Happy Festivus! A momentous decision.....

[O.P.]

Instead of the airing of grievances or feats of strength, I thought I'd tell all of the WIX bro's of a life changing decision on this great day. I have a new favorite jet warbird. It's officially number 1 in my book. The A-6 Intruder. The new order is...

1. Intruder
2. F-80
3. T-33
4. Panther
5. Cutlass

I think they are either out of service, or coming out now. I was wondering how long it would be until a private owner showed up at an airshow with one. Then I got to thinking more. I read somewhere that the congress, or some other august body, has forbidden the sale of decommissioned jet aircraft from the military, either after a certain date, or after a certain date of manufacture, I'm really fuzzy on this, and hopefully, probably completely wrong, But, My questions are..

Can this aircraft be sold to civilians?

If not........

What overseas Air forces/Navies operate this aircraft?

My thinking is, if the U.S. will not sell them, then maybe an enterprising type can get one coming out of service overseas, or maybe from an outfit like Flight Services. It's probably wishfull thinking, but it's a nice thought anyway. Enough babbling, pictures! These are the ones I took at the Estrella Warbirds Museum.

[TimAPNY]

If I recall right the A-6E was retired by the end of 1996. Our air wing's VA squadron was decon'd in the last month or so of 1995 (VA-95). They went out on one boat Det in 96, the last 2 or 3 aircraft they had.


Nothing more beautiful the seeing one loaded down with 22 Mk-82s Just a beautiful sight. Seeing 4 Mk-84 was pretty sweet too. I wish I had had a camera on me that day.


A-6E at NAS Fallon
http://community.webshots.com/photo/170 ... 2971ADvSAb

[O.P.]

Thanks Tim! It's beautiful! Is that a display? It's not often you see displays with ordinance on them. Hmmmm, probably not a display......

Just imagine doing the "Going Downtown" pass at the field or airshow. That would rock, sitting in the big bee head looking cockpit watching everything go by. If you have somemore, please post em!

[JBoyle]

To answer your question, no foreign country used the intruder and I don't know of any in non-museum private hands. If anyone ever flies one, I suspect it would be the Collins Foundation...I hear they had a lot of political clout to be able to operate their Phantom.

You can see one evry week in the opening credits of The West Wing. The Hollywood liberals who produce the show haven't yet figured outn the plane's been out of service for years.

[Jack Cook]

The A-6 is at the top of my list also having been a plane captain and AO in VA-128. The markings of the one pictured is of VA-165 which was one of our squadrons on the Nimitz. Do you know if is a straight A-6E or a TRAM with the FLIR turret removed. My step-dad also flew in VA-75. All the non-museum bound A-6 to my knowledge were stripped and dumped off Daytona Beach, FL to make an artificial reef. Tim, your right they look great loaded for bear. Once you got your load crews rythmn down 82s loaded fairly fast. 83s at 1000# with 3 guys on each hernia bar were a little slower. My favorite loadout was MK-82s on station 2 & 4, CBU-58s or SLAMs on 1 &5 with a drop tank on station 3.
I still have my official VA-128 "Population Control-Landscape Technician" patch given to all AO after getting qualled on the airplane.

[Jack Cook]

Intruder Reef is about 20 miles off the coast of St. Augustine, FL in about 110' of water. It consists of 33 A-6s. All the aircraft came from Grumman's St. Augustine facility and were going through a wing strenghtening/upgrate program (A-6F) costing millions when it was canceled and they were dumped.
http://www.scuba-charters.com/dive-sites.html

http://members.aol.com/a6e/reef.html

[JimH]

Isn't there one at Chino being rebuilt to fly..an A-6 that is...I recall seing one in A/C not too long ago.

jimh

[bdk]

Isn't there one at Chino being rebuilt to fly..an A-6 that is...I recall seing one in A/C not too long ago.

Yanks has a bunch of A-6's, but I am not aware of any plans to fly those. There is also a privately owned A-6 in a hangar at Chino, but I'm not aware that it was being actively restored to flight condition (or that it could readily be).

[wls3]

What about the EA6B Prowler? Aren't they a modified A-6 Intruder?
I believe these are still operational and used for ECM.


Bill

[O.P.]

Do you know if is a straight A-6E or a TRAM with the FLIR turret removed.

Hi Jack! I don't have a clue. I've only seen two, the one at Estrella and the one at Udvar/Hazy. The Estrella bird is pretty new, recent. They were telling me the Navy flew it to them and just parked it there. I'm going to update the ole airplane library immediately. Do you have any suggestions for good A-6 books? It's really cool that you and Tim got to work with them. Do you have any pictures?

Yanks has a bunch of A-6's, but I am not aware of any plans to fly those. There is also a privately owned A-6 in a hangar at Chino, but I'm not aware that it was being actively restored to flight condition (or that it could readily be).

YEEEAAH! It's good to know there are some out there. One of these days we can see a civilian owned one flying around. My only concern about them is if they had been demilled with a torch. If you and Jim have seen them, I'm going to keep thinking good thoughts. All this talk about a WIX bird, this would be a cool one, and Jack and Tim have experience with it. I think there was a 4 seat version also,,orrr,,maybe thats the Prowler like Bill said.

Here's the bad picture I took of the Udvar/Hazy A-6.

[Jack Cook]

You know, I don't have a single A-6 book except for the sqd-signal A-6 in action. I've got number of shot off the Nimitz plus some good air-to-air my dad took while flying with VA-75 back in the mid 70s. I have very few from Whidbey. I've never figured this out but ashore if you take a picture they come after you like a pack of rabid dogs but on the boat anything goes. I even took and had some taken of me during flight ops! Has for festivus, AOs invented it! The pole is called a hernia bar. Feats of strenght are employed when your strongarms MK82s and 83 onto the MERs . There are no such thing has airing of grievences through! Here a shot of me on the Nimitz. A A-6E of VA-165 just boltered. I'm the guy with my hands in my pockets! Oops!!! By the way that's the CO who boltered in #501 another Oops!!!

http://groups.msn.com/SUPERRABBITB25JMITCHELLBOMBER/therabbitcrew.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=165[/url]

[Jack Cook]

To answer a earlier post, the EA-6A is better described has a modified A-6. The EA-6B was a new design using many A-6 components.

[O.P.]

Great shot Jack! Thats pretty cool. Does the hook make a ton of sparks when it drags across the deck like that?

I noticed from you site you're on the Super Rabbit crew. Next time I go home to Portland, I'll have to link up with you and see if I can stop by and see it.

[Jack Cook]

At night you can see the sparks. But honestly the flight deack at night is so absolutly the scariest place on earth. I never paid amuch ttention to them way to busy keeping all 10 fingers and toes attached. We once had a guy jump off the ship because he didn't want to work the flight deck anymore.
The B-25 is at Evergreen but will hopefully have her back for next summer. You should check out the F-104s at Hillsboro or Skeets Mehrer's Stearman Factory at Camas.

[airnutz]

Jeeesus, what a jump..Did he go off the Flight deck? Or somewhere lower?
We once had a guy decide it was time to depart the Sub business...out
the After Battery hatch..While Submerged!!! He got his wish when we got
back in port!