Dragons over the Caribbean [A-37 Dragonfly]

Cold war, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm - up to and including for example the A-10, F-15, Mirage 200, MiG-29, and F-18.
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by spazsinbad » 07 May 2020, 10:45

Dragons over the Caribbean [6 page PDF of article attached below]
Jun 2020 Erwan de Cherisey

"Combat Aircraft Journal meets Colombia’s A-37 ‘Dragons’, which have proven their worth on many occasions over an incredible 40-year history...."

Source: Combat Aircraft Journal June 2020 Volume 21 Number 6
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Dragonfly A-37 in Caribbean CombatAircraftJune2020 pp6.pdf
(1.55 MiB) Downloaded 1509 times
DRAGONcaribbeanSquadronA-37dragonflyBadge.gif
DragonsOverCaribbeanTitle.jpg
A-37cockpitDragonflyCarib.jpg


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by mixelflick » 07 May 2020, 18:11

Gums will love :)


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by Gums » 11 May 2020, 22:41

Salute!

Not sure if I "love" the article, but at least somebody still keeps those things flying and lookng like a showroom antique car.

Many pictures of our loadouts, war stories, reunion pics, and such are not available on the A-37.org site now. The original author and I turned over the domain and files a few years ago, and many things are not there today.

I do not unnerstan why folks keep showing the 4 x bag loadout verus some of the ones we carried for 5 years from Bien Hoa. Our normal loadout had 2 x 100 gal bags, 2 x 750 eggs inboard or BLU-1 nape( 100 gallons of nasty stuff and the thing looked just like the gas bags), 2 x 500 pounders, then 2 x 250 pounders or CBU or rx pods outboard.

With that loadout we could go out about 100 miles and hold for maybe 30 minutes. If we had a known tgt then figure 200 miles, drop and come back on one engine if you spent too much time in the tgt area.

Our normal load for night over the Trail was 2 x 500, 2 x fuel bags, 4 x CBU pods ( CBU-25, mostly). Sometimes we carried flare pods and CBU pods to round out the load. I do not recall one mission without all 8 stations loaded.

My feeling is the Colombians did not fly 75,000 combat sorties over a 5 year period, including surge ops like the '68 Tet when we flew 3 times a day and went to sleep to do it again next day.

Gums sends...
Gums
Viper pilot '79
"God in your guts, good men at your back, wings that stay on - and Tally Ho!"


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by Roscoe » 14 May 2020, 00:39

I probably told this story before, but we used A-37s at the Test Pilot School for spin test training. They tumbled nicely and predictably which made them perfectly suitable for the role. Only issue was to make sure the tip tanks were empty before starting a spin or they might not recover. [Well, technically having fuel in the tips wasn't the issue, but rather asymmetrical fuel.] Once at altitude and on condition we would dump the remaining fuel (to be sure of a symmetrical configuration) and chase would confirm when both tanks were empty (streams would stop). One time, the streams stopped, chase called empty, and the crew entered the first spin. They never recovered (both jumped out OK). They lost the jet because one tank wasn't empty...the fuel dump pump had failed and that's what made the stream stop. They were down for a few months pending the investigation.

Later, once they were back flying again, a crew came back from a spin hop and discovered during post-flight that the entire empennage was wobbling due to something "broken" on the inside. They were immediately impounded/grounded and never flown again. Sad. That was one of my most exhilarating hops at TPS.
Roscoe
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USAF Test Pilot School 92A

"It's time to get medieval, I'm goin' in for guns" - Dos Gringos


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by Gums » 14 May 2020, 03:54

Salute!

Thanks, Roscoe. Great to see you're still around.

My Zoomie roomie got to trouble shoot one of the beat up planes that came back from Bien Hoa to fly for a Reserve outfit, a Bee, not an "A". He was an FCF dude in the 604th, and then had the chance to do it again while going thru his advanced degree program up north.

The problem child had the rear end "cocked" a bit, so no wonder they couldn't trim it.

I will guarantee that we over gee'd those planes more than the law should allow, and prolly exceeded the rolling gee more than the symmetrical gee most missions.

Gums sends...
Gums
Viper pilot '79
"God in your guts, good men at your back, wings that stay on - and Tally Ho!"


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by spazsinbad » 06 Nov 2020, 20:11

Cessna A-37B Dragonfly Brochure

http://aviationarchives.blogspot.com/20 ... chure.html

One of many download sites at URL, however PDF is attached below because it is so small.
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Cessna A-37B Brochure pp30.pdf
(1.58 MiB) Downloaded 920 times
A-37combatDragonBrochure.gif
A-37BcepAccuracy.gif


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by Gums » 07 Nov 2020, 04:24

Salute!

Thanks a lot, Spaz

Our book "Dragonfly - A-37's over VietNam", sold out instantly back in 2015 or so. Our association just could not put up enuf to have more great harcover copies produced, and another bunch of paperbacks. Many good pictures and a hundred war stories, plus historical documents like from Corona Harvest and the original Combat Dragon after action report.

I have many of those, plus our final file for the book before publication. The new website has a few good articles from our book and history. see: http://a-37.org/

Never flew the four bag configuration. What I described in my earlier post was the loadouts in 'nam until USAF folded up the plane.

BTW, our USAF units only flew about 75,000 or so sorties from mid 1967 to October 1972. The Vee had the
"B" from mid 1968 onward, so that explains the total sortie count, best I can figure.

Gums sends...

P.S. The A-37 Association is having it's next rejoin in Ft Walton Beach, FL next spring. More details to follow, but most of our original cast has gone west, so we may not have any more.
Gums
Viper pilot '79
"God in your guts, good men at your back, wings that stay on - and Tally Ho!"


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by mixelflick » 07 Nov 2020, 14:18

10! sorties a day?!

That's crazy. I guess if you were S. Vietnam or similar air arm, your dream machines in that regard were F-5's and A-37's. Simple, cheap and they got the job done.
'


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by Gums » 07 Nov 2020, 18:02

Salute!

@mixel
Our normal frag for the 604th was about 50 to 60 sorties each day with 21 or 22 FMC airframes. I was the wing scheduler that matched requests with available planes ( June 68 to November). We flew more sorties than the three F-100 squads !!! Also carried more eggs, heh heh.

The immense sortie count referenced was our test day during Combat Dragon and we quit when 7th AF ran outta targets.

I'll post some of our book's stuff here later this week when waiting for the storm to come up here to the Panhandle.

Gums sends...

P.S. The Viper met that sortie obscene rate for our first ORI surge day. The 4th flew over 100 sorties that day with only 24 assigned jets ( I was Mission Commander in Ft Apache as the wing Ops Plans weenie) . We actually started the surge with basic FMS rate of 21 or 22 jets as it was a no-notice deal even tho we had decent intell the ORI team was on the way. That rascal flew and flew and flew. We also had hot pit refueling. Unlike the Combat Dragon surge test, we did not rearm!!!! We did not "expend" fake ord or the Aim-9 practice rounds. So the A-37 test day has to be best anyone can find. Over the wing gas and manual upload of bombs and nape and RX.
Gums
Viper pilot '79
"God in your guts, good men at your back, wings that stay on - and Tally Ho!"


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by Gums » 07 Nov 2020, 19:13

Salute!

As promised, and hope I am not violating copywrite or other laws, but I attach a PDF of the last draft chapter of our book before it was copywrited and registered in the Library of Congress. It is "recent enuf" for some of our younger posters, and it has a few personal views of politics and such, but it reflects our bunch.

Our wing at The Beach was on call to go to Europe or to SEA in 1972. USAF was deploying wings all over and we had a NATO committment in Europe that was in jeapardy 'cause several wings had been deployed to SEA after the Spring Invasion of 1972. In the long run, the 354th TFW went to Korat in October. all three squadrons. Due to Nixon's policy, no more ground units in VietNam and no more replacement of tactical air units. So Thailand got the 4th at Ubon to augment the 8th, the 354th went to Korat and several units of F-4 and F-111 units went to Takhli ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takhli_Ro ... _Reopening)

Interestng times, folks. And many of we ground-pounding vets from the South on our first or second tour got to see Laos and even Hanoi!

Try this URL: http://www.sluf.org/a-37/Chapter%2010%20DRAGONFLY.pdf

Gums sends...
Gums
Viper pilot '79
"God in your guts, good men at your back, wings that stay on - and Tally Ho!"


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by spazsinbad » 07 Nov 2020, 21:10

Many thanks again for the/your history stories 'Gums'. I'll read the PDF with much interest.


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by sprstdlyscottsmn » 09 Nov 2020, 15:11

I would love to hear Gums give an interview to the Fighter Pilot Podcast to talk about the A-37.
"Spurts"

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by mixelflick » 09 Nov 2020, 19:32

sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:I would love to hear Gums give an interview to the Fighter Pilot Podcast to talk about the A-37.


I'll second that!

I'm particularly interested in the A-7's advanced variants. Just seems like such a solid aircraft, with amazing potential that unfortunately, went unrealized in the A-7F. Had that been built, I bet they'd still be in service. Certainly think they would have served us well during the 20 year war on terror...


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by Gums » 09 Nov 2020, 23:48

Salute!

Sorry, but my interviews are now only in-person at a local oyster bar where you pay! During summer as long as I can make it up there at 8,000 ft, come to the cabin with some Jeremiah Weed or Jack Daniels.

Best bet for war stories now, before we charter members all go west, is go to the website and contact somebody on the board:

http://a-37.org
=====================
I have gone over and over about the A-7 death. Ditto for the A-37C or even a proposed A-37D ( tandem cockpit, fan motors, three-barrel 20 mm gatlin gun, thrust reversers, etc). I think the Textron/Cessna Scorpion resembles the original proposal from Cessna we saw back in 1970 or so.

USAF had committed to the "A-X", and all of us that had flown a lot of CAS and BAI and CSAR supported development of a new platform. However, after a year or two the program got target fixation on the Fulda Gap scenario and threw out interdiction requirements. The A-X program also emphasized being cheap. The A-37 experience was fresh in many folks' mind due to VietNam and the relatively low threat environment. We are talking 1971 or early 1972, and had not seen the Spring Invasion ( see An Loc) and manpads and actual tanks and ZSU-23 and ....... Just a year later the IAF got to meet Mister SA-6 that could track you down to 100 feet plus a ZSU-23 variation with radar tracking, and was highly mobile. Ask my IAF Viper students about those things.

There is still a definite need for a fairly simple, easily maintained attack plane for certain environments. Turboprop, recip or a fan. But the U.S.A. doesn't need it!!!

Gums sends...
Gums
Viper pilot '79
"God in your guts, good men at your back, wings that stay on - and Tally Ho!"


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by spazsinbad » 08 Dec 2020, 10:15

Perhaps a better quality version of A-37B Brochure PDF above? https://www.docdroid.com/TVTfRY6/cessna ... ochure-pdf
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Cessna A-37B Dragonfly Expanded Mission Brochure.pdf
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