North American Vigilante in service

Deliveries of the A3J-1 to operational units began in 1961, with last deliveries of the type in 1963. By that time it had been redesignated the "A-5A", due to a Defense Department decision to come up with a common designation scheme for all US military aircraft, implemented in September 1962.

Carrier air group commanders were not entirely pleased with the Vigilante. Although the aircraft had excellent performance and the airframe proved reliable, it was full of "bleeding edge" electronic technologies and was a maintenance headache. During the testing phase, the VERDAN computer had a "mean time between failure (MTBF)" of 15 minutes! However, within a few years the computer's MTBF was up to a reasonable 240 hours.

The Vigilante was also something of a handful to land on a carrier, being not only big but very sleek and "hot". On a hard landing, the aircraft would "bounce", with the nosewheel tire popping and tearing apart on the second strike to shed pieces of rubber into the engines. In addition, the nosewheel strut proved weak and had to be reinforced. Some Vigilante pilots claimed that the aircraft's reputation for being difficult to land was exaggerated, but did admit that it was unforgiving. The aircraft acquired a reputation as something of a beast that required particular skill to fly, and of course Vigilante pilots were not quick to disagree. Egos were involved, which could be big and antagonistic in the male-oriented, hyper-competitive Navy Air culture.

Fighter pilots of course tended to look down on the big bomber, comparing it to an elephant, though apparently at least as much for the wild sounds made by the Vigilante's twin J79s when they were throttled up or down during landing approach, with jokers suggesting that the beast sounded like it was in heat. Leroy Heath, back in normal fleet service, picked up the comparison and ran with it, naming his Vigilante the PASSIONATE PACHYDERM. He also bought a wind-up toy elephant, painted the PACHYDERM's aircraft number "701" on its side, and took to setting it on strolls across the closed-circuit TV camera that gave the pilot ready rooms a view of carrier-deck landings.

One A-5A pilot, Lieutenant Commander Ken Enney, decided to fight back more aggressively by "bouncing" a Vought Crusader fighter. The fighter pilot eventually called out over radio: "I can't get rid of this guy!" This set off quite a buzz among the flight crews, though Enney himself later admitted that his Vigilante was lightly loaded and that he could only have gotten away with such a stunt at altitudes above 6,000 meters (20,000 feet).

By this time the last A-5As were delivered to the fleet, there was no interest in using the Vigilante for nuclear strike, or even conventional attack. Partly the issue was political, partly it was technical.

The political issue was that the Navy's Polaris submarines were coming on line, and the Navy decided to focus on Polaris as the service's strategic nuclear strike weapon. The Vigilante development program cost about $200 million USD in contemporary dollars, with the pricetag of each aircraft rising to about $10 million USD, and the Navy felt that their other existing strike aircraft, such as the new Grumman Intruder, were more cost-effective for conventional strike missions.

The technical issue was that the Vigilante wasn't looking very promising in the strike role anyway. The linear bomb bay scheme sounded nice on paper, but it was a nightmare in practice. The bomb bay tube ran up the fuselage between the engines, and since it was much longer the nuclear store, expendable fuel tanks were tacked on in the rear of the store. During a strike, the entire assembly was popped out the tail with an explosive cartridge driving it down launch rails. Not only did the scheme prove unreliable, the store also tended to "draft" behind the aircraft, preventing the pilot from laying it down accurately. The linear bomb bay would never actually be used in practice.

The Vigilante, in short, had become an expensive aircraft without a clear mission. However, instead of simply dumping it, the US Navy decided that the Vigilante should be used for a different mission, the fast reconnaissance role.

Vigilante developments - the A-5B / RA-5C

The decision to develop the Vigilante strictly as a reconnaissance aircraft was taken at a time when efforts were already being made to enhance its attack abilities, as well as adapt it to the reconnaissance mission. An improved attack variant, the "A3J-2" (later "A-5B"), and a reconnaissance version, the "RA-5C", were both built.

Work began on the A-5B in 1961, with the first example flying at the end of April 1962. The most visible change from the A-5A was a modified "humpback" fuselage that offered a substantial increase in fuel capacity. Longer and wider flaps were fitted, as well as a new BLC scheme, in which high-pressure engine bleed was fed to the front of the wing instead of the back.

Four stores pylons were fitted, two under each wing, each with a load capability of up to 950 kilograms (2,000 pounds). The engine inlet ducts were also modified, and the brakes were improved to handle the increase in aircraft weight.

18 A-5Bs were ordered, but by the time the first of them was flying the Navy had given up on the Vigilante as a bomber. Only six A-5Bs were completed. They were used in an interim training role for the reconnaissance version, the RA-5C, and never reached fleet service. The remaining twelve machines in the batch were completed as RA-5Cs.

The RA-5C was developed in parallel with the A-5B, and first flew on 30 June 1962. The RA-5C incorporated all the new features of the A-5B, such as the humpback fuselage, the big flaps, and the leading-edge BLC system. The new BLC scheme proved a little tricky, since it required more engine power. Since the RA-5C was substantially heavier than the A-5A, this meant that once the BLC system was engaged the aircraft lost power and tended to drop abruptly.

The tunnel-store system was retained, and in fact it appears that the RA-5C was still capable of carrying the old primary store train and could also be fitted with the four stores pylons. In practice, however, the RA-5C was never armed.

The major difference from the A-5B was the RA-5C's equipment fit, which featured a suite of reconnaissance gear that was state-of-the-art for the time. The TV camera under the nose became part of the reconnaissance suite, but most of the gear was carried in a long slender "canoe" on the bottom of the aircraft's fuselage and running from the nose gear back towards the tail. The reconnaissance suite consisted of the following sensor systems, listed from front to rear:

• KA-51A/B forward-looking oblique angle optical camera.
• KA-50A, KA-51A, or KA-62A vertical optical camera.
• Passive electronics countermeasures (PECM) antenna for the AN/ALQ-61 Electronic Reconnaissance System. The AN/ALQ-61 was an "electronic intelligence (ELINT)" system that would pick up radar emissions and pin down their coordinates, frequency, and pulse pattern. The ELINT data was recorded on magnetic tape, with storage capacity for 112 minutes of continuous ELINT observations.
• Various combinations of panoramic, vertical, or oblique optical cameras. Camera fit included KA-58A panoramic camera for medium- to high-altitude work, or a KA-57A panoramic camera for low-altitude work. The cameras shot through prisms in the canoe that could be pivoted to permit shots straight down or from side to side.
• An AN/AAS-21 infrared sensor, which could provide a continuous film strip of thermal targets, such as hidden trucks, over a field of view 140 degrees wide.
• Antenna for the Westinghouse AN/APD-7 "side looking airborne radar (SLAR)" system, which shot radar pulses out to the side of the aircraft and stored the return echo on a long film strip, permitting all-weather, day-night imaging.
• Another PECM antenna for the AN/ALQ-21 system.

An electronic strobe flash pod, powered by a spinner on its tail, could be carried under one wing to provide illumination for night reconnaissance. The sensor systems on the RA-5C worked in conjunction to bring back a flood of information from a reconnaissance mission, stored on magnetic tape and photographic film.

The RA-5C's reconnaissance systems were under control of the back-seater, who was designated the "reconnaissance-attack navigator (RAN)". The AN/ASB-12 system was retained, to be used for navigation and camera targeting.

An RA-5C's mission was conducted by an aircraft carrier's "Integrated Operational Intelligence Center (IOIC)". Electronic intelligence experts studied the information stored on magnetic tape, while the film was passed through a one-hour film processing system, which at the time was a classified system. The processed film was then inspected by photographic intelligence specialists.

The RA-5C entered fleet service in 1964. 43 RA-5Cs were built, following the 12 A-5Bs that had been completed as RA-5Cs. After this batch of 43 was completed, the 43 surviving A-5As and A-5Bs were rebuilt to RA-5C standard, and the production line was shut down.

The RA-5C proved so useful in Vietnam that the Navy ordered 46 more RA-5Cs in 1968. Only 36 were actually completed, however, with the last rolling off the production line in August 1970. This final batch featured J79-GE-10 engines with 79.46 kN (8,100 kgp / 17,860 lbf) afterburning thrust, as well as a leading-edge wing extension trailing back from the air intakes, plus slightly modified air intakes. By this time, the RA-5C had plenty of power and it was no longer such a handful on carrier deck landings.

Author: Greg Goebel