Aircraft PICTURES

Hi fellow aviation enthusiast:

I recently obtained a scanner and scanned these pictures out of an old shoebox. They were taken around 1959 at Naval Air Station, North Island, in the San Diego region. I have always thought that the Skyrays of VFAW-3 had the coolest paint job on the most shapely aircraft in the fleet. Since I like to use high resolution pictures for my screen background and find them hard to find on the net, I am putting these pictures here for your enjoyment, noncommercial use, or scale model documentation.

(Click on the picture for an 832 by 624 high quality jpeg - 237 kb)

Squadron Mission

VFAW-3 (Fighter Squadron, All Weather), was in the late 1950's the only U. S. Naval element of the North American Defense Command (NORAD). NORAD's duty was to detect aircraft approaching the contiguous U. S. (CONUS), to verify them against filed flight plans, and if a descrepency was detected, fighter aircraft would be "scrambled" to investigate. Should incoming soviet warplanes be detected it would probably be a hostile combat action- likely the start of a nuclear war.

While not carried on the aircraft, the insignia of NORAD appeared on the squadron's hangers. The squadron area was secured by armed guard crew consisting of a petty officer (with .45 cal. automatic) and a crew of seamen armed with .30 cal. carbines. The squadron, like most others in the navy, was self contained for all normal maintenace, including electronics repair and modification.

Similar national air defense duties had been performed in the San Franciso bay area by a squadron flying F9F straightwing panthers around 1954. These were scrambled from Alameda NAS.

The Aircraft

The first Navy arcraft capable of supersonic speed in level flight, the F4D was chosen for this role because of its exceptional rate of climb (almost thirty-thousand feet in ninety seconds from a standing start). The afterburner of the "Ford" made an incredible racket and everyone on Point Loma and bayside San Diego knew when a scramble was in progress - these could occur infrequently or several times a day or night.

The aircraft is "tailless", being a modified delta wing with curved leading and swept trailing edges. Additional pitch force beyond that generated by the elevons was provided by the wedge-shaped fairings adjacent to the variable nozzle engine exhaust.

Paint Variations

As originally delivered, the aircraft had a synthetic black rubber covering over the honeycomb fiberglass nose cone covering the combination search and fire control radar antenna, RF section and fire control computer. This black nose configuration can be seen in some of the static models currently available. When the aircraft were repainted, the rubber was removed and all but the tip of the nose painted. This allowed the use of a much larger insignia, since the side number could then be moved forward.

(Photo of F4D model provided courtesy of The Buck Hill Company, Inc.)

Fuel stores

Additional external fuel is carried in the large, droppable 300 gallon underwing tanks. As seen in the picture, not all aircraft carried tanks that were painted with the yellow stars on blue pattern. The red ribbons draped over the tanks are attached to safty pins that prevent accidental release while the aircraft is on the ground

Fire Control and Weapons

The F4D was equiped with a combined search and single target tracking radar (APQ-50A) and a sophisticated analog computer, with electronic servos driven by electron tubes. Aircraft relative wind was detected by pressure differential vane detectors driven by slotted probes with anti-icing heaters. When on the ground, the probes were covered to avoid damage, and the probe covers can be seen as red objects located at the base of the aircraft side number and on the chin. Detection of aircraft relative wind was essential since one of the aircraft weapons was unguided 2.75 inch rockets, with proximity fuses, caried in two pods on the pylons just inboard of the external fuel tanks. These weapons would weathercock into the relative wind upon launch and the computer accordingly adusted the pilot's aiming point (presented on a "heads down" crt display).

The aircraft also carried a "heads up" aircraft sighting device for use with 20mm cannons, when such were installed (these were not used by VFAW-3). This gunsite is an extremely simple device, using colimated light from a sighting reticule reflected from a rate sensitive gyro mirror, whose restraining force (which determines the lead angle) was controlled by a radar range controlled magnetic computer using saturable reactors.

Also carried by VFAW-3 on its outboard stores pylon was its preferred weapon, the Sidewinder missle. The Sidewinder has a spinning gyro detector and image chopper that causes the missle to home on hot spots such as the exhaust of a target aircraft. Designed with the electronic simplicity of a table model radio and the mechanical simplicity of a washing machine, the Sidewinder offered exceptional economy, reliability, and effectiveness and is still in use today.

Other externals

As seen in the pictures, an addtional electronics package was carried externally.

The squadron would periodically go to Fallon, Nevada, for practice firings of 2.75 inch rockets. At these times a small photo/radar pod would be carried. This was used to determine miss distances in firings against a towed target shape.

Another external store carried was a target towing rig, consisting of a motorized reel, tow cable, parking ring, and a lightweight finned target with internal corner radar reflector.

(Click on the picture for an 832 by 624 high quality jpeg - 234 kb)

Other Aircraft

Also scanned at this time was this picture of F8U-2P Crusader photoreconnisance varient. The F8U is now known as "the last of the gunfighters". A unique feature of this aircraft was the variable incidence wing, seen here in its landing and takeoff configuration. This enabled the aircraft to land or take off using its short landing gear without scraping its tail.

About the pictures - they were scanned from small prints made from 120 color negatives taken with a low cost camera. Scanner was a UMAX Astra 600s with 300 x 300 DPI settings. The scans were edge sharpened, sized and remaped to 72 DPI. The side view of the F4D was deskewed when scanned and the sky background added in on the upper right. A wingtip tank from another aircraft and an automobile were removed from the left side of the picture. In the F8U picture the light and dark spots in the sky are distant aircraft. The white object in the hip pocket of the ground director is the aircraft's startup checklist.

The full scale aircraft photos on this page are copyright 1997 by Leonard G. Barton. Commercial use prohibited without written permission, but feel free to use for your screen saver or backgrounder, or post on your noncommercial page with copyright notice and credit. Feel free to link to this page

If you have comments or questions, or additional information or photos concerning aircraft or squadrons of this era (especially info on the Alameda operation), please e-mail me (Attn: LGB)

For additional information on the F4D see "http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/f006.html#RTFToC2