LEGACY PROFILE // A-4 SKYHAWK
T
HE TIME-WORN PHRASE, ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog’, perfectly sums up the McDonnell-Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, which was one warplane that truly belied its size.Measuring a shade over 40ft in length and with a wingspan of just 27ft 6ins (so small that no wing-fold mechanism was required for storage on even the smallest carrier deck), this diminutive jet – quickly nicknamed ‘Scooter’ – would give stellar service to the United States Navy and Marine Corps for 47 years.
With a brochure ‘clean’ top speed of around 670mph, the A-4E Skyhawk could theoretically lug 8,500lb of ordnance to a target – around 500lb more than a World War Two B-17G Flying Fortress.
Its capabilities ensured export success, with almost 3,000 being built for the US and eight other nations, some even buying their Scooters second-hand.
Throughout the A-4’s life, many airframes were re-worked into improved models,
with uprated engines and equipment, often helping to nurture indigenous aviation industries as a direct result.
From its roots as a replacement for the A-1 Skyraider on the decks of US carriers, the Skyhawk blossomed: a lightweight and relatively inexpensive attack aircraft (it cost around a quarter of the price of an F-4 Phantom II), it was to become a nuclear bomber, a tanker aircraft and it would also be an ‘Iron Hand’ machine to tackle surface to air missile sites.
Later, it would be transformed into a two-seat training jet in which many generations of aviators would earn their wings. It was to become an agile adversary aircraft, a forward air control machine, a target tug, and in blue and gold it would be the mount of the Navy’s Blue Angels display team. It could even kill MiGs.
By the end of the 1940s, the US Navy needed both a replacement for the A-1 Skyraider and a machine to carry some of the new, lighter-weight nuclear weapons that were then in development.
Genius and genesis
Military jet aircraft – even those aboard the navy’s carrier decks – were getting heavier and more complex and one talented aircraft designer felt this shouldn’t necessarily be the case.
Edward H Heinemann was chief designer at Douglas, despite never having a formal engineering degree and was the man behind some of its legendary aircraft, including the A-20 Havoc, A-26 Invader and Dauntless of World War Two, through to jets such as the A-3 Skywarrior, F4D Skyray and F3D Skyknight night fighter. He
Above: A view of a single-seat Skyhawk from a two-seat TA-4 All images DoD
SUPER SCOOTER
HAIL THE
THE FIRST MACHINE, THE XA4D, WAS ROLLED OUT IN JUNE 1954 AND WEIGHED JUST 7,896LB – SOME 270LB BELOW DOUGLAS’ OWN ‘EMPTY’ TARGET
Combat Aircraft Journal July 2021 Volume 22 No 7
When the A-4 Skyhawk entered service with the US Navy 65 years ago, it was the beginning of a legend: this diminutive warrior served a number of nations in many conflicts. Report by Bertie Simmonds
SUPER SCOOTER
LEGACY PROFILE // A-4 SKYHAWK
was also behind the A-1 Skyraider which was the popular if slow carrier-based piston-engine attack machine. His designs saw him nicknamed ‘Mr Attack Aviation’.
Heinemann’s Skyraider had already set the bar for his ‘light is right’ ethos, being 5,000lb lighter than its competitor, the Martin AM Mauler.
So much so, that in the early 1950s, the El Segundo division of Douglas Aircraft Company detailed how weight, complexity and cost could actually be reversed on modern combat aircraft.
Heinemann’s reasoning was that if weight and avionics/equipment was added to an aircraft (and performance and range had to stay constant) then the machine’s size had to increase by a factor of ten. So, add a single pound of equipment and the rest of the airframe had to increase by 10lb to keep that same performance.
This was somewhat ironic as Douglas was designing/building the huge Skywarrior at the time, which could launch from a carrier at weights around 68,000lb.
With curiosity piqued, the US
Department of Defense asked Heinemann to give a presentation in early 1952 and in June the Navy asked Douglas to produce two prototype XA4D-1 attack aircraft of just 12,000lb empty (later pushed to 14,000) and a gross weight of 30,000lb.
Speed of the aircraft should be around 576mph with combat range in the region of 896 miles – and all for around $1 million per aircraft. It would carry an unspecified weapon of some 2,000lb – an atom bomb.
Legend has it that Heinemann claimed to be able to make the Douglas jet go around 100mph faster, be half the weight specified and still cost less. He then sketched his design and sat down the El
Segundo design staff to give them a pep talk: “I think we can do this, but it will take a tough son-of-a-bitch to do it – that is me.
I want you all on my team, if anyone wants to leave, there is the door.” No one moved.
That summer, Douglas representatives had seen first-hand the conditions that Navy and Air Force aircraft were working in and being worked on over in Korea.
Indeed, Heinemann himself had been dispatched to do the very same during World War Two.
Simplicity then was the watchword, and many Navy and Marine pilots were asked for their feedback into the design of the new machine.
Inside the diminutive attack aircraft, the conditions were cramped – you basically
‘wore’ the A-4 (named Skyhawk officially in February 1954) and the control panel wasn’t much more complicated than in a
private aircraft. On the outside, the A4D Skyhawk (A-4 from 1962, following the change in aircraft designations) had a delta-wing planform, but with a traditional tail unit. Anything that Heinemann could make smaller and lighter, he did so: four black boxes of avionics and their associated wiring were condensed into what Heinemann called the ‘biscuit’, saving 55lbs of weight.
The nose wheel and main undercarriage – which was long to give the A-4 the best angle of incidence for take-off – would retract forwards and come down with the aid of gravity and airflow, thus putting less stress on the hydraulic system, allowing it to be lighter. Any sub-contractor who produced a part over the specified weight was shown the door – until they’d hit the target. Even the Douglas ejection seat was re-designed from one on the F4D Skyray Below: An A4D-2
Skyhawk of VA-83 refuels an F8U-1P Crusader of VFP-62 in 1961
weigh just 40lbs, not 92.
The first machine, the XA4D, was rolled out in June 1954 and weighed just 7,896lb – some 270lb below Douglas’ own ‘empty’
target weight. It was powered by a Curtiss- Wright J65 engine – a licensed British Bristol Siddeley Sapphire.
A world-beater
Compared with today’s concerns of F-35 cost over-runs, late service entry and issues with reliability and capability, the A-4 was almost a model of production perfection. The Skyhawk even broke a world speed record, when the XA4D-1 hit 695.16mph around a 310.5-mile course with Lt Gordon ‘Gordo’ Gray at the controls – he would also make the first carrier landings on the USS Ticonderoga in September 1955.
Changes were made during production and in subsequent versions, including a framed forward windscreen, the ‘sugar- scoop’ jet-pipe fairing, nuclear flash shield, the single-skin ‘tadpole’ rudder (saving yet more weight), a straight and then angled refueling probe, a ‘buddy-buddy’ refueling system so the A-4 could act as a tanker, and (from the A-4E-onwards) five pylons for more ordnance and the introduction of a dorsal ‘hump’ that would contain more advanced avionics.
Later versions, such as the A-4M (called Skyhawk II) produced for the Marines for use in the 1970s-1980s would add more advanced electronic countermeasures and the associated receivers scabbed on the tail and nose, where sat an Angle-Rate Bombing System lens.
David ‘Frosty’ Olson earned his Naval Aviator wings in August 1969 and, as well as being a Vought Corsair II pilot, spent a lot of time in the cockpit of the A-4 as an adversary pilot.
He said: “The A-4 was a small aircraft and had a small cockpit. I flew the A-4 after several years flying the larger A-7 and, being six-feet one, the first few flights felt like putting a size 11 foot into a size eight shoe! One of my friends told me of bombing ‘up north’ in Vietnam in heavy flak, he’d turn sideways in the cockpit to reduce frontal area to shrapnel.
“Several of the more senior pilots during my early career had flown the A-4 in Vietnam: they liked it because it was a pretty stable platform, good power response (turbojet not turbofan) and it could take damage: with lost hydraulics the pilot could manually disconnect the hydraulics and still control the aircraft with flight control cables to ailerons, rudder, and elevator.
“Adversary in the A-4 was fun, even if it came down to one of two outcomes:
the flat scissors and the rolling scissors.
We would pull into vertical forcing the overshoot.
“As the other pilot pulled up, we would continue into a sort of loop, roll over at a very slow airspeed using rudder to push the A-4 back down. If we could point our nose at the other aircraft we could get a high deflection shot, up to a head-on shot. Of course, we were losing energy (speed and altitude) the whole time we did this.
“An A-4 was great in a slow fight (the
‘phone booth’) but lacked the thrust- to-weight of a modern fighter with afterburner. So our training was to emulate slow speed fighter performance.
Adversary flying was fun, but fraught with dangers. Here are a few examples...
“Those wing slats would extend simultaneously as the angle of attack (AoA) became high enough. Asymmetric slat extension was, well, ‘special’ as it slammed one’s helmeted head into the canopy. On one such occasion, during an aggressive, high-G turn, one slat extended asymmetrically. I immediately went nose down into a tight spiral – yes, I thought I was going to die… My opponent could only gulp, ‘are you OK?’
“In a two-versus-one, two aircraft may enter a horizontal scissors and the third will attempt to close for a firing solution.
The problem is the turning aircraft are flying near stall and forward velocity is real slow.
“From the perch, the third aircraft will attempt to enter at speeds twice to three times that of the others. In one case, I was in the back seat of the TA-4. As our slow speed scissors progressed, something in the back of my mind kicked in. ‘Where is the other guy?’ I looked over my shoulder.
“Oh crap, he was coming in way too hot.
He pulled into us and directly in front. I took the stick and pushed it full forward.
The last thing I recall was his wing-plan filling the windscreen…
”I had the same when flying against an F-16 flown by the USAF’s Safety General!
As he approached from behind, no one had told him about the A-4’s ability to really tighten the turn, forcing the overshoot. He watched in horror as we disappeared under his nose and he hit our jet-wake. ‘My God, did we hit the little guy?’ he exclaimed.
”He asked if he’d violated the 500 feet
‘Rules of Engagement’. ‘Yeah, kinda,’
mumbled we more junior types.
“Finally, there was the Super Fox – with a big, 12,000lb thrust motor and nearly one-to-one thrust to weight. The standard A-4 could allow near to slight Mach-plus flight, but in reality even in a dive it couldn’t. But the Super Fox – oh boy! I pushed it up and up and as I neared 0.9 Mach I encountered a violent back- and-forth yawing.
“In my mind, the vivid picture of an F-4 many years before that disintegrated from pilot-induced oscillations at Mach entered my mind – I figured that was the end of my adventure pushing that particular envelope.
”Another lesson learned!
”With the Super Fox you could accelerate to 450kts, pull up into a loop and then roll out at the top and pull up into a second loop – but you were pretty slow at the top.
“The adversary squadron was the apotheosis of my naval aviation career before I became an Air Boss on the USS Enterprise and in the last months we got some Northrop F-5s from TOPGUN as they had moved over to the newer F/A-18.
”While I mention ‘Top Gun’, that movie created quite a nice image for us adversary pilots: we had red stars on our patches and had become legends in our own minds…”
A-4 SKYHAWK:
A PILOT’S VIEW
Above: A VMA-214 A-4M Skyhawk: of note are the Mk 12 Colt 20mm cannons in the wing roots, which would often jam in combat and the leading edge slats
LEGACY PROFILE // A-4 SKYHAWK
A more ‘blown’ canopy also increased overall visibility.
With the initial versions, the projected
$1 million per aircraft cost was actually around $850,000. Also, it used a third fewer parts and was half of the weight of its contemporaries.
Of course, the Scooter would put on weight and capability during its life, but even the last models were still small and compact compared with the opposition.
Early Skyhawks could carry around 6,000lb of ordnance on three weapons pylons.
This would increase to 9,200lb for the last A-4M version, which also carried double the 20mm ammo than earlier models.
Engines would also change and power would increase.
That original J65 would pump out 5,970lb of thrust and other engines such as the General Electric F404 (on
Singapore’s A-4SU Super Skyhawk) were used, producing 10,800lb, while the most powerful Scooters would have a Pratt &
Whitney J52-P408 at their heart pushing out more than 11,000-12,000lb of thrust.
Despite the capability of the successive models of the A-4 Skyhawk, it was effectively complemented or replaced in the light attack role by the Vought A-7 Corsair II on carrier decks, even if the humble A-4 would outlive its supposed successor.
Scooting off to war
Being a true ‘Cold War’ warrior, the initial purpose of the A-4 series was in light attack, as well as the delivery of a small nuclear weapon.
Thankfully, it was never used in the latter role, but it would prove to be a major weapon in the conflict in South East Asia.
With the A-4’s service entry with the US Navy starting in October 1956, by the time of the Vietnam War it was a relatively mature platform and one that represented a significant proportion of a carrier wing’s air power, with A-4B, C, E and F models used for the duration.
Initial weapons used would include the two 20mm Colt cannons, buried in the wing-roots, 2.75 and 5-inch diameter Zuni FFAR (Folding Fin Aircraft Rocket).
Iron bombs from the low-drag Mk 80 family were used as well as some box- tailed M57s of Korean War vintage.
With the advent of air-to-ground missiles, the AGM-12 Bullpup would be used and later napalm, Fuel-Air Explosives, retarded Mk 84 Snakeye bombs and the AGM-62 Walleye TV guided bomb.
Towards the very end of the conflict, A-4Fs with laser designators in the nose would even employ laser-guided
‘smart’ bombs.
The US Marine Corps would also use models of the A-4 for close support of the troops on the ground. Some would use either JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) bottles attached to the rear fuselage or the SATS (Short Airfield for Tactical Support)
‘catapult’ system to use smaller airfields, or if operating at higher weights.
Such practices meant that the Marines could get closer to the battle area – and more quickly.
Figures show that around 200 Skyhawks were lost in Vietnam to enemy action, but so many more would make it back to the Above: The Scooter
was a popular aircraft in US Navy service over four decades. This is A-4E 151023 ‘UE-06’ when operating with VC-5
‘Checkertails’
Below: 1979, the last of 2,960 A-4s rolls off the McDonnell- Douglas production line – an A-4M
Below:The A-4’s agility made it a perfect fi t for the Blue Angels display team when in service as an adversary aircraft would sport a number of weird and wonderful paint schemes considerable damage.
Thus beginning the legend of the Scooter being a tough warplane.
Export success
Ironically, the need for a two-seater Skyhawk wasn’t realized until after a decade of single-seater service.
Redesign of the standard A-4E saw the fuselage lengthened by 28 inches to accommodate the two seats/controls along with an enlarged, blown canopy replacing the more cramped original.
The resulting TA-4E/F and later J models (revised J52 engine, changes to internal equipment and external pylons) were used mainly in the training role, but also as adversary aircraft and some combat missions, especially in the ‘Fast FAC’
(forward air control) mission, where they would often mark targets for other aircraft.
The two-seater was displayed at the 1965 Paris Air Show, helping stir up export orders, the fi rst being from Argentina in that year, which would take A-4B/P/Q models for its Air Force and Navy.
These would be employed against the UK task force in the Falklands War and would sink several ships, including HMS Ardent, HMS Antelope and HMS Coventry.
This was despite operating at extreme range and often carrying bombs which weren’t fused for delivery at low level.
Other orders would come from Israel, Australia (A-4G) New Zealand (A-4K), Malaysia (A-4PTM), Indonesia (A-4E) and latterly Brazil.
Israel’s use of the Skyhawk was most notable as it was the largest operator of the type outside of the US and it was the
Israeli Air Force. Douglas fi rst had contact from Israel as early as 1963, but it wasn’t until 1966 that the fi rst order for 48 (later increased to 90) A-4H model Skyhawks was approved by the US government, which would begin delivery the following year. The IAF grew to love the tough Scooter and employed them in the War of Attrition (1967-1970) and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The H would be joined by surplus A-4Es from US Navy stocks in 1971.
Changes to the H included the replacement of the 20mm Colt with the French 30mm DEFA cannons. With the Skyhawks (called Ahit – ‘Eagle’ in IAF service) being almost constantly in action, many changes and advancements came off the back of this combat experience, most notably to improve the Scooter’s survivability in the face of surface to air missiles.
The onset of the improved A-4M Skyhawk II prompted the IAF’s own version – the A-4N. Again, the 30mm DEFA
of decades of service – much internal equipment would be locally developed.
The most striking feature of the late- use H and Ns would be the extended tail pipe called the ‘Barrel’ which helped survivability when struck by infra-red SA-7 portable SAM systems.
The last Ahits were retired in 2015 after 48 years of service.
Angel and adversary
The Scooter had also shown that it could down MiGs, with at least three kills in Vietnam (one by LCDR Theodore ‘TR’
Swartz with Zuni rockets in May 1967) and a number in the Middle East, including two by Colonel Ezra Dotan in 1970. Both encounters were against the agile MiG-17 and it was this machine that the Skyhawk would simulate.
For the early part of the Vietnam confl ict, the big, powerful fi ghters and interceptors of the US Navy and the USAF were found to have a poor return against the likes of
LEGACY PROFILE // A-4 SKYHAWK
Below: VA-164 A-4E Skyhawk 151194 en route to a target in Vietnam in 1967. It carries Mk 82 bombs and Bullpup missiles.
It is now preserved in the Pacific Coast Air Museum Above: A training TA-4J operated by VT-7 seen in 1994.
Until the arrival of the T-45 Goshawk, the twin-stick Skyhawk was the trainer of choice the MiG-17, 19, and later the MiG-21. In
response, the US Navy began the Naval Fighter Weapons School, known more famously as TOPGUN, and the plentiful A-4 was a natural choice for use.
The first use of an A-4 in the adversary role was as early as 1968: flown by experienced instructors, often stripped of non-essential equipment (they would be around 1,500lb lighter) and with the later, increased thrust engines, they could beat the more powerful F-4 Phantom IIs and later Grumman F-14A Tomcats. The thrust-to-weight ratios on these machines approached that of unity – 1:1.
The aircraft used included two-seaters, A-4E, F and later M models and they generally carried gaudy and attractive color schemes replicating those of MiG users, in addition to being small and hard to spot. While the US Navy signed off its last A-4 in 1999, the final A-4 adversary aircraft was retired in 2003.
That agility and speed that was so handy for the adversary role would come into good use in the 1970s-1980s. A number of squadrons had used the A-4 in air displays, including the Naval Air Reserves, which had a team called the Air Barons.
They were unique in displaying with drop tanks and often performing ‘buddy-buddy’
refueling in front of the crowd.
From 1969, the Blue Angels had used the F-4J Phantom, but a series of accidents, including a fatal in mid-air, meant that a new machine was needed: one that was not as thirsty since the world was in the middle of the 1973 oil crisis. The A-4 was the perfect fit, being replaced by the A-7 Corsair in some squadrons and therefore available in numbers. The A-4F or ‘Super Fox’ was stripped of any
superfluous equipment and using the powerful J52-P408 could perform vertical maneuvers and use its high roll rate to good effect in front of an audience.
An inverted fuel system and smoke generating system was used and the wing slats were locked to prevent asymmetric deployment. The Angels would use the A-4F from 1974 until it was replaced at the end of 1985 by another McDonnell- Douglas product (the firms merged in 1967), the F/A-18 Hornet.
The Scooter today
The Skyhawk is a bona fide jet legend. The Bantam Bomber, Heinemann’s Hot Rod, the Mongoose, the Super Fox, the Super Skyhawk and the Fightinghawk – they all stem from that humble little jet that first flew on June 22, 1954.
While the last of the 2,960 rolled off the
THE NEED FOR A TWO-SEATER SKYHAWK WASN’T REALIZED UNTIL AFTER A DECADE OF
SINGLE-SEATER SERVICE
Below: By 1972 the A-4 had been in service almost 20 years, but was still crowding the decks of US Navy carriers such as the USS Hancock of the last operators of the venerable A-4 Skyhawk. The Brazilian Navy aircraft are upgraded former Kuwait Air Force A-4KUs and TA-4KUs, which are locally designated as the AF-1 in Brazil US Navy
2021 – the Skyhawk is still in service with the Argentine Air Force. The Fightinghawk is a Lockheed Martin product, based on the A-4M airframe, completely rewired and refitted with more modern defense systems and the AN/APG-66V2 radar, which replaces the Angle Rate Bombing System in the nose.
The Brazilian Navy became a Skyhawk customer as late as 2014, when 20 low- hour Kuwaiti A-4KU and three TA-4KUs were purchased. Meanwhile, a number of export models are still flown, owned by private companies, to provide adversary services to the US military.
Almost 67 years after the machine’s first flight, the little Skyhawk is still a flying legend, outlasting many of its contemporaries and even its supposed replacements.
