A-4 Battle damage

[Finn]

Just a bit off the nose is all:

Jari

[MikeMaben]

 

  Ooopsy !!

[AlbertD]

Just a little paint and she'll be as good as new.

[lawman56]

Rub some dirt on it

[easixpedro]

Have seen quite a few dmamged like this. Usually just a new random and back on the flt sked. This looks like it hit some of the bulkhead too. Likely shipped off to Cubi Point or even Atsugi for depot repair. 

 

Even better is that guys blog! Some great pics on there. Thanks for sharing 

Peter

Edited August 30, 2020 by easixpedro

[Landrotten Highlander]

somebody got some chewing gum ?

[John1]

Tough little Scooter.  

[Oldbaldguy]

When we build our kits, we often miss, lose or forget the context of things.  The Scooter is a little airplane that was smaller than most of its peers when it first came out at a time when Navy airplanes were still pretty small.  The cockpit is so tiny and cramped that you literally wear the airplane.  So, the guy flying this one either hit something or something hit him, probably at an inopportune time, with everything happening right in his face just inches from his toes.  Even his nosewheel took damage and it retracts into a well between his knees.  The easiest thing to do would have been to eject but, being a Naval Aviator from back in the day when they all had great big brass ones, this guy recovered and flew it someplace safe, saving both himself and his airplane.  To him, it was just another day at the office in a job that didn't pay very much.  Compare what he did to the guy flying the EP-3 near China several years ago who was hit by a Chinese fighter and lost a prop and his radome.  Although his airplane was under control, flyable and could easily have made it to someplace safe, he threw up his hands and delivered a priceless and unprecedented intelligence coup directly to the Chinese.  Not sure what my point is other than Douglas built great airplanes and it was a different time, different generation, and different perspective.

[easixpedro]

18 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

When we build our kits, we often miss, lose or forget the context of things.  The Scooter is a little airplane that was smaller than most of its peers when it first came out at a time when Navy airplanes were still pretty small.  The cockpit is so tiny and cramped that you literally wear the airplane.  So, the guy flying this one either hit something or something hit him, probably at an inopportune time, with everything happening right in his face just inches from his toes.  Even his nosewheel took damage and it retracts into a well between his knees.  The easiest thing to do would have been to eject but, being a Naval Aviator from back in the day when they all had great big brass ones, this guy recovered and flew it someplace safe, saving both himself and his airplane.  To him, it was just another day at the office in a job that didn't pay very much.  Compare what he did to the guy flying the EP-3 near China several years ago who was hit by a Chinese fighter and lost a prop and his radome.  Although his airplane was under control, flyable and could easily have made it to someplace safe, he threw up his hands and delivered a priceless and unprecedented intelligence coup directly to the Chinese.  Not sure what my point is other than Douglas built great airplanes and it was a different time, different generation, and different perspective.

Truth!

 

While researching Bloody Sixteen, I discovered a story where Dick Perry (you likely know him as the guy who started the Lady Jessie Skyhawk in VA-164) took a similar hit in the nose. Same destruction...the blast hit so hard that his knees hit his chest! I couldn’t begin to fathom how that could happen in the diminutive Scooter cockpit. Even crazier to me, is the nose is where all the instruments are and he lost everything (AOA, airspeed, TACAN etc...essentially everything to fly and navigate with). Dude flew (dead reckoning) back over the Tonkin Gulf AT NIGHT, and landed on the first carrier he could find. He alerted them by making low passes until they rigged the deck for him to land! I can’t even begin to describe the level of cajones that took, let alone the skill. And a good bit of luck. 
 

I remember reading a blurb in the Astronaut Wives Club where the women weren’t necessarily scared of their husbands going to the moon, as the only other option was that they’d be flying and dying/being captured over North Vietnam. Jim Stockdale and John Glenn were classmates at the USN Test Pilot School. Tom Wolfe hit the nail on the head in the Right Stuff!

-Peter