TheList 5281

The List 5281 TGB


I hope your Friday is going well

Some world news and some tidbits.



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It is getting crowded up there

thanks to Doctor Rich

Thanks to Mark C.









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Thanks to Dutch

When Bad Luck Shows Up Better Lucky Than Good

These stories are from his early days as a Naval Aviator -

I had the distinct pleasure of flying with Pat Patrick in two squadrons, VA-23 and VA27. What a fantastic man, a real gentlemen and superb stick - and the greatest flight lead, especially when going into combat

Hand Salute!

Dutch



From the A-4 Association

The flame-out and ejection of 16 December 1958

Pat Patrick

The ill-fated flight of 16 December 1958 was my sixth hop in the A-4A (it was designated A4D-1 then, the older designation current in 1958.) The aircraft was still very new and had the familiar new-car smell when I manned it. All of our A4D-1s were fresh out of the Douglas Aircraft factory within the past several months. On familiarization hop number five (FAM 5) we had dropped six Mk-76 practice bombs and fired four 2.75" folding fin aircraft rockets (FFAR) on "Switzerland Target" just south of NAS Jacksonville across the St. Johns River from the small town of Green Cove Springs, Florida. Consequently this was my second bomb and rocket hop in the A-4. We took off mid-morning on 16 December 1958, rendezvoused a four-plane formation led by the executive officer (XO) of VA-44 (the East Coast A-4 RAG at that time) and proceeded to the same target. We made a low-altitude, 500-knot pass over the target to set the trim tabs for release conditions and broke up the formation to establish a safe interval between aircraft. As the junior ensign, I flew the number four position. We fired the rockets first with a release from a 30-degree dive angle at about 1,200 feet above ground level (AGL) and 500 knots true air speed (TAS).



On my third firing pass I pulled up in a four-G climb and pushed the throttle forward. Instead of the usual acceleration, I felt the aircraft decelerate rapidly. My body leaned forward into the shoulder straps and I heard the engine begin to unwind. I glanced at the engine gauge and saw the RPM and tail pipe temperature (TPT) falling rapidly. The oil pressure and fuel boost flip-flop gauges went to OFF. I said the usual OH NO, with "no" as a four-letter word, then keyed the mike and broadcast, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Baker Boy 325, flamed out, pulling off the target." I then told the XO, our flight leader, that I would trade airspeed for altitude and try a relight going over the top when I reached the optimum relight speed of 220 kt. He "rogered" and told me he had me in sight. As I went over the top of the arc at 5,500 feet and 210 kt., I pushed the nose over slightly and adjusted airspeed to 220 indicated air speed (IAS), I went through the relight procedure and waited for the TPT to start to rise. It never did. We had no fuel flow gage in the A4A; nor did we have any other diagnostic instruments like those available in current Navy jets, so I held the airspeed at 220 and tried one more relight procedure. As I completed each of the four simple steps for a re-light I read it off to the flight leader and asked him if I was forgetting anything. He told me, "no, you are doing all you can."



I really didn't want to eject and explain why I had just destroyed a $425,000 aircraft. During the second attempt, I saw the altimeter descend through 3,000 feet and heard the XO say, "Quit fooling with it and get out. Eject now." I glanced up and saw that I was headed toward a small crossroads village, so I turned right toward a swampy area. I had been holding the nose up to stop the descent because the ejection seat was only good to altitudes above 1,000 feet and 125 knots IAS, straight and level. When I pulled the face curtain the airspeed was 125, altitude 1,800 foot and rate of descent about 2,000 feet per minute. When I pulled the face curtain, the canopy separated and I was blasted out of the aircraft.



So far so good, but I quickly found out that I was still in real trouble. In between my sophomore and junior years at the University of Florida, I had spent three years in the Army, during the Korean War. I had gone through parachute training as an enlisted troop in December 1952, and had 22 static-line parachute jumps while serving with the 10th Special Forces Group in 1953 and 1954. In the early stages of training we had to climb up into a tower about 20 to 30 feet high wearing a parachute harness, hook up to a cable that descended at about a 10 or 15 degree angle, jump out and slide down to the ground. The training taught us to exit the airplane in the right position and then to make a proper parachute-landing fall when we contacted the ground. There was always a grizzled old sergeant at the bottom of the slide. (He was probably about 30 years old.) As soon as you jumped out of the tower he would scream at you, "You had betta open yo eyes, look around, and see what you can do fo yo sef." (All paratrooper sergeants had southern accents.) That translated to: "Don't expect everything to work as advertised; as soon as you clear the aircraft open your eyes and take care of any malfunctions."



I reached up, grasped the face curtain firmly and pulled hard with both hands. When the curtain pulled out about ¾ of the way, I heard a loud, "BOOM", felt a sharp pain in the small of my back, and was blown clear of the aircraft. As soon as I was out in the air-stream, I could picture the instructor, who used to be at the bottom of the cable slide training device. I could hear him shouting in that pronounced southern accent, "You had betta open yo eyes, look around, and see what you can do fo yo sef." Consequently, as I cleared the aircraft I threw the face curtain back out of the way and looked around to see what I could do for myself. It made the life or death difference, because I was still attached to the seat by the para-raft lanyard. The lanyard was a yellow nylon ribbon that connected the survival raft located under the aircraft seat to the pilot's flotation gear.



The bright yellow-colored -lanyard was wrapped around the shoulder harness locking handle on the left side of the ejection seat holding the seat snug up against my right hip. I quickly reached out with my right hand and pulled the seat in toward me to get some slack. I then unwrapped the pararaft lanyard with my left hand, and threw the seat forcefully away from me.



Next, I felt for and found the D-ring for manually opening the parachute. I pulled it hard to try and beat the automatic actuator. It was like pulling on a well-anchored cable; it would not budge. I was plunging, head first, toward the tops of pine trees near the edge of the swamp I had aimed the aircraft at. My first thought was, "you are a dead man." I tilted my head back, looked toward the ground, and saw a huge dark red-to-orange fireball exploding out from among the trees as the aircraft hit the ground near the edge of the swamp. I then looked down at the nearest pine tree and could see individual pine needles. My heart nearly stopped because I knew that if the parachute were not on its way out by now, I really was dead. It is eerily quiet when you are falling through the air and I could hear a whirring noise. It was the familiar sound of rubber bands popping as the parachute was deploying. Rubber bands are used to hold the shroud lines, risers, and panels in place when the parachute is packed. They make a whirring sound when they pop in sequence as the parachute opens.



The automatic actuator had fired when I threw the seat away and had kinked the steel cable leading to the D ring, which was why I could not pull it. My heart started to race again as I looked at the pine needles and tried to tell whether the 'chute was going to open in time. I shifted away from the thought that I was a dead man, and said to myself, "Oh, S_ _ t, man this is going to be close, this is really going to be close." I then felt a hard jerk at my shoulders when the chute opened with me falling headfirst, face down toward the trees. The hard jerk swung my feet and legs down toward the ground and straightened me out. I had no time to enjoy the feeling because I was probably less than a hundred feet off the ground. I could see to my right front (about 2:30), a Y shaped intersection where three dirt roads joined. I then grabbed the two risers in that direction and pulled down hard on them to take a slip toward the little opening formed by that Y intersection. I had to lift my legs up to clear the last pine tree, but I made it into the small clearing and smashed into the Florida sand. I tried to do a parachute-landing fall to cushion the impact, but my timing was a little off and the impact stunned my whole body.



There was almost no wind so the parachute just collapsed around me. It was a good thing because all I could do was lie there for a few seconds. Almost immediately, however, I could feel a big grin growing inside my oxygen mask as a tremendous sense of elation welled up inside me. I stood up, popped the oxygen mask off, took my helmet off and looked up at the beautiful blue sky with puffy white, fair weather cumulus clouds drifting by. Life was good. The pine needles smelled like expensive perfume and my whole body unwound as I looked up at that beautiful sky and shed a few tears of elation and relief. I hurt all over, but it didn't matter. I was alive with no broken bones or other serious injury.



By the way the A4A parachute was only 26 feet in diameter and was designed for survival, not for a comfortable landing. My back hurt like hell from the ejection because the older seats were fired by a 37-millimeter cannon shell and were not as friendly as the rocket motors used today. The hard impact with the ground didn't help. (Many of my contemporary pilot friends have had serious, long-term, back problems stemming from their ejections. I have been extremely fortunate and have had no long term effect at all.) We had no survival radios, so I popped an orange smoke signal device in the intersection of the dirt roads where I had landed. I then spread my 'chute out, and stood in the middle of it to make myself more visible for rescue.



In less than ten minutes a reconnaissance version of the F9F-8 flew overhead and rocked his wings to let me know he had me in sight. He circled my position and guided the helicopter in. Roughly ten minutes later, still, I could hear the helicopter approaching and popped another orange smoke. I rolled up the parachute, held on to it to prevent it from getting sucked up into the blades and got out of the way. The helicopter landed in my little clearing and we exchanged big smiles and enthusiastic thumbs up signals. They loaded my parachute and me aboard and flew me over to the helicopter pad next to the hospital at NAS Jacksonville. The flight surgeons at NAS Jacksonville checked me over, gave me three fingers of rot gut brandy and a bottle of aspirin, then released in time for happy hour.



The accident investigation



The accident board had asked me for a detailed statement of what happened and I gave them probably more detail than they wanted. They did not let me read their draft report, however, until it was essentially complete. At that time the Operations Officer, Commander Jim Homyak, called me in and let me read the, almost smooth, draft. The story the report told was that the aircraft, side number 325, had flown a field carrier landing practice hop the night before and when it was returned to the line the ground crew failed to refuel it. I manned the aircraft the next morning and failed to complete the checklist including the push-to-test of the fuel gauge and check of fuel quantity. The aircraft would have had only about 2,500 pounds of fuel, which was exactly the amount that I would have needed to take off, rendezvous, get to the target, and make three rocket passes. Consequently, I had run the aircraft out of fuel and would have had no symptoms prior to flame-out. We had no low-fuel warning light in the A-4D-1. The mishap board said it was 100 percent pilot error.



While I was reading this I was picturing the huge orange-red fireball I saw while falling face down toward the pine trees, waiting for the parachute to open. I thought, "no way!" I described the fireball to Commander Homyak and he agreed to go back out in the helicopter and take another look. He found the swampy area where the aircraft impacted had been severely burned for 25 yards around the impact point and agreed that the aircraft was clearly not out of fuel at impact. He also noted that there was a substantial amount of JP-4 still floating on the water in the hole formed by the crash. The cause was changed to "undetermined." I have been very suspicious of mishap boards ever since. We would learn on 21 February 1959 the probable cause of the majority of the large number of flameouts we had during the fall and winter of 1958-1959. That story is next. After four working days and a weekend off, recovering from the soreness, I was back in the cockpit.



This was one of about nine aircraft that the A4 community lost in a matter of just a few months. The flame-outs were occurring without any prior symptom and several were at an altitude too low to eject, so we also lost about four pilots.




The flame-out and ditching of 21 February 1959.



February 21, 1959, was one of the coldest days that NAS Jacksonville, Florida, had experienced in several years. While I was briefing the instructor pilot (IP) on my navigation and weapon delivery plan, it was 27 degrees. It had climbed only to 29 when I hit the water just before noon. I was scheduled, on a Saturday morning, for a high-low navigation flight with a simulated nuclear weapon delivery at Stephens Lake target, near the end of the flight. The target was just south of NAS Cecil Field, Florida. I had two 150-gallon dropable fuel tanks on the wing weapon stations and a 1,200-pound, concrete filled, "shape" of a Mk-12 nuclear weapon on the centerline bomb rack. With me in the lead and the instructor pilot (IP) flying wing, we took off and climbed to 41,000 feet. The A-4A weighed only 8100 pounds dry and had 7800 pounds of thrust, so at light weights it climbed like a rocket. Even with the extra fuel and shape it took us very few minutes to level off at 41,000 feet, with no afterburner. (It was really impressive when you climbed out after flying a loft maneuver and then zoomed up to climb back to just over 40,000 feet from which you cruised climbed during the trip back to the carrier. I have timed the climb out from the escape maneuver at less than six minutes from 100 feet to over 40,000 with a clean A4A. The climb schedule was 370 knots indicated to .80 indicated Mach number (IMN).



We flew down the East Coast of Florida to just south of Homestead AFB, turned and crossed the Everglades, then returned up the West Coast of Florida to Deadman's Bay. I then descended to 100 feet at 420 knots, and flew in to the target. It was an incredibly beautiful day with crystal-clear visibility and a few puffy cumulous clouds. As we cruise climbed from 41,000 to just over 47,000 feet during the high altitude portion of the flight, I could see the entire peninsular of Florida and I thought, "man this is the life for me."



I led our two-plane formation on the final run in to the target at 100 feet and 500 knots. I delivered the weapon with a 45-degree medium-angle-loft maneuver and went over the top, inverted, while completing the half-Cuban-eight escape maneuver. We ran out away from the target at the planned 1,100-foot burst height and 570 knots indicated air speed. When clear of the simulated safe overpressure ring, we climbed to 5,500 feet, turned across the Orange River bridge, and headed north up the St. Johns River to enter the traffic pattern for runway 5 at NAS Jacksonville. Soon after crossing the bridge and near the East bank of the St. Johns River, I felt that awful deceleration again. I was involuntarily leaning forward in the shoulder straps. I glanced to my right to pick up the instructor pilot who was sliding by on my right side with full speed breaks extended. I shook my head as he went by and deployed the emergency ram air turbine (RAT) to keep electric power and hydraulic pressure while I set up for another relight attempt.



I had read everything I could find about flying since I was about eight years old, and one consistent bit of advice from all of the old aviators had been to always have a place to go when you are in trouble. They counseled that when you change operating areas you should always look around and find the safest place to go when the engine quits. I had selected the two-mile-wide section of the St. Johns River just northeast of NAS Jacksonville. My fallback plan was to fly to the middle of the river, line up with the long axis of the river, stall the airplane, and eject. That would allow the aircraft to fall into the river and do no harm to the people and houses on either side of the river. The shallow river was also a good parachute landing spot close to both helicopter and boat rescue facilities. It was also close to the hospital at NAS Jacksonville if I needed medical treatment quickly.

For now, however, runway 27 looked like a good option for a flame-out approach and, again, I really didn't want to eject—especially since I now knew how much it hurt. I traded airspeed for altitude while turning in toward runway 27, broadcast the Mayday, and told the tower what my intentions were. The tower and the instructor pilot both "rogered" and the tower cleared me and gave me priority for the landing. As I turned through about 45 degrees of turn to go, I was now descending again through about 5,200 feet with a little excess airspeed, but not enough to make the runway. My landing gear and flaps were still up, and drop tanks still on. I could soon tell I wasn't going to make it. The velocity vector that I drew with my mind's eye ended in the water about 50 feet short of the concrete seawall. The flame-out approach was no longer a good plan.



I immediately shifted back to the original plan and headed for the center of the wide section of river. I still had electric power from the RAT and told the IP what I was up to. He "rogered" and I could see him doing a weave back and forth over the top of me as I headed the few thousand yards up the river. I kept bleeding off airspeed so as to reach a stall as high off the river as I could manage. When I arrived over the center of the river headed north, I pulled the nose up into the stall. I was at 2,800 feet and 112 knots. The aircraft shuttered and banged as it entered the stall and I pulled hard on the face curtain with both hands. I pulled hard three times against a hard metal stop and it didn't budge. I knew immediately that I was dead because never before (or since) was I able to recover an A-4 from a full stall in less than 3,200 feet. (Of course, I have never practiced one starting in the very dense air at 3200 feet either.) I liked my reaction to the circumstances because my next thought after, "You are dead," was, "At least you can look good."



What I meant was that I wanted to show my squadron mates that I never gave up and was fighting it all the way. So, in order to "look good," I released the face curtain and noticed that the aircraft nose had already fallen through the horizontal and was nosing over toward the river while I had been pulling on the face curtain. I grabbed the stick and shoved it further forward to increase airspeed as rapidly as possible. During the stall, the left wing had rocked down in about a near 90 degree angle of bank, so as I shoved the stick forward I was now aligned 90 degrees to the long axis of the river, headed almost due West, instead of paralleling the long axis. While pushing the stick forward with my right hand, I reached down to the emergency release handle, pulled it, and blew the drop tanks off the wings. I had wanted to land on them if I could have shot the flame-out approach, but now I needed them gone for two reasons:

1. To get airspeed as quickly as I could to recover from the stall, and

2. To have the flat undersurface of the wing and fuselage available to ditch on without having a drop tank dig in and cartwheel me at impact.



I also locked my shoulder harness with my left hand, just in case. I still didn't really believe that I could pull this off, but that was a part of looking good. They would find me properly set up when they fished my body out of the water. When the drop tanks blew off, the airspeed needle zoomed up immediately to 155 knots and I started trying to pull the nose up to round out the descent. During the stall I had no electric power and therefore no radio, but when the airspeed came up the RAT began to function. Consequently, I again had electric power and better hydraulic boost for the controls. I pulled back on the stick until I felt the airflow just begin to separate from the wings, then I would ease off and pull again to the edge of separation. I kept it, by feel, at or near the optimum angle of attack until I rounded it off about 10 to 15 feet clear of the water. When I had stopped the descent and still had not hit the water, I thought, "Hey, maybe!"



I could hear the IP's voice on the radio. His voice was very deliberate; he was enunciating every word carefully, because he knew he did not have time to say it twice. He said, "You had better put it on, you are running out of river." I had planned to hold it off the water until I reached 125 knots then ease it onto the river very flat. His call was just in time because as I glanced up I could see very large trees, very close. I glanced at the airspeed indicator, saw 135 knots, and thought, "that's close enough." I then eased off on the back-pressure against the stick to put the belly of the aircraft onto the water as flat as I could. Because my eyeballs were now less than seven feet off the water, I could see that I was drifting very slightly to the right with a quartering tail wind. There were very small ripples on the water, which gave me good depth perception but not enough wave height to catch a wing tip. The conditions were near perfect for impact.



When the aircraft hit the water I can remember starting forward and to the right and then it was lights out. There was no pressure and no pain of any kind. I just entered a very deep sleep instantaneously. The next awareness I had was waking up with my head hanging down on my chest and the helmet feeling very heavy. I could not believe it. I was still alive. No one had ever survived a ditching in an A-4 or F-8, the two newest aircraft in the fleet at the time. I could see translucent light straight up and thought I was resting on the bottom of the shallow river. I thought, "Okay let's get out of here." Emergency procedures say pull the ditching handle and it will blow the canopy off and cut you loose from the seat with your parachute and para-raft still attached. So, I pulled the ditching handle on the right side of the seat and stood up. I banged into the canopy, which was still locked and closed. I sat back down and thought, "You have got to be s _ _ _ _ ing me. What else can go wrong?" My next thought was, "I have survived this ditching and I am not going to die in this airplane." I reached for my survival knife, which was strapped to my right calf and started to pull it out to scribe an X in the Plexiglas and bash my way out. We had been taught this for a last-ditch escape effort.



Before I got the knife all the way out of the scabbard, I thought, "Wait a minute, dummy, you haven't tried the manual open handle." So I slid the knife back into the scabbard and reached over with my left hand with a backhand motion and pulled the canopy handle aft. Boom! The canopy blew aft and up a few feet, but it was still attached behind the seat. I stood up, put my right foot onto the seat, and pushed the canopy further out of the way with my helmet. I was very surprised to learn that I was still on the surface and the river was just beginning to flow over the canopy rail and into the cockpit as the aircraft settled toward the bottom.



I learned later from the air controllers in the tower, who could see all of this plainly, and from the IP who was also a close-in witness, that it was only about 12 seconds from when the splash went up until I crawled out of the cockpit. The reason I thought I was on the bottom was that the huge splash was still subsiding while I was going through all of the emergency procedures and made it look like I was under water. The IP said that he could not believe what he saw. The little A4 left a small rooster tail in the water just before impact, but when it hit the water it did not plane or skip across the water as he thought it would. It dug in, stopped within the length of the aircraft, and turned almost 90 degrees to the right while stopping instantly. It then was totally obscured as the huge splash went up and covered the aircraft completely for the next several seconds. When the splash subsided, the IP was very surprised to see that the aircraft looked essentially intact and was still afloat.



I pushed away from the aircraft as it settled and inflated one side of my Mk-3C flotation gear. I then started working on getting rid of my parachute and para-raft and realized that I was tangled up with the para-raft lanyard and a couple of shroud lines from the partially opened parachute. I couldn't get the shoulder harness fittings released with my flight gloves on. They were very slick when wet. So I took off the gloves, released the fittings, and once again reached for my knife. It was still there. I pulled it out, cut the para-raft lanyard and shroud lines, then put it back in the scabbard. Those cuts freed me from the parachute and life raft, but it was all I could do with my hands. When I pulled them out of the water I couldn't believe what I saw— my hands were so cold they just stopped functioning. It looked like my fingers were locked in a partially curled position. I wanted to inflate the other half of my flotation gear, but the hands just didn't work.



I could hear a helicopter approaching, and when I looked toward the sound there were two HS-3s with Marine markings just crossing the riverbank headed for me. I though, "Well, at least one thing is going right; that is a very fast response." As luck would have it, the two Marine helicopters were departing on a cross-country flight, returning to New River, North Carolina and just happened to time their departure right for me. One of them had an old "horse collar" rescue device and lowered it to me from a hover. My hands didn't work, but I managed to work my right elbow through the horse collar, roll through to my right, and hook it with my left elbow too. They reeled me up and delivered me, once again, directly to the hospital at NAS Jacksonville.



The flight surgeons only kept me long enough to fill out some forms and reassure themselves that I was uninjured. I had a dark bruise under my right eye from having stretched the shoulder harness far enough to make contact with the glare shield. I also had a minor cut on my left thumb from cutting it while freeing myself from the entanglement. Other than that I was just sore all over. Every muscle and bone seemed to hurt but all body parts were intact.



The aircraft that I ejected from in December was side number 325 and the one that I ditched in February was 326. Commander Homyak announced to the ready room that I would never, ever, be allowed to fly 327.



This accident produced several important changes to the A-4A and B and subsequently to all modern jets. Because I could not eject and was able to ditch the aircraft pretty much intact, the long-running problem with the engine could finally be conclusively diagnosed. We had lost many A-4As over the previous three months. (I believe we lost nine aircraft and four pilots, but my memory is not clear on the exact numbers.) The engines had quit with no advance warning or symptom of any kind. The evidence was destroyed when the aircraft crashed and burned. Included among the destroyed aircraft was the A-4A I had ejected from following the flameout on 16 December 1958.



Lessons learned, and fixes



This ditching revealed the reason for the numerous flameouts. The high-pressure fuel pump spline that connected the fuel pump to the engine's accessory gear drive was failing after only 20 to 100 hours of operation. Instead of being mounted on a firm track to keep the spline normal to the plane of rotation, the pump was mounted on four bolts. When any bolt loosened, the pump would lose its alignment normal to the plane of rotation and the spline, (which operated at extremely high RPM), and would grind itself to a nub immediately. This shut off all fuel flow to the engine instantly and a no-symptom flame-out resulted, with no chance for a relight.

All A-4A and B aircraft were grounded for inspection and replacement of the pump mounting as soon as the cause was determined. The seriousness of the problem was apparent when all remaining A-4As and Bs on the VA-44 ramp (about 60 aircraft) were inspected and about 30 percent of them were found to be on the verge of failure. Fixing this problem alone probably reduced the A-4 accident rate by a very large factor.



Additionally, the failure of the ejection seat resulted in the addition of the alternate ejection handle between the pilot's legs to back up the face curtain, which was at the top of the ejection seat behind his head. Prior to this accident, Navy jets had had only a face curtain with no alternate handle. Later it was discovered that many crews were saved because under high-g loads they could not reach the face curtain but could grab the alternate handle and eject. Also, immediately after catapult launch the alternate handle can be activated faster than the face curtain and that has also saved some lives. So, the addition of the alternate handle proved to be useful beyond the original intent of providing a backup in the event of face curtain failure.



Seven years later, in October 1966, the Chief Petty Officer who had run the ejection seat shop at VA-44, had a confession for me on the day of his retirement from VA-125 in Lemoore, California. As the shop supervisor, he had told me at the time, that the problem with the ejection seat was a bad design. That the way the cable, between the face curtain and the actuators, was placed was faulty, but they had figured out a fix and it wouldn't happen again. The later confession was that they had lied about the design problem. The riggers had just installed the cable wrong and it was pulling in the wrong direction when I yanked on the face curtain. A change was made that allowed the cable to be routed only in the correct direction.



Also, because I demonstrated that a pilot could survive a ditching at 135 knots, downwind, a pressure relief valve was installed in the side of the cockpit to equalize pressures and allow the pilot to get the canopy open and exit more easily under water. There had been no survivors of ditchings in A-4 or F-8 aircraft up to this time, so there had been no incentive, before this crash, to be concerned about underwater escape.



Because I had had trouble releasing the parachute connections with wet gloves in the water after escape, new "Koch fittings" were also designed with serrated edges to allow actuation with slick, wet gloves.



Many lessons were learned from this experience and the key fixes were made quickly, before A-4s were allowed to fly again. In addition to all of the necessary mechanical fixes that this accident brought about, the biggest lesson learned was, "Don't ever give up. Keep fighting it all the way, even if it is just to look good."

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Note: this was a decade before I climbed into the A-4F. A much improved version but would every once in a while flame out when doing a long idle descent from very high altitude. Always better to observe how the new thing works and get those bugs out.

It is never over until the light goes out permanently.

--

"Civility costs nothing, and buys everything"

- Mary Wortley Montage



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Thanks to John

In WW2, there are stories of fighter pilots getting shot down and capturing an enemy plane and flying back to safety. How do they not get shot down?



That happened only once, and it was Colonel Bruce Carr of the USAAF who took off on a mission in a P-51D, and was shot down by flak while strafing ground targets over Czechoslovakia. He landed near a Luftwaffe field with the intent of surrendering to the Luftwaffe troops since they were generally much more friendly to U.S aircrew than were the soldiers of the German army, but it was becoming dark just as he got there and from the trees he watched two mechanics fuel up and then run up a FW-190A-8 and shut it back down again.



Col. Carr next to his P-51D "Angels' Playmate"

He decided well, that seemed to be a perfectly good airplane, why not give it a try. Near dawn he snuck out and jumped in the cockpit, and having no knowledge of it he went with the theory that if he kept flipping switches and moving controls to the opposite position of where they currently were, he'd find the starter somehow. And damned if he didn't, and luckily the FW-190A series included the most advanced throttle system for a WW2 aircraft called the Kommandogerat, where boost pressure, fuel flow, mixture setting, and prop were all controlled with a single lever, making it about the only plane in WW2 that an enemy pilot could steal and manage to get going down a runway with less than 30 minutes of experimentation.



A FW-190A-8. It was built in greater numbers than any other FW-190A series. Image courtesy of B. Huber (CC BY-SA)

Luftwaffe personnel were already coming out to see what was going on, so Col. Carr didn't really have time to line up on the runway, he just gunned it across a corner of the field on a path that had him pass between two hangars before he was airborne. He was very pleased with himself when he managed to get the gear up.

He then later said that he decided to fly back at treetop height in hopes of not drawing any Allied fighter attention, but said that the choice wasn't great, because he was convinced that every .50cal M2 machine gun in existence in the 200 miles between that German airfield and his home field had taken shots at him.

When he got close to his squadron's base in France, he decided not to mess around at all and line up with the runway some distance out and fly straight in before anyone could man the AA defenses - at this point in the war the Allies had pretty much total air control and there was almost no threat of German attack.

The only problem was that he couldn't get the landing gear back down. Rather than make himself a target while trying to figure out what the problem was, he decided to just belly land it. And that's what he did, as American soldiers ran for the quad .50cal guns.

Needless to say everyone was very confused when they found (then) Captain Carr sitting in the cockpit. It was an awesome opportunity for a one liner, like "yeah, I never liked the P-51 anyway", or maybe "you wouldn't believe what happened in that fight yesterday, but some German is flying my P-51", but unfortunately he was too exhausted from the adrenalin and just said something to the effect of "**** you, I'm Captain Carr of this goddamned squadron" when the first soldiers arrived and pointed lots of guns at him.

Col. Carr later earned the Distinguished Service Cross when he and three other P-51s climbed (very bad idea) into a formation of 60 German fighters, and shot down seven, with Col. Carr being credited with five. He finished the war with 15 confirmed victories, three probables, and seven ground kills. He also flew combat in both Korea and Vietnam, before finally retiring in 1970.



His P-51D in 1997, painted in his original wartime colors and markings. Flying this is how you arrive in style for a dinner. Unfortunately this small image is the only one I can find, she was beautiful.

I had the honor of meeting Col. Carr , I think it was 1997 down at Kermit Week's air museum called Fantasy of Flight in Florida, and he arrived at aged 70 something, flying a P-51D that blew over our heads at about 300kts and 50 feet before breaking into a perfect entry to a final on the runway. We got to then listen to him tell this entire story, and ask him questions afterward.



A better view of the nose art on Angels' Playmate





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USA—State Dept. Report Accuses China Of Violating Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Wall Street Journal | 04/16/2020 A new State Dept. report indicates that China may have conducted low-yield nuclear tests despite its stated commitment to international agreements banning such activities, reports the Wall Street Journal. The allegations are part of the latest State Dept. report on arms control that is to be made public soon. There is no direct evidence of the tests but several activities raised concern that Beijing is conducting prohibited activities at its Lop Nur test site in northwest China, the report says. The evidence includes a high rate of activity at the site, extensive renovations in the absence of other explanations and the use of special chambers to contain explosions. U.S. officials also say that data transmissions from sensors in China that monitor radioactive emissions and seismic tremors have been interrupted. That interruptions began in 2018 and ended in August 2019 during negotiations between the Chinese government and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization on placing the monitoring stations into operation, said a spokeswoman for the Vienna-based organization. Such tests would be a violation of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the U.S. and China have signed but not ratified. It is not legally in force because not enough countries have ratified it. Experts said that the available evidence was potentially consistent with low-yield or sub-critical tests. The latter do not involve fission and are permitted by the CTBT, reported the Guardian (U.K.). The evidence, however, was thin, the experts said, noting that China, Russia and the U.S. all conduct sub-critical tests that are indistinguishable from low-yield nuclear tests.



USA—IRGC Boats Harass U.S. Warships In Persian Gulf U.S. Naval Forces Central Command | 04/16/2020 Iranian fast boats have harassed U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels operating in the northern Persian Gulf, reports the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. On Wednesday, 11 small boats made "dangerous and harassing approaches" to U.S. ships in the area, the command said. The Iranian vessels, operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), made passes that came within 10 to 50 yards of the U.S. ships, said the command. During the encounter, the American crews issued multiple warnings, including bridge-to-bridge radio calls, horn blasts and warnings via a long-range acoustic device. After around an hour, the Iranian crews responded to bridge-to-bridge radio calls and moved away from the U.S. ships. The expeditionary mobile base Lewis B. Puller, Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Paul Hamilton, two Coast Guard Island-class cutters and two Cyclone-class patrol boats were conducting integration operations with U.S. Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters when the harassment began, the Navy said.



USA—Su-35 Makes Unsafe intercept Of U.S. Aircraft Over Med, Navy Says U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Africa | 04/16/2020 A Russian fighter jet has made an unsafe intercept of a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea, reports the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa. On Wednesday, a Russian Su-35 intercepted a U.S. P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, including a high-speed, inverted pass about 25 feet (7.6 m) ahead of the surveillance plane, the command said. The crew of the Poseidon reported wake turbulence following the pass. The intercept lasted for about 42 minutes, said the command. U.S. Navy officials criticized the intercept and urged Russia to abide by the terms of the 1972 Agreement for the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas.



USA—Philadelphia Shipyard To Build MARAD Training Ships Defense News | 04/16/2020 Philly Shipyard has been selected to build up to five training vessels for the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD), reports Defense News. On April 8, Alaska-based TOTE Services, which was selected as the construction manager for the program in May 2019, awarded Philly Shipyard a $630 million contract for the first two National Security Multimission Vessels (NMSVs), the newspaper reported on Tuesday. The deal includes options for three more ships that, if exercised, would bring the total contract value to $1.5 billion, reported Marine Log. Production of the first vessel is expected to begin in early 2021. Delivery of the first two ships is scheduled for the spring and winter of 2023, respectively. The NSMVs are intended to replace the current training ships assigned to the State Maritime Academies and will provide at-sea training to merchant marine cadets. The vessels will be equipped with modern navigation and bridge systems, as well as a roll-on/roll-off ramp, crane and helicopter deck. They are designed to accommodate up to 600 cadets and instructors. The NSMVs will also be available for disaster relief and other government sealift missions.



USA—Air Force Seeks Technologies To Monitor Lunar Space Space News | 04/16/2020 The Air Force has awarded a contract to a team of startups to study ways to collect and analyze information about activity around the moon, reports Space News. The $50,000 small business innovation contract was awarded to Rhea Space Activity, a startup based in Washington, D.C., which has partnered with Saber Astronautics, an Australia-based company with U.S. operations in Colorado. Under the first phase the program, the team will develop a concept for collecting and managing lunar intelligence. The companies are expected to propose using a three-dimensional space situational awareness portal to track objects and display data about the space around the moon. The initial phase is expected to last three months. That data will be displayed in a "space cockpit" ground mission control tool, which is being developed by Saber Astronautics under a 2019 Air Force contract. The system uses 3D graphics and gaming-style controls to create a more intuitive control system, according to company officials. A commercial variant is already used by satellite operators to monitor, fly and diagnose issues with spacecraft. At the end of Phase 1, the firms will submit a proposal for a second stage focused on developing the technology.



France—2 Killed In Cougar Helo Crash In Pyrenees Aerotime | 04/16/2020 Two French soldiers have been killed in a helicopter crash in southwestern France, reports the Aerotime aviation news portal. On Wednesday, an AS 532 Cougar helicopter went down during a hoist exercise near Tarbes in the Hautes-Pyrenees department, said an army spokesman. The helicopter was part of the 5th Combat Helicopter Regiment based in Pau, reported Reuters. Five other crewmembers aboard the helicopter were injured, two seriously. Both were transported to a nearby hospital. A probe has been launched into the crash.



Italy—Mafia Using COVID-19 Pandemic To Recruit Reuters | 04/16/2020 Organized criminal groups in Italy are exploiting the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to recruit from poor families, say Italian officials cited by Reuters. Mafia clans are offering loans and food to those in economic distress from the COVID-19 outbreak in what has been described as a longstanding recruiting tactic, said prosecutors and officials. Loan sharks offer funds at competitive rates and later entrap borrowers by hiking interest rates to up to 300 percent, said a Catholic group that fights loan sharking. In Naples, prosecutors noticed that the Camorra gang has offered free food to poor families in the area. Criminals often seek repayment in the future, which could be provided by performing tasks for the mafia, such as transporting drugs, said the prosecutor. The government has offered up to 400 million euros (US$425 million) in food aid to dissuade citizens from accepting mafia assistance. Some analysts believe that the mafia may be suffering from the shutdowns, which are making moving contraband difficult.



Estonia—Police Apprehend 13-Year-Old Leader Of Neo-Nazi Group Business Insider | 04/16/2020 Police in Estonia have identified the leader of a violent neo-Nazi group as a 13-year-old living on the western island of Saaremaa, reports Business Insider. Estonian police identified the individual in January following a tip from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The individual, who used the account "HeilHitler8814" on the Steam gaming network, was a leader of the "Feuerkrieg Division," an offshoot of the larger Atomwaffen Division, according to German media. The suspect allegedly used the account to recruit for the group, which was based in the Baltic states. The teenager reportedly shared bomb-making instructions and discussed planning an attack in London and holding military training camps in February, reported Deutsche Welle. The suspect was also reportedly in contact with two individuals in the U.S. who were arrested by the FBI for planning to carry out attacks in Las Vegas and Atlanta. Those investigations led to the initial FBI interest in the Feuerkrieg Division. The group announced its dissolution on Feb. 8, although authorities have uncovered evidence that it planned to continue its activities under a different name. Since the individual is under 14, they cannot be prosecuted under Estonian criminal law. Authorities are seeking other legal measures to protect him from himself and others.



Russia—Moscow Tests Anti-Satellite Missile U.S. Space Command | 04/16/2020 Russia has tested an anti-satellite missile, reports the U.S. Space Command. On Wednesday, Russia conducted a trial of a direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missile, said the command. Analysts cited by Reuters indicated that the test likely involved a PL-19 Nudol missile that was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, about 500 miles (800 km) north of Moscow. The test followed an incident in February in which two Russian satellites approached a U.S. government satellite in a dangerous and unsafe manner, said Gen. John Raymond, the head of SPACECOM and chief of space operations for the Space Force. The incident is evidence of "Russia's hypocritical advocacy" of space arms control measures intended to restrict American capabilities, while demonstrating no intent to end its own counter-space efforts, Raymond said.



Malaysia—U.S. Returns Another US$300 Million Stolen From Development Fund Dept. Of Justice | 04/16/2020 The United States has returned around US$300 million in stolen monies from a Malaysian economic development fund, reports the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Former Prime Minister Najib Razak created the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fund to promote economic development in the Southeast Asian country. From 2009 to 2015, Najib and his associates, including Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, embezzled some US$4.5 billion from the fund, reported the Voice of America News. Combined with funds previously returned to Malaysia in May 2019, the U.S. has returned or helped Malaysia recover some US$600 million, said a Justice Dept. release on Tuesday. The U.S. has recovered or assisted in the recovery of more than US$1 billion in assets stolen from the 1MDB fund, reported Reuters. Last year, a U.S. court entered judgments calling for the forfeiture of US$700 million in assets acquired by Jho Low and his family and located in the U.S., U.K. and Switzerland. The assets included high-end real estate in Beverly Hills, New York and London and tens of millions of dollars in business investments made by Low.



India—Army Locks Down To Slow Spread Of COVID-19 Press Trust Of India | 04/16/2020 The Indian army has issued a stay-in-place order to fight the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), reports the Press Trust of India. On Thursday, the army command instructed all military establishments, cantonments, formation headquarters and units to remain in place and ensure no movement of their forces until April 19 as part of a wider government lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus. At the army headquarters, units tasked with operations, intelligence, logistics and strategic movement will operate with skeleton crews. Command headquarters units in the manpower, logistics and operations specialties will carry out their functions with minimum staff as well. After the order is lifted, staffing will be increased to half of normal levels. Intelligence wings in the northern and eastern commands will be unaffected. The army's Directorate General Medical Services will remain fully staffed to assist with the COVID-19 response, reported the Print (New Delhi). New Delhi imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 25, one of the largest efforts undertaken by any country to combat the spread of COVID-19. The stay-at-home order has been extended until May 3, but some measures are expected to be lifted on April 20.



Syria—Hezbollah Vehicle Transporting Arms To Lebanon Hit In Airstrike Times of Israel | 04/16/2020 A vehicle reportedly carrying arms from Syria into Lebanon for the Hezbollah militant organization has been hit in an Israeli airstrike, reports the Times of Israel. On Wednesday, the car was destroyed in Syria near the Lebanese border. Reports indicate that several people were injured in the attack, which was attributed to Israel. Imad Karimi, a senior Hezbollah operative, was reportedly in the car at the time. Israel and Hezbollah did not immediately acknowledge the strike. Israel does not typically comment on such operations. Israel has accused Syria of violating an agreement reached with Russia that was supposed to keep Hezbollah and Iranian-backed forces away from their mutual border. Israel says Syria is helping Hezbollah establish a permanent presence in the Golan Heights. The Israel Defense Forces recently released a video of a Syrian general and a Hezbollah commander touring an area known to be used by the militant group.



Lebanon—Peacekeepers Defuse Standoff With Israeli Troops Middle East Monitor | 04/16/2020 The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has intervened in a standoff between Israeli and Lebanese troops along the mutual border, reports the Middle East Monitor. On Tuesday, UNIFIL peacekeepers broke up a short standoff between the southern Lebanese village of Adaisseh and the northern Israeli town of Metulla, a UNIFIL spokesman told the Times of Israel. Israeli forces crossed into Lebanon while working on a concrete wall on the Israeli side of the border, said Lebanese media. The area is officially on the Israeli side of the Blue Line but is contested by Lebanon. UNIFIL denied that the Israeli troops had crossed the border. UNIFIL troops placed themselves between the Israeli and Lebanese troops to prevent misunderstandings and decrease tensions, the spokesman said. Photos of the incident show the peacekeepers standing between the two forces, both of which had weapons drawn.



Libya—GNA Head Rejects Further Talks With Haftar Anadolu News Agency | 04/16/2020 Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Libya, says his government will no longer negotiate with Khalifa Haftar, the head of the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) that supports a rival government in Tobruk, reports the Anadolu Agency (Ankara). Sarraj accused Haftar of exploiting the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to renew an offensive against the GNA in Tripoli. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, he emphasized that he "will never sit down with Haftar" due to the crimes "committed against all Libyans." LNA forces have indiscriminately attacked "Tripoli, residential zones, civil institutions and even the public hospital of Al Khadra," Sarraj said. Further negotiations are pointless since previous attempts to resolve the ongoing civil war through a political process have all been rejected by Haftar, the GNA prime minister said.



Democratic Republic of the Congo—30 Killed In Separate Attacks In East Agence France-Presse | 04/16/2020 More than two dozen people have been killed in separate attacks in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, reports Agence France-Presse. Over the weekend, members of the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO), a political-religious sect primarily consisting of members of the Lendu ethnic group, attacked the village of Koli in the northeastern Ituri province, killing 22 members of the Hema community, a local administrator said on Wednesday. The motivation for the attack was not immediately clear. The Hema are a Bantu ethnic group whose members have traditionally been pastoralists. The Hema and Lendu have a long history of conflict. Separately, two soldiers, a civilian and five members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militant group were killed in Beni, North Kivu province, said an army spokesman. No further details were provided about that incident.