The North American A-5 Vigilante

the terms supersonic carrier-based and bomber don't generally go together when describing individual airplanes though heavy supersonic bombers like the b-58 hustlers and b1 lancers are nothing new most are subsonic and entirely too big to operate from aircraft carriers the navy has always had relatively small bombers and strike aircraft like the rugged and lethal douglas sbd dauntless that served with distinction in the pacific during the second world war but most were still far cries from their larger land-based cousins however more than half a century ago one revolutionary warbird fit all three of the above criteria and surprisingly it's been all but forgotten perhaps because it never carried out the missions for which it was originally designed and built [Music] huge advances in aviation technology were made during the 40s and 50s and aircraft manufacturers were much less consolidated than they are now competition was fierce the military was pouring tons of money into developments and jets had become the engines of the future which meant that the days of underpowered piston engine aircraft lumbering off windy flight decks at laughably slow speeds would long gone featuring a long dagger-like fuselage a sleek canopy and razor-thin swept wings the north american a5 vigilante was blessed with a design that was decades ahead of its time both aesthetically and technologically even standing still vigilantes looked like they'd already punched their way through the sound barrier and they definitely didn't resemble other bombers built for the u.s navy by los angeles-based north american aviation the a5 vigilante originally designated the a3j first took to the skies in the late 1950s after a lengthy development period that began years earlier much of the early work was done at north american's columbus ohio facility under the supervision of design chief frank compton but unlike other similar programs the a5 was initially a privately funded venture convinced that their new concept would beat the pants off the competition forward-thinking company executives also thought it would be a big money maker the idea took root in 1954 when north american engineers began tinkering with plans for a long-range all-weather supersonic carrier-based bomber capable of carrying hefty nuclear and conventional payloads big expensive and complex vigilantes were the first bombs equipped with digital computers and more impressively they had proposed top speeds in excess of mach 2 or more than 1 300 miles per hour that's 2 100 kilometers an hour it was an exceptionally ambitious and risky roll of the dice but after years of promising development the navy finally funded the project on the downside a number of even more rigorous requirements were added like the new jet would need to be able to take off from carrier decks fully loaded without the benefit of stiff headwinds to assist with lyft nonetheless in late august of 1958 the first vigilante took to the air over the midwest 77 feet that's 23.5 meters long from nose to tail 53 feet 16.2 meters wide from wingtip to wingtip and with a maximum takeoff weight exceeding 63 000 pounds or 28 600 kilograms vigilantes were whoppers by 50 standards especially for airplanes designed for carrier use but despite their size crews were limited to just a pilot and either a bombardier navigator or reconnaissance navigator depending on the variant and the mission to get all that weight moving even with help from carrier steam catapults tons of muscle was required and ample power came from two ge j79 turbo jets each which produced ten thousand nine hundred pound-feet of dry thrust or more than seventeen thousand pound-feet when the afterburners were lit with minor variations the j-79s were the same reliable inexpensive and widely available power plants found on convair b-58 hustlers and mcdonnell douglas f4 phantom 2s among others top speed was about four times that of most world war ii bombers but though the manufacturer's recommended service ceiling was a relatively average 52 000 feet vigilantes were capable of flying much higher featuring a high power to weight ratio usually reserved for much smaller fighters and interceptors vigilantes could climb to altitude at the rate of 8 000 feet a minute or 135 feet per second which was only slightly slower than the f-86 sabre a jet about a third as heavy to reduce drag freefall nukes and conventional bombs would be stowed in a narrow linear bombay between the engines though on orthodox this layout fit the vigilante's slender airframe and allowed payloads to be dropped at supersonic speeds conventional bombs could also be carried on external hardpoints but they never were because of all the vigilantes ever produced nearly all were the reconnaissance variants long before becoming standard on many high-performance military aircraft north american engineers incorporated strong weight-saving materials like aluminium alloys in the wings and fuselage titanium for critical structural elements and pure gold coatings which acted as shields to reflect engine heat away from vital electronic components and the weapons inside the bombay vigilantes also incorporated groundbreaking fly-by-wire control systems early heads-up displays and an inertial navigation system derived from the ones used on the company's supersonic intercontinental navajo cruise missiles north american originally settled on a twin rudder arrangement but this configuration was later scrapped for a single all-moving vertical fin which produced far less drag without sacrificing maneuverability in addition the aforementioned g turbo jets got their all-important oxygen through two variable intake ramps located between the canopy and the wings each of these optimized airflow at various altitudes thereby increasing performance and maximizing efficiency and speaking of efficiency high fuel consumption was always an issue for the heavy and powerful aircraft to extend range with only a minimal increase in drag a pronounced hump was added to the airframe behind the cockpit beneath which was an additional 450 gallon fuel tank size was another of the aircraft's inherent drawbacks especially in relation to the cramped carriers on which they were destined to operate but a5s were equipped with folding wings tails and nose cones to lessen their footprints originally intended as bombers vigilantes ultimately became reconnaissance aircraft almost exclusively though nearly identical in appearance reconnaissance r a5cs had larger wings with more surface area to compensate for the extra 10 000 pounds that they had to lug around since the engines were the same as the one used on the light bombers reconnaissance vigilantes had slower rates of climb though they were still amazingly fast in level flight in addition ra5cs were equipped with oblong fairings under their fuselages to house specialized gear like cameras side looking radar infrared scanners and electronic countermeasures equipment ra 5cs still retained their bombays but instead of weapons they carried even more fuel to offset increased consumption ironically some of the vigilante's greatest assets were also some of its biggest weaknesses namely that it was bulky and complex which made it expensive unreliable and tedious to maintain but from a strictly safety perspective it was the plane's bombay design that made for a potential death trap for crews as well as a nuclear accident waiting to happen oddly the nuclear bombs the vigilantes would have carried inside their bomb bays were intended to be attached to two disposable fuel tanks that together were referred to as the store train during long flights these auxiliary tanks would be drained first then when it was time to release the bomb the whole package would be jettisoned together by a powerful drogun like the ones used on some injection seats in other words a large caliber projectile would be fired toward a nuclear device inside the tight confines of an internal bombay what could possibly go wrong or perhaps more aptly what in the world were the designers thinking or perhaps smoking maybe it was crack theoretically if everything went according to plan the store train would eject safely away from the aircraft while it sped away in practice however it was a wholly unacceptable system which is probably why i was never tested with live ordnance good thing vigilantes entered service in the summer of 1961 as replacements for douglas a-3 sky warriors which were the navy's primary nuclear strike aircraft all variants were produced at north american's columbus ohio plant along with a number of other aircraft many of which were lund's a former auto executive and inveterate penny pincher robert mcnamara's unpopular cost cutting initiative known as the tri services designation plan the program's main aim was to produce multi-role aircraft that could be used by a number of different services like the air force navy and marines but in a weird twist of fate the resulting frank complains were often expensive unpopular and incapable of doing anything particularly well early vigilante service proved troublesome thanks to the implementation of largely untested systems but though many of these issues were resolved with successive variants throughout their short careers vigilantes were always plagued by spotty reliability as well as high operating and maintenance costs when benchmarked against actual flight towers in addition a5s were introduced at a relatively inopportune time when the navy and air force were shifting their focus away from manned bombers in favor of land and sub-base cruise missiles as a result vigilante bomber production was halted in 1963 and all subsequent planes that rolled off north american's assembly line were reconnaissance aircraft in august of 1964 ra5cs began carrying out post-strike medium altitude reconnaissance missions over vietnam they performed this role well but despite their speed agility and advanced systems 18 were lost in combat of which 14 were downed by anti-aircraft fire three by russian-built service-to-air missiles sams and won by a mig-21 during operation linebacker 2. in addition 9 were lost in non-combat accidents though between 1968 and 1970 an additional 36 aircraft were delivered to the navy to make up for these losses all told 10 ra5c squadrons operated from the carriers forester ranger saratoga independence constellation kitty hawk enterprise american john f kennedy and later from the nimitz-class boats [Music] just a few weeks before christmas in 1960 navy pilot leroy heath and bombardier navigator lieutenant larry monroe set a world altitude record that beat the previous mark by more than four miles or 6.4 kilometers and even more stunningly it would stand for more than 13 years until being shattered in 1973 when a russian ye155 the predecessor of the famed mig-25 interceptor climbed to an astonishing 108 720 feet or nearly 33 000 meters carrying a 2 200 pound 1 000 kilogram payload more than 50 000 feet 15 240 meters heath pushed his vigilante past mach 2.1 before yanking back on the stick thanks to the momentum and the continuous outpouring of thrust from its two ge engines the vigilante shot into a steep ballistic ascent which propelled it well past the altitude at which its wings were capable of creating lift shortly thereafter its engines flamed out due to oxidant deprivation the plane rolled over on its back but heath was expecting this hair-raising scenario since it experienced it before to ride the aircraft he casually let go of the stick and as it plummeted into ever thicker air it eventually righted itself and when the wings were once again creating lift he was able to regain control and make the transition to level flight [Music] early march of 1951 while performing a reconnaissance run over north vietnam pilot lieutenant commander barry gastrok and navigator lieutenant emmy conrad took one of the most memorable pictures of the conflict entirely by accident flying from the uss kitty hawk in their ra5c the pair were making their second pass over the ground near the songkar river when lieutenant conrad witnessed a flash and heard the telltale thump of an sa-2 being far below fractions of a second later the huge missile rocketed from its launcher and streamed towards them at more than mach 3. gastroc mashed the throttles forward took evasive action and headed for the coast and later made a safe landing on the kitty hawk examining the photographs on the ship later an analyst made a startling discovery nearly perfectly centered in one of the frames was a remarkably clear picture of the sa-2 still under boost from its rocket motor as evidenced by the billowy plume behind it unaware of just how close they'd been to getting hit when the crew was called in to view the photograph they learned that the missile had passed just a hundred feet at 30 meters under the vigilante's fuselage it was estimated that if it had been launched just two seconds sooner it would have taken them out but when the photo was snapped it hadn't had time to arm itself [Music] all told of the 167 units built only six were bombers despite admirable service in the waning years of the war in vietnam the writing was on the wall for the sleek supersonic vigilante though its service life was relatively short considering it almost exclusively fulfilled a role for which it was never intended it had a damn good run that said most carriers of the era carried approximately 90 aircraft nearly all of which were much larger than their predecessors in fact there just wasn't enough room on the flat tops for all the airplanes that the navy had in its inventory and a great culling began it was also around this time the more well-rounded aircraft like f-14 tomcats f8 crusaders an a3 sky warriors began fulfilling even more roles like photo reconnaissance and they took up less space and were cheaper to maintain and operate than the big vigilantes so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below if you've got a suggestion for a future mega projects video please do leave it in the comments below i do look there on pretty much every video for good ideas to make so yeah drop it below and thank you for watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 213,901

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Id: PprHy8iQD_c

Length: 14min 57sec (897 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 03 2022