Restoration: Mach 2 Heavyweight Champion
The North American RA-5C Vigilante.
- By Robert F. Dorr
- Air & Space magazine, November 2002
In 1964, a trio of RA-5Cs had central Florida covered.
U.S. Navy
“It’s not just a committee, it’s a community,” says Patty Mahany, describing the efforts of a Sanford, Florida group restoring a North American RA-5C Vigilante reconnaissance aircraft for display in a park at Orlando-Sanford International Airport. The Vigilante began as a nuclear bomber and ended up launching off carrier decks to fly Mach 2 reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam.
Developed in the late 1950s and initially designated A3J-1, the “Vigi” made its first flight on August 31, 1958. While production of the A-5A was under way, North American Aviation began work on the A-5B, which had additional fuel capacity and other upgrades. Among other innovations, the Vigilante was the Navy’s first production aircraft with an operational head-up display for the pilot, as well as the first U.S. production aircraft to introduce fully-variable-geometry intakes for its two General Electric J79-GE-2-8/10 turbojet engines. In 1960, an A-5A set a world altitude record when it zoom-climbed its way up to 91,451 feet.
The Navy ultimately abandoned its dream of a strategic nuclear force operating from carrier decks—the submarine-launched Polaris missile gave the service a better tool in the strategic nuclear business—but the Vigilante was ideal for reconnaissance. Crewed by a pilot and a reconnaissance/
attack navigator, the RA-5C photo-reconnaissance model became the version made in the greatest numbers, with just over 100 built or produced by the conversion of earlier Vigilantes.
“Landing the A-5 on an aircraft carrier was quite an experience,” says retired Navy commander Don Brumbaugh. “It was a heavy aircraft [nearly 80,000 pounds maximum takeoff weight] with a high approach speed. Being a landing signal officer instructor, I can confidently say it was the hardest aircraft to land aboard the carrier. Night carrier operations were particularly tense, and I can honestly say I never got used to them. I was darn near shaking every time I climbed out of the cockpit at night.”
“It was initially discomforting when you put the canopy down,” says Bob Thomas, a former reconnaissance/attack navigator. “Apart from those two little windows, you really felt shut out from the outside world. You learned to view the world through your radar. You developed other senses to fill in. When something goes wrong, like a generator problem, you learned to detect it from the very slightest sound in your earphones.” Thomas later moved on to the F-14, in which he “discovered what it was like to see out.”
Sanford is where every Vigilante crew trained, from 1960 to 1968. The Orlando-Sanford Airport was a naval air station from 1942 to 1968 (with a five-year respite between World War II and Korea) and trained pilots in three wars. Three years ago there was not one landmark in the town commemorating the long Navy presence. Promoting Sanford as “Celery City”—a sobriquet less accurate today than it was 90 years ago—was wearing thin for the local chamber of commerce.
During a chamber meeting two years ago, Captain Jack Dow, a retired A-6 Intruder pilot, was named president of the Memorial Committee. “We wanted to avoid mistakes of the past,” Dow says. “There had been two disappointing attempts to find a Vigilante and restore it. We wanted to do better.”
Comments (1)
Are you in need of volunteers. I helped with the build of the PV1 at Sanford's airport several years ago and did enjoy helping with it's assembly. If so, just let me know. Thanks. EDITORS' REPLY: You would need to contact the restorers directly, via the airport.
Posted by Tom Grenwis on May 17,2010 | 04:41 PM