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Scooters Forever (A-4 Skyhawk Tribute Thread)

Yankee Air Museum gets an A-4C Scooter.
https://www.facebook.com/yankeeairm...874604563322/1375298792520891/?type=3&theater
15284102_1375298792520891_4921955788394495592_n.jpg
 
https://www.aol.co.uk/2019/02/21/monkees-stars-heartbroken-over-death-of-bandmate-peter-tork/

God we're getting old, Walt.

Hope you're doing okay, me I'm doing well.

Steve




Steve, “Tell me about it”. I’ll be 74 March 20th. I didn’t know that the Monkey band guy was that much older than me. Now you on the other hand are a youngster. You may be a “Baby Boomer” but I am a “WAR” baby.

Glad to hear you’re still doing fine. We are hanging in there too, but are nursing sore backs. They are getting better though.

It has been cold up there in Yankee land. We had a few days here where the heat came on in the morning and the A/C kicked on in the afternoon. I love the warm weather though. Less aches and pains.

We would love to move. Palm Beach County is getting a little over crowded. Our problem is decision making. We can’t even pick a car to buy let alone a house.

Well since we can’t go back in time to good old Cecil Field we’ll just have to settle for the Google Earth satellite view minus our barracks.

Later Navy Buddy Walt

Edit: I sure miss my old shipmates, especially BzB.
 
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I do know that it was initially designed to be small, easily maintainable, and capable of carrying nuclear weapons. I'd always heard that was why the gear were so long. The pic is the first I've ever seen of an A-4 with an early nuke hanging below, which reinforces the necessity of a long gear. I know the F-4 had the extendable nose gear for the cat shots.
 
zipmartin said:
I do know that it was initially designed to be small, easily maintainable, and capable of carrying nuclear weapons. I'd always heard that was why the gear were so long. The pic is the first I've ever seen of an A-4 with an early nuke hanging below, which reinforces the necessity of a long gear. I know the F-4 had the extendable nose gear for the cat shots.
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I guess it could have been to serve both purposes. Ed H was a clever guy.

Related, I wonder why all of the complicated work-arounds for AoA on the cat - the extendable F-4 nose gear, the F-8 VI wing, the stupid long nose gear of the Cutlass, etc - of the 1950s designs weren't deemed needed in later generations of carrier aircraft. What was the solution?
 
Y’all know that AOA off the cat shot don’t mean jack! You need airspeed. AOA is for landing to fly the airplane at a certain attitude for the hook angle and generally speaking on the back side of the power curve for instantaneous power.
 
Random8145 said:
Were these training missions where they would fly with actual nuclear weapons?
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No, those were "shapes" that had the size, weight and CG of an actual weapon. VX-5 at China Lake was involved in the techniques for delivery such as toss bombing and over-the-shoulder delivery with the F9F-8B, FJ-4B and various A4Ds, (And using the AD Skyraider earlier than that -- talk about a hairy evolution!)

There were a few actual drops of live weapons -- we were still doing atmospheric testing -- but those were done by the weapons facility at Albuquerque (on Kirtland AFB) that also had a small number of A4Ds, etc.
 
FrankTheTank said:
Y’all know that AOA off the cat shot don’t mean jack! You need airspeed. AOA is for landing to fly the airplane at a certain attitude for the hook angle and generally speaking on the back side of the power curve for instantaneous power.
Click to expand...

Demonstrably false. AOA is a function of airspeed, so off the end of the cat stroke it means something in a very real and immediate sense. In order to keep catapult end speeds within reasonable bounds, a lot of the older delta-winged aircraft used a longer nose landing gear to sit at a higher angle, inducing an AOA during the cat stroke to prevent settle. Extra room for large stores under the jet was an ancillary benefit.

Later designs like the F/A-18 and F-35 did away with some of this due to a number of features like leading edge extensions, leading edge flaps, and a high degree of control power stemming from their large horizontal stabilators. In the F/A-18, the highest AOA in the terminal environment is just off the cat as the aircraft accelerates under its own power and rotates based on stabilator trim setting (hands-free so the pilot doesn't over or under-rotate). With the gear and flaps down, the jet is seeking alpha (AOA), just like it does during an approach, so the loss of an AOA probe can cause pitch excursions immediately off the cat. Ask me how I know. ;)
 
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