I re-read recently that in it’s 1983 cruise to the Med CVW 3 on JFK was composed of two F14 and two A6 squadrons and no A7 squadrons, which was unusual.
Does anyone know why this was the case? Did it have anything to do with the intro of the Hornet perhaps?
Would there be advantages to having two A6s squadrons in the wing rather than one A6 and two A7 sqns?
By: Riaino - 8th March 2013 at 11:58
I just guessed the Hornet thing 5 minutes before posting, I can’t believe it’s correct, even if not for the reasons I suspected. I would have thought that with F/A18A-A7E transition a couple of light attack sqns would have been offline for a while, meaning something had to be done to replace these few sqns for a short period. I never guessed it would be to modify the cat.
As much as the A6 was a serviceability pain would having 2 sqns means that the carrier could conduct operations that it normally couldn’t because of the range, payload and avionics of the A6 compared to the A7? Perhaps loiter 100 miles further away from threats than usual, or something like that?
These interim 24 F14 and 24 A6E CVWs doesn’t make the 16 or so F4K and Buccaneer the FAA would have been able to squeeze onto ther Ark Royal in a war situation in the late 70s look quite so feeble.
By: Bager1968 - 8th March 2013 at 08:20
Yes, this was directly related to the Hornet introduction.
The same air wing composition was deployed aboard CV-61 Ranger (CVW-2) from 1985-1989.
The extra A-6E squadron aboard Ranger was VMA(AW)-121 (USMC)… which I was assigned to for IMA avionics support from 1985-1988 (so I got 360 days “at-sea” days in an 18-month period).
The story in NavAir at the time was that when loaded with a maximum external & internal load that included a full center-line drop tank, the Hornet’s landing gear would sometimes flex enough during a catapult launch that the catapult shuttle would slice open the tank at the end of the catapult stroke.
Naturally, the resulting fuel spill and loss of range (as well as the possible in-flight fire) was not considered acceptable.
Since a redesign of the Hornet’s landing gear would require a complete redesign of the whole center fuselage (due to the tight clearances for the retracted gear), it was cheaper to actually re-position the catapult tracks a bit deeper into the flight deck.
Additionally, the Hornets needed a bunch of new support equipment… especially for the engines (the Hornet was the first USN aircraft to use the F404) and avionics (>80% of which was unique to the Hornet). This meant a complete re-arrangement of the engine & avionics workshops.
Obviously, installing all this and doing the catapult work could only be done during a major maintenance period, and the refit schedules meant that the A-7E squadrons would be transitioning to Hornets faster then the carriers would have their catapults repositioned and the support equipment installed.
If JFK and Ranger operated temporarily with the “JFK Wing” in those periods, then the “refit schedule/transition schedule” conflict could be resolved.
There was really no advantage, other than as mentioned above… there were fewer aircraft aboard, and the extra A-6Es needed more maintenance-per-flight-hour than the A-7Es (2 engines per aircraft instead of 1, more complex avionics, 2 ejection seats & life support systems instead of 1).
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March 7, 2013 at 9:59 pm