-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
RADAR LOVE: The EA-6A saga +split thread+
- Thread starter Old R.O.
- Start date
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Speedbrakes on the fuselage? I though the A-6 variants normally had them on the wings?
Some of the guys who flew were sim instructors at Whidbey and said it was a more automatic system, easier to operate than the Prowler's.
They could also carry up to 6 Shrike's, according to one of the Marine ECMO's who used to fly them.
When I saw A-6Es on the Big E, they had fuselage speed brakes but were tagged out inoperative.
Don't know why...anyone?
Here's a portion of an article written by the late Hal Andrews about the speed brakes (Hal was an aviation historian of merit... was given many accolades during his life for his historical work... including being designated Honorary Naval Aviator No. 22 in 1991 and the Radford award given by the Pensacola Museum in 2002):
"With less emphasis on close support dive-bombing, the fuselage dive brakes were disabled and locked closed, finally being replaced in production by plain skin.
An electronic warfare EA-6A version was developed for the Marines; 28 were converted from A-6As. In combat, they operated from both shore bases and carriers. A fuselage extension forward of the cockpit and an upper fin antenna fairing housed the 'electronic Intruder's' countermeasures systems. Fuselage speed brakes were retained to allow wingtip antennas."
Entire article here:
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/7316/life.html
"With less emphasis on close support dive-bombing, the fuselage dive brakes were disabled and locked closed, finally being replaced in production by plain skin.
An electronic warfare EA-6A version was developed for the Marines; 28 were converted from A-6As. In combat, they operated from both shore bases and carriers. A fuselage extension forward of the cockpit and an upper fin antenna fairing housed the 'electronic Intruder's' countermeasures systems. Fuselage speed brakes were retained to allow wingtip antennas."
Entire article here:
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/7316/life.html
Those -E's would have been oldies, and maybe goodies ... as most of the birds that went through the -E conversion/facelift had the old, perforated fuselage boards covered w/ a plain panel replacement. Easier to keep it clean at sea w/out the holes salt-trap even though they were inop shut ...
The original A-6 design provided for fuselage speed brakes. When this design proved UNSAT in the landing phase handling and airflow disruption categories, the "smart guys" moved the boards further aft, but that still didn't work.
Soooooooooooo ... they went w/ the then unconventional, now Intruder-ugly, familiar wing-tip boards, which were interlocked to prevent assymetric deployment. Some of the eary birds had both types -- you could select "BOTH" and "both" could be used in a dive-bombing run, but the wingtips ONLY worked on landing. The Navy/Grummies finally said "who needs 'em?" and welded/bolted the fuselage boards permanently shut.
The fuselage panels remained until quite a few birds had been produced -- maybe a few hundred -- and then they quietly disappeared under the "new" fairing.
I can't "easily" find a picture of them in my photos -- I've got @ 100 more that I have to digitize some fine day -- but here's a painting of the two boards "in action" rolling into the groove: the wingtip boards deployed, of course, and the perforated fuselage boards (just below the word: NAVY) sitting, as always, at parade rest.
Baby steps ... baby steps. We gave 'em to the Marines so they would think they were getting "something" and would quit whining about always gettin' Navy cast-offs.
Talking w/ guys who actually FLEW the EA-6A, they described it as about as jammin'-effective as putting an electric razor next to a TV set ...
The Navy flew em' in the Reserves for a while. I almost did that gig until I stumbled into the ADVERSARY program.
6?? SIX Shrikes?? I got lost after # 5, even w/ a couple of baby wing stations added in for the EA ... and I never heard of a Shrike being carried on the centerline in any case -- but I suppose anything's possible. Where do you suppose he put #5 & 6?? In the back seat?? Oh, right ... there wasn't any back seat...
And where he think he was gonna put those jammin' pods (to find the SAM sites) and chaff dispensers and drop tanks w/ 6 Shrikes aboard ... ??? :icon_wink
*** p.s. .... thread split .... ***
And where he think he was gonna put those jammin' pods (to find the SAM sites) and chaff dispensers and drop tanks w/ 6 Shrikes aboard ... ??? :icon_wink
*** p.s. .... thread split .... ***
B
Blutonski816
Guest
6?? SIX Shrikes?? I got lost after # 5, and I never heard of a Shrike being carried on the centerline -- but I suppose anything's possible. Where do you suppose he put #6?? In the back seat?? Oh, right ... there wasn't any back seat...
And where he think he was gonna put those jammin' pods and chaff dispensers and drop tanks ... ??? :icon_wink
p.s. .... thread split ....
I count three wing pylons on RO's pic... I'm guessing that's where you get your 6 shrikes??
Same place Prowlers do when we carry 4 HARM.
Same place Prowlers do when we carry 4 HARM.
And then what's an EA-6A going to use to find 'em and lock 'em??? The SAM's ??? We are talking electric razor jamming technology.
There's MUCH better SAM killing platforms available in the guise of A-4's, A-7's, and A-6's ... which was my point.
Not that they "couldn't" ... just that they "didn't".
Mebbe there's an EA-6A guy around that can answer that one.
Here's a good link to some historical birthpangs of the EA-6A and it's operational employment ...
Hey!! I even know a couple of those guys ...
EVOLUTION OF THE EA-6A
Hey!! I even know a couple of those guys ...
EVOLUTION OF THE EA-6A
More stations! as someone pointed out the EA-6A had two more stations.
The jamming pods just jammed, and not terribly well as they were dedicated pods to certain frequencies and tube technology before the traveling wave tubes and they did not have the Universal Exciter controller of the Prowler yet so one pod was one band not two in a fore and aft config like an ALQ-99 onm the Prowler. The ECMO panel in the cockpit looked very much like the "Standard" version of the Prowler
For you non-Prowler guys the EA-6B has gone through many significant mods in its life without a designation change. "Standard" beget "Excap" beget "ICAP I" beget "ICAP II" beget "ICAP block 86" beget "ICAP II Block 89" beget "ICAP II block 89A" beget ICAP III. Some of these changes were pretty large.
From the guys I knew in VAQ-209 and 309 that flew it the EA-6A was a cross country machine. Six drops and .7 mach got you west to east coast in one leg and east to west was one stop.