Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

Gums, in the original photo, the caption lists Don Cornell. I just made the connection. Pretty sure it's the same Don Cornell that became a test pilot and flew the F-117 during test as well as the TACIT BLUE. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he fell victim to a motorcycle accident last August and died.
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/v-printer/story/508336.html

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Salute!

I was heded to Colorado and checked email at the motel in Childress, TX.

Don had gone.

He was in C-flt and helped a lot with two rejoins we had. Go see the SLUF thread for our picture.

So I went outside and threw a nickel on the grass and cried a bit.

Get to Colorado, make reservations to get to Nevada. Threw another nickel on the grass there.

Three of us from C-Flight made the ceremonies.

Don couldn't talk about lottsa stuff he did. But the SHAMU had his name on it at Wright-Patt museum. So he could finally show us something he flew besides the SLUF and the HUN.

gotta go before I get some tears.....

Gums

After many searches I've kept coming across the following info about Ohio and South Dakota A-7Ds during the 1989 invasion of Panama:

"ANG units participated in the operation because of their regularly scheduled presence in Panama for Operations CORONET COVE and VOLANT OAK. The ANG CORONET COVE units, the 114th TFG and the 180th TFG flew 34 missions, completed 34 sorties, expended [Link pending approval] flying hours and expended 2,715 rounds of ordnance." (Source: [Link pending approval]).

I am really interested in the weapon loadouts these A-7s had during the operation. Can anyone advise what weapons the A-7s carried during Just Cause?

Thanks

Going by that info, they seemed to be only used as strafing support. Perhaps that is why the F-117 Nighthawks were used, as an attempt to minimize collateral damage.

So, what might they have carried? Maybe just their AIM-9s for air defense, a full load of 20mm rounds, and plenty of fuel for a long loitering time. It's only a guess on my part, I'm sure somebody else might have a better idea.

I was in Panama for Just Cause.

The A-7s and A-37s carried some 250-lb. Mk-81 Snakeye bombs. But didnt drop any. The A-37 also had 2.75 Rockets. And those were used.

The AC-130As used 20 and 40MM. The F-16s were there about 8 hours after the war started. They left first thing in the morning.

Folks, I decided to merge the Just Cause topic into this thread. Of all the threads on the site, this one is the definitive one on the A-7. Lots of good info on here, and I know that Gums will be more than happy to share his extensive knowledge on the SLUF.

As far as the A-7 serving in Panama, I had always thought that it was only a cover story for the then-unknown use of the F-117.

Hi MakoWes, that's great - thank you very much for your reply. I've been searching on and off for years for that information.

Stoli, thanks also - yes based on what I quoted from internet sources, I agree with you that the actual rounds expended (averaging approx 80 per sortie) were likely to be the result of gun runs mostly. As for the rest of their loadout, I had been thinking they would have one or more drop-tanks for a bit of stamina, LANA FLIR pod & maybe some ECM such as an AN/ALQ-119. I've read the US task force had pretty tight fire control procedures for offensive support and guessed they would have only carried guided weapons like AGM-65s or LGBs possibly. Until MakoWes's post I hadn't considered that they'd use smaller bombs like the Mk81 to limit collateral damage.

Thanks again for your replies

Salute!

Been up in mountains and 'net connect is pee poor. Been doing other things, as well.

+++++++++++++

I agree that the SLUF units in Panama were Guard units. I may be able to track down some of the pilots, but don't count on it.

+++++++++

Normal CAS loadout for the SLUF in SEA was about 8 or 10 Mk-82 slicks. We didn't need the hi-drag bombs because the computer could put the things within 10 or 15 meters from 6 or 7,000 feet. For SAR missions we had rocks and some CBU dispensers.

Have to read up on the missions there in Panama, but sounds like it was mostly strafing.

later,

Gums sends.....

P.S. The "Great Planes" A-7 episode sucked. Can't understand why they didn't interview some pilots. Several things were innacurate, and the Navy "E" model resulted from the USAF "D" with all it's fancy avionics.

Was the YA-7F (stretched, afterburning, supersonic - allegedly 2 built) really being considered for production or was it more of the A-7 disinformation to cover for the Tacit Blue/F-117 ops?

Salute!

LTV tried to sell USAF and the Guard the SLUF with the big motor and some mods to the wing for better turn capability.

Too late, as USAF was committed to the Warthog and sold their soul to get the thing. I can talk about that sorry time later, but go try to find an old Aviation Week from late 1974 and look for the "letters" section and a piece by Capt McAdoo concerning the SLUF and Warthog.

Gums sends ...

From what I've read before about the A-7, the YA-7F wasn't as good as the regular birds. A little faster and some more length and thrust to it, but it turned into a short winded flyer for all their good intentions. The D and E models were endurance runners with long legs- anyone chasing them would lose their fuel real fast...

is that true Gums?

I saw part of that Great Planes show on it, just the old show footage with more Moga mumbo jumbo. They would be better off just showing the old shows in their original form. Re-vamping old shows to make them "new" only makes them worse.

Back on the A-7...

I remember reading once that they were the first jet attack plane to have a color mapping display or something like that. It sure seemed to have a lot of innovations- with the exception of that notoriously hungry mouth, I don't think I have ever heard anyone say a bad thing about them. Hell, They were even used for Iron Hand missions during Desert Storm- just before their final retirement(coincidentally with all of the other 60's birds).

They just don't make them like that any more. Salute

Salute!

Yep, Stoly, the thing was very economical. With 9,000 lbs +/- internal gas and the two 300 gal external tanks we used in 'nam, we flew two and a half hour missions without refueling. Could have flown lots longer, but were at full grunt until climbing to 20K. Coming home at 40K we burned about 1,500 pounds per hour and cruised at about 480 TAS.

Upon arrival at Korat we had to fly to S. Viet Nam with some F-4's for our "checkout". Hell, most of us had a few hundred missions in the South, but we kept quiet. The Double uglies had to refuel on the way. So we pimped them and dropped singles ( we had 10 x 500 pounders, or 8 if temp was real high at takeoff). Sure enough, they asked us to hold high while they went to the tanker agin! Heh heh.

So a 350 to 400 n.m. radius was real easy for us.

Second fuel story was a divert to Udorn by one of our flights, then to Korat after getting some gas. After refueling, the guys had about 13,000 pounds of gas, plus. Had to hold at end of runway for an emergency. Burning about 700 or so pounds per hour. Tower asks flight lead about "abort time". Lead asks what the hell is that? Tower replies it's when they will have to return to the ramp to get more gas or takeoff to hit the tanker or get home. Flight lead does quick calculation of gas required to get home and tells tower, "Errrrr, maybe 7 or 8 hours". Heh heh heh.

Lastly, we had the best projected map disply of any plane until the Hornet came on line. Finally got the Weapon School to give me a PDF file about the thing. So try this for a good description by someone you know......

http://www.sluf.org/misc_pages/fwr_winter_1973.pdf

enjoy

Gums sends ...

Additional A-7 Fuel Story

Red Flag, late seventies

They used to have a mission where an RF-4 led around one or two strike aircraft. Mission was called SCAR (strike control and reconnaissance).

RF-4 and a single A-7 (me). “Clean” A-7 has 6 inert MK-82 slicks on the pylons, no TER’s or MER’s or fuel tanks.

First question: What is an RF-4 doing leading & navigating for an A-7 which has an infinitely better idea of where we actually are by virtue of the updatable map display, while the recce Phantom WSO “leapfrogs” his stone age INS that has drifted a couple of miles and is not updatable???

Anyway, low & fast and line abreast on the last leg at 500K IAS (this is close to fire-walled for the SLUF in the hot high desert), recce guy says it’s time to go faster and starts to push it up, sees me lagging and asks what speed can I give him. I get to about 530K, flat out and tell him that’s all.

Recce WSO’s condescending voice says: “That’s not enough, we’ll press on ahead" (they have the need for speed). Two AB’s light and off he goes, trying to get 600K TAS so the WSO will have an even number of miles/per/minute to calculate where he isn’t. Show off.

I ripple six when I get there, only about 30-40 seconds (3-5 miles) behind him, and turn back to the east to egress, as planned, back the way we came. He makes his camera pass & rejoins with me headed east initially, goes a few miles, and suddenly pulls up, declares a fuel emergency (voice not so condescending), has to get permission to cross Yucca Flats (you don’t want to have to eject there or you will eventually glow in the dark) so he can make it into Indian Springs.

Oh well.

Still at 500K down low, I trundle back the long way to Nellis and still have gas to shoot a couple of low approaches while the tower tries to “unclog” the usual Red Flag recovery traffic gridlock on the two runways. They had ‘em sitting backed up on the taxiway and all the way back across the departure end BAK-12 on the outboard runway while jets were landing on the ramp-side runway.

Mostly minimum fuel Phantoms.

OL

Gums' article from 1973 about the A-7's PMDS brought back some dormant memories. I transferred from F-105 Instruments to A-7 IMS/Doppler/PMDS in 1981 when my unit converted to the SLUF. Of course, I had to go to the FTD courses for the IMS and Doppler, but since the PMDS course was going to be the last course, and I wasn't known for my patience, I took our shop PMDU, the tester, and the T.O. and proceeded to teach myself how the system worked. It was simply amazing--and it really, really worked. And it was the most reliable of the avionics systems in the SLUF. I managed to learn enough that the FTD instructor decided that my going to the PMDS school wasn't gonna do me any good. I'm a tad proud of that!

It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't fast (try telling a Warthog driver that!), but it was damn sure effective.

As far as the Panama invasion went, one of our pilots had fallen in love with Panama and managed to get himself a 1- or 2- year tour there. He would fly whomever's jets were there at the time and he was having a ball in the sunny tropics. When the balloon went up, he flew combat sorties in Toledo's jets, and was the first VaANG pilot to fly combat sorties as a member of the unit. At that time we had several Vietnam vets who'd flown combat up North in Thuds and double-uglys, but this guy was the first to do it as a VaANG member.

Thanks for bringing back some good memories, Gums!!

I have an old A-7D FM that I've been looking through. It states that the A-7 could carry 24 MK-82's with a -3 to +7g limit and the weapons loads and combinations it could carry for a jet of its were pretty remarkable. I've been think that either:
1) I've been reading that thing incorrectly
2) The is a mistake with the manual
3) The A-7 was pretty exceptional.

Right know I'm leaning towards (1)

Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

SLUF - A-7D and A-7E, ahead of their time