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Post by flyinkiwi on Dec 10, 2009 8:40:59 GMT 12
In the current climate of frustration and angst over the seemingly never ending debacle with our Skyhawk fleet, I would like to ask ex 75 and 2 squadron personnel some whimsical questions in order to lighten the mood.
Was there a airframe or airframes that might be considered a favourite of the ground crew? Were there some that seemed to spend more in the shop getting something fixed than sitting out on the flight line ready to go? Did pilots have a favourite?
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Post by beagle on Dec 10, 2009 14:41:51 GMT 12
never was convicted and sent to OH but when at Wigram, I am sure NZ1942 was a few knots faster than the rest. So I was told. Being almost hand built, as oppossed to big manufacturers, they were probably all slightly different.
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Post by chewy on Dec 10, 2009 15:10:51 GMT 12
When i was on the flight line at 75Sqn the first thing in the morning was to put on the board the servicable A/C for the first wave and put the pilots names against the A/C we had assigned for them. We would ring through to the pilots the combinations. They would ring back their new combination. Some pilots prefered different aircraft. The Boss always got the fastest one in the wave. I remember on one deplyment an aircraft sat out the whole excercise on the ground, being fixed in time to go home.
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Post by skyhawkdon on Dec 10, 2009 17:46:02 GMT 12
No pilot's liked flying the T-birds if they were doing ACM ;D Generally the most junior pilots got assigned them!
Some senior pilots definately had a preference for airframes. Ian Gore liked 05 post Kahu as it was the prototype and he did a lot of the test flying in it. He even had his name painted on the side when I was on 2 Sqn! It was always his preference for doing solo aerobatic displays at 2 Sqn. It was still being used for this in 2001 so must have been a nice straight frame. Some of the A-4Gs were slightly bent from all their years of carrier landings and catapult launches, not to mention a few prangs in both USN and RAN service!
When the A-4Gs first arrived no one liked them, pilots or groundcrew. It took a long time for the bugs to be ironed out of them!
When we were transitioning from the CSD generator to the CFG generator in the late 80s we had a lot of trouble with the new CFGs and pilots would prefer to fly an aircraft with the old CSD. It got so bad that for Vanguard 1988 the pilots refused to take any aircraft fitted with CFGs with them!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 10, 2009 19:16:52 GMT 12
It's interesting that the two-seaters were less popular to fly. With the Vampires, I'm told, the pilots preferred the two-seaters for aerobatics and the like as they were more stable than the single seaters.
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Post by shorty on Dec 10, 2009 20:01:49 GMT 12
It's interesting that the two-seaters were less popular to fly. With the Vampires, I'm told, the pilots preferred the two-seaters for aerobatics and the like as they were more stable than the single seaters. And they had ejector seats! |
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Post by skyhawkdon on Dec 10, 2009 20:09:08 GMT 12
It's interesting that the two-seaters were less popular to fly. They carried 1000lbs less internal fuel than the single seaters so tended to run out of gas first and didn't have the same legs for long transit flights. They were 1000lbs heavier with the extra cockpit, so the weight differences sort of evened themselves out, but the longer nose of the T-bird meant it didn't turn quite as good as the model in a dogfight. Barnsey will be able to speak on this better than me! Of course the T-bird was loved by us groundies as the cockpit had heaps more room to work in and things in the cockpits were generally more accessable than the single seaters. Plus we got to go for rides in them occassionally! |
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skyman
Flight Lieutenant
Posts: 82 
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Post by skyman on Sept 1, 2013 19:45:12 GMT 12
As a new guy to the forum I have been trolling through to see anything interesting in my field so I am a little late on this one.
From a purely external armament point of view of the "dinosaur" Skyhawks (I left the RNZAF at the start of Kahu) there was no difference between the A-4K and the TA-4K, so during weapons programmes it didn't matter to us whether A-4 or TA-4, but the cockpits were a different story, but usually only during ILM or DLM(is it still called that?).
As armourers we were responsible for the canopy jettison and ejection seat systems and although the ejection seats were exactly the same the systems were somewhat different. Whereas the single seat A-4 had a total of 10 separate explosive devices in and around the cockpit, excluding the parachute ballistic spreader, the two-seat TA-4 had about 26, if my memory serves me correctly.
Following the initial pull of any of the canopy jettison handles or the ejection seat the operation of the canopy jettison and ejection systems relied on gas pressure produced by explosive devices connected by piping. To carry out a flow-and-leak check on this piping each explosive device had to be disconnected and/or removed so the A-4 was much preferred over the TA-4. Also some of the TA-4 devices almost required a contortionist to reach while those of the A-4 could all be reached from beside the cockpit. I believe Paddy has explained about one or two of the TA-4 devices which are out of sight and can only be reached by one hand. Without dismantling part of the rear instrument panel a group of four devices could only be reached by going head first into the rear cockpit and working inverted! Once all was tested and reconnected, and you double, triple and quadruple checked everything, as did the independent inspector, you signed your life away.
So from an ILM or DLM point of view I ALWAYS preferred the single seat A-4, but as Don pointed out we could get flights in the TA-4.
Cheers,
Al
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 2, 2013 12:00:21 GMT 12
Interesting stuff, welcome to the forum Al.
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