in 1953 so the Navy and studied it it was our own unsolicited proposal and they thought well that's a good idea to do all of those things which we ended up doing in the Vigilante but they said how about making it supersonic so we packed our bags and went home for about a year and then came back with a supersonic version which is the present day vigilante the North American design was dubbed the a3j the intended role of the a3j was simple it would penetrate the Soviet Heartland bringing with it a nuclear bomb its blazing speed would be the key to its survival the Quest for higher speeds resulted in an airframe like no other at the time North American test pilot Ed Gillespie remembers his first impression of the vigilante in those days we always felt if an airplane looked good it was going to fly good well the Vigilante certainly looked good it looked like it was going Mach 2 and it was sitting on the deck I couldn't believe that our engineering staff could stuff all the goodies in it that they finally did and still make the airplane carrier suitable or have the range of the legs that we finally ended up with but it was such a good looking airplane and it still is to this day that you just wanted it was a Cadillac of the fleet the Navy's requirements were stringent to say the least the Vigilante needed to be launched from a carrier with zero headwind yet it also needed to cruise Beyond Mach 2. aerodynamically this is a contradiction the lift required for the carrier takeoff suggests the need for larger wings however larger Wing areas prevent the plane from reaching high speeds Engineers cope with this dilemma by making the wing much thinner than was generally accepted [Applause] it was argued by some that the aerodynamic compromises put forth in the Vigilante where drawbacks created by an overly stringent Navy after all since aircraft carriers are generally moving it would be extremely rare for a plane to be catapulted with zero headwind this requirement was later relaxed but not until after the engineering staff had taken extraordinary steps in making a flexible airframe that would revolutionize the way military aircraft are designed while the Vigilante was taking shape the Air Force was making progress on their own supersonic bomber programs aircraft Evolution during the Cold War was rapid the mighty B-52 was soon to be outperformed by this the b-58 Hustler The Hustler was not only supersonic it could fly at Mach 2. however just as the Hustler was entering service the Air Force began the Quest for even higher speeds here at the North American Aviation plan in Palmdale California a new airplane was taking shape the b-70 valkyrie promised to be the fastest bomber in the world the Strategic Air Command was enamored by its potential by 1964 they would have a bomber that would be impossible to catch uh nine thousand miles away the American bomber programs were already making an impression the American pursuit of SuperSonic bombers posed a great challenge to the Soviet military Soviet airspace was immense in an unwelcome bomber could penetrate the vast areas between air bases guarding the Border if a Mach 2 bomber were to penetrate it would be nearly impossible for even the fastest Soviet fighter of the time to catch it Soviet aircraft design bureaus were vaulted into the task of creating The Ultimate Fighter a plane that could catch and Destroy America's fastest bomber look at the Columbus plant the Vigilante was beginning to take shape by 1958 it was clear that this plane was revolutionary it was the first plane to have fly-by-wire controls the first to have a heads-up display terrain avoidance and a fully integrated inertial navigation bombing and electronic warfare system Advanced aluminum Alloys were also introduced however of all the Vigilantes firsts there is one that few people know about one of the things that we did in 1955 was look at the so-called stealth characteristics of the airplane which now are high high tech and we checked the airplane we built a range out here on the Airfield where we could put a model and we could rotate the model it was a copper screen model and and impinge a radar signals onto it and measure the feedback so we would rotate the model and we'd just actually design the airplane so that it's radar reflectivity was concentrated that's two points off of each side of the wingtips and of course when you're flying by something why you get a flash but you don't get a large response so we actually designed stealth into the vigilante back in Moscow the design bureaus of MiG and Sukhoi were commissioned to develop an Interceptor that could deal with the American threat despite differences in both culture and language between the United States and the Soviet Union aerodynamics are Universal when different Engineers independently strive for a similar requirement their conclusions will also be similar therefore it should come as no surprise that as early as 1958 the same year that the Vigilante first took to the air Soviet Engineers were filmed studying a model similar in design to that of the vigilante foreign [Applause] despite the work done by Soviet designers on their own it is likely that Columbus Ohio frequently became the unofficial host of KGB agents it would be hard for them to miss the Sleek American bombers sitting out on the tarmac [Music] they could have stood out here on the airport and taken pictures of it in 1958 when we made our first flight they're really nothing covert about the Vigilante as far as it's being there and certainly the characteristics of it were secret but the shape of it looking at it so I'm sure they had plenty of people which they had all over the world standing out here at Columbus taking pictures of every airplane nevertheless the Vigilante became a grave concern to our tomb mikoyan the head of the Mig design Bureau and live shilenga of the Mig design Bureau were put in charge of the Soviet answer to the American bombers an Interceptor needs to be faster than the plane it chases therefore Mig designers began the ambitious construction of a fighter that could push Beyond Mach 3. this daunting task faced by the Soviets was aggravated by the progress being made back in the States on the last day of August 1958 North American test pilot Dick Wenzel took to the air over Columbus after the maiden flight the vigilante's prowess is a Speedster began to truly shine in June of 1960 famed aviatrics Jackie Cochran climbed into the back seat of the Vigilante becoming the first woman to fly Beyond Mach 2. [Music] later that year the Vigilante sent yet another record when Commander Leroy Heath climbed to over 91 000 feet while carrying a 2200 pound payload although the Navy was enamored by the vigilante's performance certain residents of Southeastern Ohio were less impressed we broke a lot of windows in the early days one lady sued us because of the loss of her parent had a heart attack I recall that we also had a a very definite problem with a gentleman down in Southeastern Ohio who owned a dynamite Factory and it was right under our supersonic Corridor and he finally realized who was causing the he was losing so many man hours to people bailing out the windows and so on when we would shock his employees that he finally got in touch with us said please I think it's you guys don't do it anymore and indeed we did move our quarter away from him and and he he thanked us he wasn't losing the time anymore foreign [Music] to a pilot flying a new plane the injection seat is the most important piece of equipment on board bucking the trend towards the British Martin Baker variety North American designed its own and in fact came up with the first seat to safely eject the pilot both above and below the speed of sound thank you [Applause] foreign [Music] is not necessarily in the air when he needs to get out of the plane in the dangerous world of carrier operations escaping from a submerged plane can be the key to survival [Music] [Applause] [Music] dramatic footage shows both crew members successfully ejecting its zero altitude however the system was not error-free one time I was flying at 42 000 feet on a first production flight and a miss rigged canopy and this is the only time it ever happened I might add suddenly blew off I lost my canopy of 42 000 feet at 1.42 Mach and of course it was stunned me it just and it was explosive decompression I was alone explosive decompression and when I finally and I realized I thought I had ejected but a seconds later I realized I hadn't I throttled back speed breaks out my my visor was down fully my mask was on very tight of course explosive decompression kicked it out but when I finally got out of control I realized it was still on the airplane and the airplane was unheard it except that I was open cockpit so therefore I claim and nobody's ever ever I don't believe that anybody's ever come close but we have the fastest open cockpit flying record of anybody 1.42 Mach [Music] at the beginning of 1961 two Vigilantes were moved from Columbus Ohio to Kirtland Air Force Base to begin the program's most difficult and complex series of tests bomb delivery foreign [Music] the method employed to release a bomb remains perhaps the most bizarre chapter in the Vigilante story instead of dropping bombs like a conventional bomber the bomb was ejected straight out through an opening in the tail of the plane in the early 50s high and fast were the most important elements in a bombing attack however with improvements in air defense systems it became apparent that sneaking under the radar was the safer bet for Pilots carrying a nuclear bomb this meant learning some extraordinary tactics our initial method was to fly the airplane straight and level at Mach 2 at 70 000 feet and drop the bomb out of the back of the airplane as it would come out the tail cone would come off the airplane the bomb would come out like this and and then go and of course the airplane was at seventy thousand feet so there wasn't an escape problem up there later on of course then we also decided that we could come in low right on the deck and and pitch and automatically or manually program the airplane up and to about a 40 degree attitude where the bomb would then come out and as the airplane continued the bomb would come off and go towards a Target the airplane would then continue around and do an immelman turn and and then and then go the other way and escape the other way was an over the shoulder where you hit the target you were right over the target this was your IP or your initial point you pull up right there and right over the target you release the bomb you continued around like this the bomb would go straight up and come straight down and luckily by the time it hits you you were off and away for Pilots these hair-raising Maneuvers were taxing enough without having to worry about finding and hitting the target this was the job of the radar attack Navigator or ran who sat in the back seat responsible for Target and checkpoint acquisition terrain avoidance and a host of other duties the ran is crucial to the mission the fact that the the Iran or the radar attack Navigator was in a compartment completely isolated behind the pilot with no front view mint meant that you had to work very hard at coordinating the mission getting your cockpit to cockpit chatter down to where it was both brief but informative and as the navigator in the back would run sensors navigate the airplane the pilot in front is looking for visual cues and maneuvering the Target in the end game it was a wonderful experience to to form the teaming that you saw between pilots and Navigators before each Mission the Rand sets the course the pilot will follow on route to the Target flying below radar means that mountains are as dangerous as enemy defenses this is especially true at night or in poor weather former vigilante pilot Captain Joe Dyer is well aware of the importance of the man who sat behind him well I think the Rand that is responsible for me being here today was made up for one of those lapses in attention I was a young Aviator we were flying low altitude and high speed and after a few hundred hours you got too comfortable at doing that and I was looking down at a charter my kneeboard card the nose of the airplane dipped a little bit the guy in the back seat says Hey Joe watch your attitude I looked down 50 feet recovered nighttime by the way I gently recovered didn't say anything about it but my knees were knocking in the front and I remember thinking as we turned to the next Target and the Navigator was talking to me gosh y'all to be quiet you know you're almost dead back there during an attack checkpoints such as Islands or mountains were displayed on a television system such checkpoints were used to ensure the pilot was keeping true to course because on-board radar defeats the purpose of trying to remain invisible the Navigator was given a state-of-the-art inertial navigation system that provided him an accurate reading of his location without betraying his position to ensure that the plane was keeping true to course the Navigator would occasionally flash his radar to verify checkpoints and correct any navigational error foreign interceptors pick up these radar flashes an electronic countermeasures indicator will warn the pilot of incoming Fighters it will then confuse enemy radar by emitting false information concerning the whereabouts of the vigilante [Music] back in Moscow the new Soviet Interceptor had moved from drawing board to tarmac this is film taken in the Soviet Union on March the 10th 1964. it is the First Flight of the Prototype of what would become the mig-25 fox bat its similarity to the Vigilante is obvious the major difference being the large twin vertical fins Mig designers had less success in their American counterparts when it came to dealing with high-speed stability this problem would plague the Russians for years to come back in Columbus the vigilante's problems were political not aerodynamic the Air Force had long argued that the Strategic attack role was exclusively an Air Force Mission the Navy disagreed by 1960 discourse over the Navy's role in the Strategic Mission had snowballed into bitter inter-service rivalry and debate the Vigilante was a casualty the Air Force convinced Congress that the Navy shouldn't have a Strategic Mission and so we converted the airplane from a seventy thousand foot Mach 2 airplane very successfully to a low altitude long-range reconnaissance airplane enter the ra5 r being reconnaissance the shift from Attack to reconnaissance took place just as the Vigilante was entering service with the Navy the first Vigilantes were delivered to Naval Air Station Sanford in Florida in 1961. by January of the following year they entered Squadron service during this period the heated debate over whether the Navy should have a role in the nuclear deterrent cast a shadow on the vigilante's long-awaited arrival into Fleet Service anticipating that the Air Force would get its way the Navy recognized its potential in a very different role [Music] the Vigilante was well suited for the role of aerial reconnaissance fully loaded with cameras the Recon Pilot's only defense is speed capable of Blazing Beyond Mach 2 the Vigilante was clearly fast enough for the job however even more important in speed was the fact that it could be launched from a carrier unrestricted by The Diplomatic and logistical problems encountered when operating from foreign airfields the Vigilante gave Naval intelligence an eye in all corners of the world this airplane carried a fixed focal length cameras from three inches out to 12 inches had an 18 inch panoramic camber that would let you stand miles offshore but still get excellent photography of areas of Interest it was also an all-weather machine because it had in that canoe underneath the airplane a side-looking radar or an image forming radar that would go through clouds it would bring back uh image quality or reconnaissance quality photography the 18 inch pan camera would give you wonderful standoff almost the quality of today's space cameras and that you could read a license plate in downtown probably still classified cities coastal cities at at Great distance in 1964 the first reconnaissance Vigilantes joined the fleet during this period the Cold War was again heating up and there was no shortage of areas upon which the government wanted to keep a close eye [Music] [Applause] when the Vigilante returned to the ship intelligence information recorded on tape and film are rushed to a highly specialized group of rooms several floors below the flight deck this area known as the integrated operational Intelligence Center is where all of the processing and interpretation takes place vigilante Pilots had three basic ways of gathering intelligence one was to fly at very high altitudes to get a picture of activity deep within enemy territory another way was to briefly sneak across the beach very low to obtain a detailed picture of enemy defenses several miles inland the third was a short-range beach reconnaissance to give details of a possible Landing assault all of the sensory data whether Optical or non-optical was correlated and analyzed in conjunction with each other to provide an integrated analysis of the Hostile military activity such intelligence is then passed on to the Air Wing from this information tactical Mission planning or orders of battle can be prepared and effectively carried out if an air strike is called for the attacking planes will know exactly which targets to attack and which radar signature to jail the information provided by the Vigilante is tactical meaning that it gives a continuous and updated picture of the enemy during a wartime situation [Music] tactical Recon was nothing new to the U.S Navy during World War II Navy Wildcats were fit to carry large cameras stationed at forward bases in the South Pacific photo Pilots flew over japanese-held Islands before an amphibious assault Navy bomber Pilots studied the photographs and picked their targets before setting on their way [Music] during the Korean War aerial reconnaissance missions were being flown off the decks of carriers photographic versions of the Grumman f9f Panther brought back detailed pictures of Kim il-sung's tank forces Supply Depots anti-aircraft batteries and Troop concentrations later in the war these same cameras would photograph large-scale troop buildups in the north troops that were discovered to be Chinese foreign from before the Incheon landing on through to the end of hostilities photographic intelligence proved to be a decisive Factor [Music] the prevailing notion that the atomic bomb would deter any future conflicts had been proven false the carrier emerged once again as the long arm of the U.S military and reconnaissance planes became the eyes of the fleet [Music] following the Korean War U.S foreign policy was directed to another area of the world the Middle East in July of 1958 civil unrest in Lebanon threatened the already precarious political standing in the region also some 2500 Americans were living in and around the Beirut area in preparation for an amphibious Landing photographic versions of the f9f cougar took to the Skies over Lebanon bringing back detailed pictures of troop buildups along the Damascus Road leading from Syria these pictures were then used to determine exactly where the Marines should come ashore while Navy planes were busy with tactical reconnaissance the Air Force was keeping an eye on the U.S military's main area of Interest the Soviet Union on May 1st 1960 a Lockheed U2 took off from Pakistan on a high altitude recon mission that would dramatically change the defense relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union [Music] for you too flown by Francis Gary Powers never made it to Norway on May the 5th Nikita Khrushchev announced that powers U2 had been brought down 1400 miles inside Soviet territory Khrushchev charged America with deliberate aggression and stated that the world could be pushed to the brink of War the ill-fated spy flight was a diplomatic disaster for the Eisenhower Administration for the state department it meant apologies and damage control for the Pentagon however it revealed the need for a faster spy plane [Music] when the Central Intelligence Agency was in charge of strategic reconnaissance missions the Vigilante was being readied for its entrance into the fleet its prowess in the areas of speed and altitude had not gone unnoticed by the CIA after all the plane had initially been designed to penetrate Soviet airspace with a nuclear bomb on board if it could penetrate Soviet airspace with a nuclear bomb it could certainly do so with cameras new engines specially designed to sustain the plane at a high altitude supersonic Dash were considered by both the Navy and the CIA however as the CIA project was still in the planning stages a conflict in a different part of the world was beginning to boil over this dryer was carrying out a mission of Patrol in those Waters and international waters when it was attacked it replied to the attack and continued to carry out its Mission today and will do so the remainder this week in the same Waters the president has asked the Destroyer force be doubled and that an air cap incumbent Air Patrol be available at all times on call to it and as I think you know he's issued instructions that in the event of a further attack Upon Our vessels and international waters we were to respond with the objective of destroying the attackers thus on August 5th 1964 the Vietnam War unofficially began [Music] airstrikes targeted North Vietnamese fuel Depots suspected military installations Bridges and roadways however there was one major problem maps of North Vietnam were notoriously inaccurate in some instances these Maps were as much as four miles in error the problem that's presented to American Pilots is obvious On The Ground American troops were forced to adapt to the Guerrilla tactics they faced in both jungles and towns from the day the first American Soldier set foot in Vietnam it was clear that fighting such an elusive enemy would prove difficult a decade of War had left the North Vietnamese well adapted to an ambush style of warfare inaccurate Maps aggravated the problem for American soldiers errors of up to four miles created confusion about the location of crucial landmarks like Hills rivers and villages [Music] Precision is imperative in close air support with absolutely no room for error the need for accurate Maps was never more clear [Music] vigilante Pilots entered the war in late 1964 aboard the USS Ranger shortly thereafter additional vigilante squadrons joined the combat area aboard the USS Kitty Hawk Enterprise forestall constellation and America the first task of vigilante Cruz was to solve the problem of poor intelligence and inaccurate Maps [Music] in just a two-week period the Vigilante collected the imagery of the entire Vietnamese area providing the U.S military with reliable maps for the first time foreign however what the maps did not show was the complex network of trails and bridges upon which the North Vietnamese funneled supplies to the South the Ho Chi Minh trail frustrated the American Military cutting off this Relentless flow of supplies became a priority however finding it was a different story the Ho Chi Minh trail was not one Trail but a vast network of trails complicating this was the fact that most of these Trails were enshrouded within a thick jungle canopy despite this U.S warplanes took aim at whatever appeared to be part of this vast Supply route as the war progressed the Ho Chi Minh trail would become the focus of the most concentrated bombing campaign of the entire War [Music] [Music] despite the onslaught of bombs supplies continued to pour into the South in an attempt to reveal the North Vietnamese supply routes American planes began dumping massive amounts of what was then deemed to be a non-toxic defoliant [Music] the use of Agent Orange proved difficult and ineffective a much cleaner way of looking within the thick jungle canopy was carried out by the vigilante the infrared sensors aboard the plane could pick up heat energy from trucks or other activity along the trail foreign s of the war the Vigilante had earned a reputation as an exceptional Recon plane however it had also established a less flattering reputation because of its sheer size and high landing speed the Vigilante was notoriously difficult to bring aboard a carrier the Vigilante Community was made up of outstanding aviators but that's because we very quickly weeded out those that had trouble at at the carrier the carrier to this day is the most demanding aspect of Naval Aviation and that's where vigilante Pilots the successful ones absolutely excelled right now by the cessation of bombing in 1968 the Rolling Thunder policies had transformed many areas of North Vietnam into a decimated moonscape but the North Vietnamese proved resilient as rebuilding commenced immediately when the planes disappeared working in conjunction with American bombers became the primary role of vigilante Cruz before an attack vigilante Pilots would fly over a likely North Vietnamese Target after the bombing run the Vigilante would again fly over the target to assess the damage because he enjoyed the element of surprise the Vigilante pilot usually encountered Little Resistance before an attack however the post-strike flyover was a different matter [Music] some of the airplanes in Vietnam were lost because their their tactics were to follow up a bomb delivery Mission with their reconnaissance and pretty soon the Vietnamese were smart and they knew that after they got a few bombs they're also going to get a vigilante after a massive bombing rate North Vietnamese Gunners were ready at the trigger in the north anti-aircraft defenses were formidable the sound of an American plane would cause the sky to erupt into a violent hail of artillery [Music] foreign the policy of post-strike reconnaissance proved costly in fact more Vigilantes were lost over Vietnam than any other Navy plane during the war 11 of the 18 airplanes lost were attributed to Handy aircraft artillery proof that when flying at low levels even the fastest and most sophisticated airplane is vulnerable to the oldest form of anti-aircraft defense questions this is North Vietnamese footage of boaters collecting the remains of an American plain the pieces of the airplane seen on the boat are from a vigilante that left the USS Kitty Hawk on its last mission May 19 1967. [Music] Vigilantes were flown off the decks of carriers up until the ceasefire in 1973. designed to fly against the best the Soviets had to offer the Vigilantes spent most of its career flying against a more ambiguous enemy in the Skies over southeast Asia for American Pilots this was typical of Cold War reality during the brush fires and Wars of containment that characterized the Cold War the aircraft carrier was the strong arm of American foreign policy for almost 20 years the Vigilante was the eye of the fleet and during this tenure the Vigilante Community developed a distinguished reputation the Vigilante Community really was just that it was a small group of about a dozen Fleet squadrons One replacement Air Group which service both East Coast and West Coast ships out of first of all Sanford Florida then we moved up to Albany Georgia and finally down in Key West where we finally wrapped up the show but it was a small community and that everyone knew everybody and we had our full collection of characters we probably had a resident village idiot or two we had bears with sore heads but Far and Away the community was made up of very very professional people that epitomized what in the aviation business we call group coordination in 1979 the Vigilante retired from service with the Navy without question it was the most effective and successful reconnaissance airplane ever to operate off the deck of a carrier even by standards extant nearly two decades after its Heyday the vigilante's level of performance remains extraordinary the technological and mechanical sophistication introduced by its designers have left a distinct impression on Modern Aviation the vigilante's major design firsts were its horizontal ramped intakes for its engines such intakes are now commonplace on military planes one look at the Navy's F-14 Tomcat reveals how much was borrowed from the Sleek design of the vigilante [Music] foreign the Air Force's Mighty F-15 Eagle has also borrowed heavily from the four-sided vigilante designers but whatever became of the once feared Soviet mig-25 the fox bat about a year ago there was a picture of a fox bat a reconnaissance version and of course the fox bat looks very much like the Vigilante and it also has the same canoe on the bottom and so forth that are ra5c had so I think today they are continuing to have a reconnaissance system which we no longer have foreign the mig-25 had a fate similar to the vigilante when it emerged it was deemed one of the fastest and most daunting aircraft in the world however like the Vigilante it was used most effectively when carrying cameras rather than bombs or missiles when the Vigilante retired with it went the Navy's ability to take an integrated picture of the battlefield during Operation Desert Storm it would be satellites not airplanes that kept an eye on the movements of Iraqi troops and scuds however satellites have their drawbacks Desert Storm one of the big Lessons Learned quote was tactical reconnaissance and they still in Desert Storm had to try to get satellite data to Washington and back the Desert Storm which was a day later instead of an hour later satellite has a little problem getting electronic intelligence because it only goes over once every hour and a half you know we can be there continuously and know exactly where we are with the end of the Cold War there are now signs that dedicated tactical reconnaissance may be re-emerging as a defense priority in the tradition of the Vigilante an unmanned reconnaissance system currently under development promises to give Battlefield commanders an eye in the sky

Channel: Mike Guardia

Views: 238,881

Keywords: Wings, SeaWings, Sea Wings, Discovery, A-5, Vigilante, Naval Aviation, Carrier

Id: oXPc44zj7Ts

Length: 46min 36sec (2796 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 20 2022