Skyhawk Delivery and Arrival May 1970

[skyhawkdon]

Both these photos are USN Official taken from the USS Okinawa 1970 cruise book.

RNZAF personnel who accompanied the Skyhawks on their delivery voyage to NZ.
Both Stu Olsen and Barry Brinsdon have sadly now passed away. But before Barry died he gave me his copy of the USS Okinawa cruise book to give to the Ohakea Museum, which I did after scanning these photos. Hopefully the book will find its way into the archives at Wigram and not be thrown out as being irrelevant to RNZAF history by some unknowing twit who is currently sorting through everything at the Ohakea Museum.




USS Okinawa badge scanned from front cover of 1970 cruise book.


USS Okinawa with her precious cargo in rough seas as seen from RNZAF Orion.

[FlyNavy]

Great photos - thanks Don. Agree about your hopes that memorabilia is not thrown out by the ignorant.
Phil.

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting shots.

Don, did our A-4's ever have any subsequent trips aboard carriers? I recall being told 75 Squadron went to Hawaii for an exercise in the late 70's or early 1980's and that seems an awful long way to fly without a tanker. Just wondering if they had a little help from their friends?

Give the museum staff some credit. Some of them are ex-A-4 pilots so should understand the significance.

[skyhawkdon]

No that was the only time they went on a carrier. They flew to and from Hawaii in 1978 for the RIMPAC Exercise (with air-to-air refuelling assistance provided by a USMC KC-130).

Dave, my comment/concerns about that book is justified - in 2002 the Wigram "archivists" came up to Ohakea and went through the Ohakea Museum's archives, including its extensive book collection, to sort out what they wanted to keep. That book, along with many others was put in a pile to go to the local second hand book shop! Fortunately one of the Ohakea Museum staff knew its significance and rescued it. Unfortunately from looking at the book cover its significance to the RNZAF to anyone who doesn't know, isn't obvious.

[Dave Homewood]

Fair enough. Let's hope they're all reading the forum then.

Cheers for the details of the Hawaii trip. The F/Sgt who told me about it was a baggie at the time. He said 75 Sqn was invited to an annual exercise in which each year only the most elite squadrons were invited, and usually only once, to try to sink USS Enterprise in an exercise. He said 75 Sqn became the first ever to succeed as they used a small island as cover and then flew 10 feet off the ocean tops till they got close enough to sink the famous carrier.

Is this all true, or was he shooting a line?

[skyhawkdon]

From what I have been told our Skyhawks simulated Russian "Kelt" (?) antiship missiles on that RIMPAC. They were "launched" from parent P-3's and were free to fly as low and fast as they wanted. Given the USN's AEW and ESM capability I would think it highly unlikely that they weren't detected, but whether they were shot down before overflying the ships is another matter! They would have had to use their APG-53 radars to find the ships which would have given the ships plenty of warning they were coming.

2 Sqn made a similar "unofficial" attack on a USN carrier group steaming off Sydney around 2000. Despite flying as low as they could and using minimal radio/radar transmissions they were intercepted by F-14's before they got to the carrier! However they had many successes against various Navies over the years, sometimes using ingenious tactics to sneak up on the fleet, including simulating high flying civilian airliners and slow flying civilian light aircraft! Terrain masking was always used when available but in the open sea flying very low (low enough to use the seas swells and breaking waves for terrain masking!) and using good tactics often was just as successful.

[corsair67]

Jeez, seeing how small that LPH looks with the 14 Skyhawks on the deck, I can understand why the Captain allegedly wanted to cut the Skyhawks free during a severe storm encountered on the voyage out to NZ! ;D

Despite flying as low as they could and using minimal radio/radar transmissions they were intercepted by F-14's before they got to the carrier!

Nothing gets past a Tomcat.

[skyhawkdon]

There is nothing "alleged" about it - it is fact. The Captain called all the Kiwis together during the storm and said he needed to lighten the ship and to make it less top heavy! But he was convinced it would be a national disaster if he cut the Skyhawks chains and let them go overboard, so he didn't. The storm was a goodie by all accounts - no one ate a hot meal for 3 days - it was too dangerous to cook food. It was the worst storm any of the Navy types on board had ever experienced. Pat Leggitt took some photos during it which I will use in the book.

[corsair67]

I'd hate to think what would have happened to the RNZAF if the Captain had got his way - it was hard enough to get the Govt to agree to buy 14 Skyhawks in the first place, let alone contemplating having to go back to later and asking for another 14 replacement Skyhawks.

I assume that it would be a little difficult to insure military hardware?

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks for the details of the Hawaii exercise. So the story was close to the truth but perhaps had evolved over the years.

In the case of if the Skyhawks had been tipped off the ship, would the US navy have been liable and have to replace them? Or was there an "all care no responsibility" style deal for the transportation of them? It doesn't bare thinking about really.

[30sqnatc]

That would make an interesting model. No markings and all the details blured by the white protective coating.

Paul

[Damon]

Have you noticed that the air to air refueling probes are 'straight' in the above pictures .When did the RNZAF change or modify the probes to the 'bent 'type of probes? .
The reason for the 'bent' air to air refueling probes was to reduce or prevent items being sucked in the right intake is that correct?

Damon

[phil]

Specifically to stop avtur being sucked down the intakes I believe. I'm sure Don can confirm this, he seems to know about as much as anyone about the A4s, but I'm pretty sure it was about '73 the probs were changed?

[Dave Homewood]

And for the uninitiated who may be reading, avtur is aviation turbine fuel, or jet fue (the stuff that smells like kerosene at an airport)

[skyhawkdon]

Yes it was around 72/73 that the probes were changed. There were 2 reasons they were changed to cranked or "bent" ones. Fuel getting sucked down the RH intake during air-to-air refuelling was one (although even the bent probe mod didn't totally fix this as the RNZAF found out the hard way - NZ6256 suffered serious damage to its intakes in 1995 when it digested fuel and there was an explosion in the intakes). The other reason was the straight probe apparently interfered with the APG-53 Radar and ECM gear fitted in the chin blister under the nose. The USN found this out in Vietnam.

[skyhawkdon]

admin said:

In the case of if the Skyhawks had been tipped off the ship, would the US navy have been liable and have to replace them? Or was there an "all care no responsibility" style deal for the transportation of them? It doesn't bare thinking about really.

The USN were just doing us a favour delivering the A-4's, so I doubt they would have been liable. The original intention was to fly them to out NZ but RNZAF senior leadership thought that was too risky as it would have required a number of air-to-air refuels to complete the trip. Never mind that the USN/Douglas had been delivering A-4's across the pacific (and around the world) for years... I guess it showed the ignorance of some in the RNZAF to the deployability and reliability of the new A-4.

[FlyNavy]

Don,
Both batches of A4Gs were delivered by HMAS Melbourne and Sydney as cargo to lighters at Jervis Bay, then by road truck transport to NAS Nowra. Perhaps if asked one of these carriers could have delivered your Skyhawks but the USN were first. Makes sense to me. However the unusual scenario of the A4Ks being only deck cargo - rather than below deck via the lift - made the USN transport solution more problematic in the storm conditions encountered.
Phil.

[skyhawkdon]

The (small) Skyhawk looks a very tight fit on the elevator! Was that Sydney's or Melbourne's elevator in the photo?

[FlyNavy]

Don,
Good question about carrier. Not sure but that photo came in a batch that all seem to otherwise refer to the first batch of A4Gs (with S2E Trackers also) transported by HMAS Melbourne. I'm not sure now if one of the two elevators was smaller than the other. Usually one was used only to faciliate hangar/deck movements. When no possibility of flying then the two elevators could be used for 'aircraft chess' above and below.

One can see the value of trained 'deck handlers' manoeuvring the aircraft in such confined spaces by hand. As long as they pushed correctly no problemo. Depending on the aircraft mix I think all aircraft could be below deck; but arranged like sardines in a can. Rearranging where aircraft should be - and when - is a full time job.
Phil.

[FlyNavy]

Don,
From a different batch of photos from the Nowra Museum it is clear from the sequence that your question is correctly answered that the aircraft in question is on the forward lift of HMAS Sydney in 1971. Here is another photo showing the lift and quite likely the same aircraft as shown earlier down at hangar level.