the moon was huge tonight painting the low clouds and patches of land below a dull gray major William Stratton and master sergeant Hans hogland were flying a lazy curving course at 14,000 ft when hogland saw a fuzzy contact on his scope heading 330° speed 320 knots range 7 MI it faded out for a moment and then reappeared they accelerated pushing the j3 fors to the stops now closing fast as they passed 2,000 ft Stratton tried to acquire the Target on their gun aiming radar but the system wouldn't lock on making a split-second decision he decided to engage visually a dark Speck appeared in the wind shield directly ahead of them Stratton fired his first burst from 1200 ft four 20 mm cannons each fired 10 explosive shells a second impacts dotted the target's Port Wing he fired a second burst hitting the fuselage then a third right up the tailpipe there was a large explosion and the Communist fighter endered a steep dive trailing fire Stratton and hogland lost sight of it as it entered the low clouds at 6,000 ft the weather at midnight on December the 30th 1967 was atrocious driving rain zero visibility Lieutenant Bill logman and major Ken Ingram were flying the DMZ Patrol that night when air force GCI came on the radio there was a bogey out there in the Merc moving south at speed logman turned the Big Sky Knight as it churned through air thick with rain Ingraham worked the scope trying to see what the Air Force could see the cockpit was quiet if they were lucky there was nothing out there just a weather made glitch in some system somewhere if they were unlucky then it was a MiG 17 the sky Knight's dog fighting days were over but it did retain two 20 mm cannons with which to defend itself but if they were really unlucky then the incoming aircraft was a mig21 at least it would be quick but their luck held after an hour of frustrating searching the contact faded out Willie the whale was denied one last chance at an air-to-air kill the sky Knight's remarkable Journey began in April 1945 when the US Navy put out a tender for a radar equipped night fighter this aircraft was to be a side by side two sea with a range of 350 Mi and ability to attack both air and ground targets it was to be capable of over 500 mph at 40,000 ft and have the ability to climb at least 3,500 ft per minute it was intended to detect an enemy bomber from 125 miles away this was a real stretch for the electronics technology of the day and would require a very large antenna for a fighter aircraft although no such aircraft existed at this time the Navy anticipated by the end of the decade jet bombers would be in service in the USSR the specification was generally thought to be impossible to fulfill although it didn't stop a dozen companies participating in the competition four of these were then down selected to provide a prototype Douglas Grumman Curtis and Fleet wings of these Douglas and Grumman were contracted for prototypes and static test articles the Douglas proposal was seen as the preferred option with grumman's jet powered tiger cat derivative the reserve which is just as well as grumman's project floundered within months of the competition award in late 1945 in one of those twists of Fate though they negotiated with the Navy to use the money on a single seat fighter study they had been working on ultimately resulting in the Panther and its descendants over at Douglas work proceeded at a pace Ed heinerman and his team at El Segundo put together a relatively conventional design xfd 3 was a mid engined monoplane with two 3000 force j34 in semi- recess nay cells beneath the fuselage Center section the nozzles pointed slightly down which was to prove an issue the tail group was conventional being similar to that of the Skyraider fuel cells were located above the engines in the center fuselage tricycle landing gear was fitted with the main gear retracting into the inner Wing panels it was a dumpy massive aircraft for the time principally because the sky Knight was the first Navy fighter to be designed around its avionics in this case the mighty anap Q35 radar system anap Q35 actually consisted of two Radars the aaps 21 search radar could locate fighter sized targets at a range of 20 mi it was a 250 KW set that used a giant 30in dish to give you a point of comparison the aapg 36 in the Contemporary saber dog used an 18in dish although things are rarely this simple in early radar the sky Knight could effectively put three times as much power in the air leading to a detection range about 1 and a half to two times that of the saber dog the big search radar was paired with an a APS 26 targeting radar with a range of 2 miles the aaps 21 was used to locate a Target which was then passed over to the aaps 26 at close range for Target tracking the big radar and its operator were then free to continue to scan for new targets as there were two complete dishes and computer systems in the aircraft the apq 35 was therefore one of the first track while scan radar systems ever developed incorporating over 300 thermionic valves reliability was not the best but that was true for all complicated avionic systems of the era it was also a heavy system weighing 650 when the later tail warning radar was added that doesn't factor in the heavy power supplies needed for the radar navigational radio air conditioning systems and so on overall it all contributed to an aircraft with a lot of drag empty weight greater than the loaded combat weight of most single seat Fighters and not a lot of power it did however allow for a side bys side seating arrangement which led to one of the eventual Sky Knight's more unique design features namely the crew escape system it was already accepted that bailing out of a jet fighter in the conventional manner didn't work well most people who mattered were already zeroing in on the upwards firing rocket propelled ejector seat as the most workable Escape method now conventional ejection seats would have worked from a safety point of view the issue the designers faced was that the sky Knight's weight problem was now out of control a pair of ejection seats weighed between 250 and £300 emitting them seemed like a good option the Douglas engineer solution was to install an escape slide to use it one of the crew pulled a lever that jettison the after section of the Escape door leaving the forward portion to act as a Windbreak the crew would then pivot in their seats grab hold of the vaulting bar above the Chute and exit feet first out of the bottom of the plane after leaving the Airmen had to wait five seconds before pulling the rip cord supposedly this system was extensively tested and proven to be safe but I've seen no documentation to that effect completing the aircraft was the standard 1940s the Armament of 4 M3 20 mm cannons xf3 d1's Maiden flight was made on the 23rd of March 1948 at El Segundo with Russell Thor as the pilot it was an uneventful flight as the XF 3D was very conventional aerodynamically testing continued until October when the three prototypes were transferred to Edwards for government trials during this time the aircraft were also tested by the US USAF but its contemplated procurement failed to materialize however the production future of the aircraft had already been assured as 28 F3 D1 Sky Knights had been ordered for delivery to the Navy and Marine Corps the total value was $50 million making each aircraft worth a smidge under 1.8 million the Air Force was paying about $280,000 for a saber at this point and $1.1 million for the basically compar f89b scorpion Interceptor Sky Knights were expensive aircraft production examples received a slightly enhanced j34 with 3,250 lb of thrust at 6,500 in total and still not a lot for an aircraft that weighed over £17,000 empty in this version production models had some other minor avionics changes and a fiberglass rather than a metal nose cone while production ramped up carrier suitability tests got going in March of 1949 they went poorly the XF 3D was obviously significantly underpowered but it wasn't unusual in early Jets from that point of view being a relatively large aircraft it had relatively large wings with 400 square ft of area but with its large weight the Catapult could only accelerate it so much test pilots found that they were always struggling to get the nose at the right attitude for the plane to fly there were problems behind the ship as well the large nose and low seating position made it difficult for the pilot to correctly position the aircraft you can see in this picture how the pilot is having to stretch to seize sufficiently far down past the nose of all the issues this was the worst it made Landing in daytime quite challenging and the sky Knight was an all- weather Fighter the Navy quickly concluded that the F3 D1 could only safely operate from a land base their Hope Was That by increasing engine power they would be able to take the marginal -1 and turn it into a true carrier Fighter the letter of intent for this more powerful version was issued in October 1949 the intention was to fit the -2 with the new Westinghouse j26 each offering up to £4,600 of thrust 40% more would really change the lumbering Sky Knight but Westinghouse were in a bit of low point at this time unfortunately the dash2 was redesigned with larger nce cells to accommodate the larger diameter engine but it never appeared instead the upgraded f3d -2 flew with an updated j34 offering 3,600 lb of thrust and retained it throughout its service life the other major upgrade to the f3d at this point was to add a tail warning radar able to detect an enemy fighter from 10 miles this would prove a real Lifesaver in Korea an autopilot was fitted for the first time to reduce pilot workload cabin air conditioning was improved alongside bulletproofing for the windscreen and a few small changes elsewhere the dash two was the definitive night fighter version of the sky Knight it was a big old bird for the day empty weight was 8,160 which is nearly twice that of the grumm and panther day fighter loaded with fuel and weapons it tipped the scale at 23,500 45 ft long with a 50t wingspan it was quite large in terms of the area it required in the hanger on the deck the top of the tail plane was 16 ft high on the few times it deployed on carriers it was not highly regarded in terms of its deck handling characteristics maximum speed was 565 mph it cruised at 390 and had a maximum combat radius of about 500 M these aren't outstanding numbers but Naval fighters of the late 1940s were not 600 m per hour aircraft meeting the original specifications climb rate was 4,000 ft per minute and it could reach 38,200 ft 237 d2s were produced with production ending in March 1952 at about the same time production was ending Marine all weather Fighters Squadron 542 left El Toro for Korea the 542nd had previously flown the f7f tiger cat in that theater and had spent nearly a year converting to the new f3d they took 12 aircraft over in May and June 1952 moving to K8 Airbase near kunan almost immediately on arrival there they joined the flying nightmares of vmn 513 their dash2 Sky Knights were painted flat black high visibility white stencils were replaced with dull red anything to reduce the enemy's ability to detect them issues with the availability of the Gun Barrel extension kits required to fire the sky Knight's cannons delayed the start of combat operations until August 1952 they found that the Korean Knights were Lively and terrifying Sky Knights Tiger Cats and Air Force starfires were Vector onto targets by the GCI site on CH Island variously call signed dentist Dutch boy Kodak and mongus Powerful though it was the radar and chodo was very crude by today's standards its controls and screens were a development of pre-war British systems locating a Target and plotting its bearing required a great deal of skill and a little luck then the operator had to Vector an intercept onto the right track keeping track of both the bogey and the Interceptor this was not an easy task and interviews with skynight Pilots demonstrate how most of the time they were sent to targets that didn't exist or would encounter their own targets undetected by dentists all of this was compounded by the enemy who weren't just going to go and lie down and get shot down although they lack night fighters of their own the Communists deployed their La 11 Yak 9 and Mig 15 Fighters at night their pilots would be directed by GCI and then attempt to locate the UN aircraft from their exhaust Flames the sky Knight's tail radar provided significant warning against this kind of attack as the war grounded on communist aviators learned to dive below chodo radar and escape the sky knights in the ground clutter the Mig 15's vastly Superior speed and maneuverability enabled it to escape the ponderous Sky Knights and attempt to re-engage fortunately for the nightmares lack of avionic sophistication made it almost impossible for a MIG 15 pilot to engage a fighter sized Target at night more dangerous were the traps set by the Communists these typically consisted of a lone miger bait when the UN Fighters went after it they were illuminated by radar directed search lights and engaged by Flack batteries firing at predetermined Heights one of these traps may have killed the co of the flying nightmares Colonel Peter Lamere and his radar officer shortly before midnight on August the 15th no trace of his aircraft has ever been found on a night on which others encountered such ambushes the Tactical Direction Center reported that having reached his station the aircraft's ifff beacon suddenly dimmed and then disappeared a ground Observer reported seeing an unidentified aircraft crash into the sea at around the same time a search in the very early hours of August the 16th detected a red signal flare but it was quickly extinguished the loss remains a mystery but can perhaps perhaps be explained by the loss of another Sky Knight in this case on the 1st of September a sky Knight suffered two engine explosions in quick succession that resulted in the aircraft plummeting towards the sea although unable to use the Escape shoot at low level the radar operator miraculously survived and was rescued by a crashboat his report tallied with other incidents of j34 failures in the US and led to Korean Sky Knights being grounded for 2 months while armor was placed around the engine to prevent thrown blades in the third turbine section causing catastrophic damage to the rest of the aircraft when missions resumed in the middle of October the Marines primary mission was to escort b-29s on their nightly raids over the north the escort mission was not as simple as hanging out near the bomber stream typically two Sky Knights would do this orbiting until the bombers ared from Japan and then escorting them to the Target two others would go north putting themselves between the Chinese Mig bases and the bomber stream as a bar cap at least one often two Sky Knights would orbit the target itself lying in wait for any migs that made it past the bar cap and were trying to Ambush the bombers although their efforts were significant no defense is perfect on the night of the 18th of November 1952 the b29 right Delights was shot down by migs after dropping its bombs near a Target at sonon North Korea 12 of the 14 crew were killed by the time of the shoot down the sky Knights had scored themselves Stratton and hoglands accounter on the third was initially chalked up as a yak 15 but it was later confirmed to be a MIG 15 of the 147th guards fighter Aviation regiment flown by a captain vishak he apparently survived but is unclear what happened to his Mig in the early hours of November the e Captain Oliver Davis and radar operator ding fesler scored a definite kill Vector onto a contact by Dutch boy they bagged a MIG 15 from the 351st KN fighter Aviation regiment which they were able to track by its exhaust flame a reversal of the method that the migs used to find b-29s in general finding and catching any aircraft at night in an early 50s fighter was extremely challenging this was even more the case with the infamous P2 Knight heckers that the Communists employed to irritate the UN forces the po2 made the sky Knight look like an SR71 an ancient biplane first flown in 1927 the po2 could carry only a limited payload and cruised at 80 knots that slow speed however enabled it to fly at extremely low altitude furthermore its engines didn't emit The Telltale flames of supercharged piston engines the sky Knight's sole confirmed kill against the Knight hecklers was therefore executed solely using the APG 26 radar on December the 10th it was not however a P2 that was shot down the po2 was constructed of wood and fabric and therefore generated sporadic radar returns mainly off the engine block finding one on a dark night in a jet or fast piston engine fighter was a matter of luck more than skill the victim on the 10th was almost certainly an allmetal y 18 monoplane trainer that the Communists pressed into Service as a light bomber getting a radar return from this was much easier somewhat negating the challenging closing speed and zero visibility sometimes technology works against you but the sky Knight's main opponent was the Mig 15 every night they went to Loft to play the game of cat and mouse most often success for the US side was the safety of bombers the Communists wanted to deny that safety neither side necessarily needed to kill the other albeit the determination of b29 crws to press their attacks and their General unwillingness to turn away meant that the Mig pilots and their supporting Flack batteries were more likely to need to destroy a bomber to accomplish their mission although fighter pilot professionalism meant that the skynight pilot wanted to kill the Mig pilots and vice versa success in this endeavor was in fact second AR to the mission and both sets of Pilots were extraordinarily skilled and brave being no doubt that theirs was one of the most dangerous assignments of the war the Marines were operating an enemy territory in the dead of night with little support and no chance of rescue until Daybreak if they survived the Escape shoot the Mig Pilots flew alone without raadar and with only patchy contact with their ground controllers death from an unseen radar equipped American could come at any moment three more Mig 15s were down by Sky knights in January 1953 at the cost of a b29 destroyed near pongyang and several 23mm shell holes in a sky night that narrowly avoided being down by a MIG the nocturnal battle changed shape after January now aware that there was a new and capable night fighter in the theater the Communist Air Forces reduced their focus on the b29 and instead started targeting the sky Knights although this increased the Jeopardy for those Crews it also meant that no b-29s were lost on night raids for the remainder of the war two more sky Knights did go down though both in May 1953 one was a prosaic Landing accident the other remains unexplained but appears to be some kind of inflight mishap on the approach to kunan you'll have noticed that despite the sky Knight being designed as a carrier fighter I've not yet mention the Navy carrier based f3d did in fact deploy to the theater a night fighter Detachment from vc4 a composite Squadron known as the night cappers sent four aircraft onto the Lake Champlain in early June 1953 the sky Knight proved to be a pain to operate and pretty un popular with everyone from Carrier Air Group Commander to deck crew it was large and hard to move around the deck those downward CED jet nozzles heated the deck around the Catapult so much that there had to be a pause in operations after an f3d was launched in order to let it cool occasionally it would even set fire to the deck using the Catapult was fraught with danger these weren't steam catapults they were the finicki h8 hydraulic system system dialed to maximum it could just about deliver enough urge to launch the Big Sky Knight the problem was that hydraulic catapults had a tendency to shoot coal risking dumping the aircraft into the sea and because it was turned up to maximum the Catapult shuttle also managed to break the sky Knight's catapult Bridal twice during the cruise sending the heavy shuttle hurtling to the end of the track at high speed the resulting damage put the system out of commission until repairs could be accomplished there wasn't really any upside to the carrier crew to operating the f3d the aircraft had only one Mission it was too big and too slow to be effective in any day roll and in any case it couldn't carry bombs or Rockets the night Capers were unceremoniously sent to shore their deployment was rather unsuccessful two Sky Knights were lost at least one of them to a MIG in exchange for a MIG apparently set on fire the fate of which was unconfirmed the sky Knight therefore ended the war having downed six aircraft for one or two losses and a further four aircraft destroyed in operational accidents on the face of it hardly a storming success what has to be factored in though is the number of b29 Crews that lived to tell the tale because of the presence of Sky Knights the Korean experience was also very valuable in learning about the Practical use of an all- weather jet fighter the f3d was built around its radar accepting many Dynamic compromises as a result although powerful using the tuning controls and interface of that system was an art and one that limited the effectiveness of the sky Knight as a weapon system for all of its claimed 125 M range in reality the skynight crews picked up migs at around 10 mil the Mig 15 is a small Target but even so the real performance of the apq 35 was disappointing and because of the dynamic compromises a MIG could easily escape from the sky Knight by either going fast or high if it got past the combat Air Patrol then it would have a free run at any bombers being escorted or the carrier itself this was less of an issue for faster Fighters Willie the whale was totally dependent on its situational Awareness on the upside the tail warning radar was a real success although it too meant taking a weight penalty as radar ranging gun sites became the norm these heavy active systems became less required a simple radar warning receiver would suffice the sky Knight was basically obsolete on delivery the Navy had already concluded that they were not a viable option for a carrier or weather aircraft something with more performance and thus more flexibility of role was needed in the increasingly space constrained hanger deck they therefore hurried through production of a super sized radar equip equipped version of the McDonald Banshee and pushed ahead with the followon demon partly in an attempt to improve the sky Knight's Effectiveness but mainly to test the missiles a dozen f3d 1s and 16 d2s were modified to carry the experimental Sparrow 1 radar guided missile the -2 M's were quite a significant rebuild having their guns deleted and the apq 36 radar fitted in an extended nose cone these apparently were service Fighters rather than purely prototypes VX4 took them aboard the Handcock for a brief deployment as you can see in this photo their service life was however extremely short it wasn't viable as a carrier based fighter and the Marines had no real use for it in their limited budget but just as it was about to be sent to the scrap Heap the sky Knight's size led to an unlikely reprieve Korea had further demonstrated the importance of electronic warfare capabilities in Modern War fighting the cat and mouse game played by the sky Knights migs b-29s and groundbased defenses was obviously a precursor of the electronic battle field of the 50s and 60s with a period of Peace in sight collecting information on the electronic order of battle was essential to us planners and if the balloon did go up threat location and jamming would be ESS IAL parts of the force mix 35 Sky Knights were therefore stripped of their Radars and outfitted with an APR 13 panoramic surveillance receiver an APA 69 direction finder and an ala3 pulse analyzer the nose Bay played host to two 200 watt noise Jammers chaff pods and 300gal fuel tanks could be carried under the wings two of the 20 mm cannons and their ammunition cans were retained the other two were removed to make more space these aircraft went all over the world over the next decade they flew down the east coast of the Soviet Union profiling Radars snooped on China monitored the buildup of Soviet air defenses in Cuba as the US considered whether to invade three Marine squadrons flew the f3d 2q which was redesignated e f10b in 1962 by the time 1964 came around these were amongst the most skilled electronic reconnaissance Professionals in the world particularly when it came to finding the sa2 guideline and Associated Ground Control apparatus fans song barlock spoon rest knife rest firan and their like with a marine elint Squadron stock in trade their expertise was about to put them and Willie the whale Back In Harm's Way the increasing threat of soviet-made Sams and anti-aircraft artillery resulted in six ef10 BS being deployed to Danang in April 1965 initially they focused on trying to spot North Vietnamese Radars and GCI Communications from within Southern airspace but by the end of the month they were actively attempting to jam vpa fgci in the first active ECM missions of the war in support of this the sky Knights recently up graded with an al8 surveillance receiver now hung heavy Al q31 jamming pods under their wings specifically designed to jam the various Radars in the integrated air defense system their efforts were so successful in protecting strikes that the venerable Sky Knights were called upon to fly double or even triple their normal maximum sorty rate by this point of course the ef10 was ancient history the air Crews were therefore either veter who' suffered the old plan's foibles for a decade or they were fresh recruits the latter had likely expected to be Phantom Rios and Pilots but instead found themselves as ecos or whale drivers such was the Antiquity of the e10s that there were no manuals for the converted aircraft in fact many of the switches and buttons in the cockpit had functions lost to history learning the aircraft was therefore a process of trial and error occasionally in frustration at a developing fault a crewman would hit a button in exasperation only to find that it cured his issues these nuggets were passed on in the ready room Sky Knight airframes were not much better they had not been designed for 15 years of service and were considered structurally unsound a 1G limit was therefore in place for any Maneuvers and this is an aircraft expected to tussle with sounds and Flack M it is little surprise given the dottery aircraft that the first loss of an ef10 involved an unknown malfunction its crew Vanishing without Trace into the Gulf of Tonkin on the 31st of July 1965 early in the war the sky Knight's detection equipment and Jammers were able to somewhat counter the threat from the still developing North Vietnamese air defense network but the nature of its mission was very demanding for the old aircraft to be effective they needed to be on station in advance of the strikers and hang around until after they had left since they couldn't refuel in Flight the whale had to carry at least one of the large 300gal drop tanks under the wings as well as the jamming pod this made taking off something of an adventure takeoff rolls went way up from the normal 5,000 ft to more like 7 or 8,000 and even then the climb rate on departure was painful slow and yet the Marine Crews soldiered on they also flew their missions unescorted because no one could spare any aircraft this is despite the sky Knight being effectively defenseless against a MIG on one early mission an e f10b crew received warning that a MIG was approaching them from the rear at 14 Mi distance turning away to flee the pilot flipped the arming switch for the 20 mm cannons and fired a burst to test them both jammed within five rounds since the ef10 was not expected to ever use its weapons again maintenance had been neglected later inspection found that none of the Squadron cannons were in working order fortunately in this case the crew managed to escape at low level from August 1965 e f10s received escort from Marine Phantoms in the interim the Squadron had contacted a marine Crusader Squadron operating out in the Gulf if they had fuel remaining after their own missions they would come and loiter with the Wales until they had to return to base Marine Aviation was a small community and they stuck together when the f10b arrived in Vietnam the air defense threat was significant but containable they could go up find the right Radars to jam and degrade their capabilities but by the fall of 1965 the Threat Level had exploded there were three times as many Radars and systems out there and the Primitive whale simply didn't have the electronic sophistication to sift through them and find the right threat to go after dropping chaff provided a simple short duration distraction that could work in some situations the whales ability to detect Sam launches and alert Air Force Crews who lacked radar warning receivers at this point was also valuable but a new ECM platform was desperately needed the navian Marines had such a thing in development the e6a electric Intruder but it was significantly delayed so the sky Knight soldiered on its decrepit airframe being further worn out by the harsh weather and punishing schedule in the spring of 1966 the Sams finally caught up with the Marines supporting an f105 strike near Tran ho Riverboat 2 with pilot Lieutenant Everett mcferson and ECMO lieuten Brent Davis was hit by an sa2 guideline fired by the 61st Battalion of the 236th missile regiment when the wreckage was finally located in 1997 mcferson remains were not aboard suggesting that he had flown the aircraft for some time before attempting to use the Escape shoot at low level his body has yet to be found after this loss the whales were forbidden to go within 20 miles of potenti Cal sa2 sites essentially limiting them to overwater operations in the Gulf of tonin fortunately this coincided with Air Force eb66 C's arriving in theater to take over from the AF f10s which Now supported Navy operations alongside ea6 a which finally arrived at the end of October 1966 but such were their teething problems that nearly a year later in August 1967 the the decision was taken to upgrade the sky Knights adding Broadband threatened missile launch warning receivers and improved displays for the ECMO the latter finally moved the cockpit process on from one in which the ECMO had to manually use dials to tune in on emitters to a more modern automated process with more displays on hand they could also monitor search and Fire Control spectrums at once the updated super whales are arrived on the flight line at Danang at the end of February 1968 days before Rolling Thunder was brought to a close as strikes continued until November of 1968 the sky Knights remained busy though albeit primarily in a passive ECM rooll along the DMZ as missions continued it became increasingly clear that one of the upgrades made in the super whale would accelerate the end of its long and busy career a small conical Dome had been installed under the AFT fuselage housing a steerable ECM antenna although this was rarely used in practice it was pointed out by the crews that it would be hazardous in the event of a need to escape the aircraft it should be said that the Escape shoot was not effective in general at least not in a combat zone in five losses in Vietnam and six in Korea these shoot saved zero lives even so it had been used successfully stat side and it remained the only crew ESS option training in Stateside experience said that rather than falling free of the aircraft immediately crewmen instead bumped along the bottom of the fuselage in the airf flow before falling clear in the super whale that would mean being thrown back into the ECM antenna with obvious negative results for Aviator Health tests were conducted back in the US which apparently validated the concern sufficiently that the sky Knight was abruptly withdrawn from Vietnam in October 1969 for the record September 1969 was the first month that the e6a flew more sorties than the E f10b with the electric Intruders bugs being ironed out and the vastly more sophisticated e6b Prowler on the horizon the sky Knight was unceremoniously retired at the end of May 1970 ran kept flying two examples into the 1980s as electronic test beds that large capacity continued to be useful little remembered today the skynight walls in fact an aircraft that laid down more root markers in the development of Naval Aviation that most for starters it was the last straight-wing jet fight of flying in active US service it outli both the big banjo that replaced it as a night fighter and the generation of sweat wi Fighters that came after it it was the first Naval fighter designed around its avionics and the aerodynamic compromises that came with that packaging were what enabled it to be retasked as the first jet powered elint aircraft You could argue that it was not until the F35 that another Navy or Marine fighter was designed with so little regard for dynamic performance I'll probably get some comments on that statement so I might leave it there back on the sky night very few aircraft played such an active part in both career and Vietnam I think only the Skyraider and b26 Invader are the other members of that club but despite this the sky Knight doesn't have much Fame likely because it was on the edge of the force mix as far as the average Enthusiast is concerned or perhaps just because it doesn't look like a fighter plane you need to be fast and have swept Wings to be a 1950s mid killer don't you not if they can't see you you need to Lug massive bomb load supersonic on the deck to be a 1960s strike aircraft of course not of your weapon is radio waves and success is preventing the other guy shooting first in this way the skynight was a Pioneer throughout its career it fought the Battle for that first shot because of the technology limitations of the time it was not a universal success it was not in fact a great aircraft in any real respect the aviators that flew it had the skill and the persistence to work around its many issues to turn it into an effective and at times a vital part of the force mix if only it had looked more like a fighter
