F3DEF-10 Skyknight Units of the Korean and Vietnam Wars by Joe Copalman

Author:Joe Copalman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2021-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

Although this specific aircraft – BuNo 127072 – was retired at MCAS Iwakuni upon reaching 4000 flight hours in January 1965, its loadout, with one ALQ-31 jamming pod under the right wing and an ALE-2 chaff pod under the left wing, represents that carried by most VMCJ-1 ‘Whales’ flying early ECM escort missions over North Vietnam (Paul Bless Collection)

On the 29 April mission, the Skyknights departed Da Nang at ten-minute intervals, with their jammers on continuously once they crossed the DMZ, dropping chaff to confound the radar picture for the enemy controllers in advance of the strike package arriving over the target. ECMOs switched off the jammers only once they had crossed the DMZ again en route to Da Nang.

Within a month of arriving at in-theatre, VMCJ-1’s Skyknights were in such high demand by both the USAF and the US Navy that they were flown at a rate that outpaced the maintenance and supply systems’ ability to support them. In his comments on a draft of the official US Marine Corps history of the Vietnam War, Lt Col Corman remarked;

‘During May and June the EF-10Bs were operated at 300 per cent of normal utilisation. Due to the limited total of EF-10B resources (both aircraft and spare parts), Brig Gen [Keith B] McCutcheon [1st Marine Air Wing (MAW) Commanding General] directed the utilisation rate be limited to 200 per cent or 60 hours per month per plane. To achieve this, a 1st MAW liaison officer was assigned to US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam’s electronic warfare coordinating authority, and VMCJ-1 was tasked to support Air Force and Navy operations in only high threat areas; i.e. strikes inside the SA-2 missile envelope complex.’

This achieved the desired reduction, but the resultant 200 per cent utilisation rate over peacetime usage continued to push maintainers and the supply system to their limits.

From its earliest missions in Vietnam, the limitations of the EF-10B were abundantly clear. The ECM tasking demanded that Skyknights be on station prior to the arrival of the strike aircraft, and then be the last to leave once all strikers had dropped their bombs. Missions as far north as Hanoi and Haiphong required the use of external drop tanks to provide both the range and time on station needed, and even then, ‘Whale’ crews flying what was known as the ‘western track’ egressing North Vietnam into Laos often diverted to Ubon, in Thailand, for fuel, before continuing home to Da Nang.

Whether carrying 300-gallon fuel tanks, jamming pods, chaff pods, or combinations thereof, the already-sluggish ‘Whale’ became a chore to get off the ground in the heat and humidity at Da Nang. Chuck Houseman recalled;

‘We were so loaded down that on that 10,000-ft runway, ordinarily we’d be airborne at 5000 ft under normal conditions at sea level, but I swear to God, when we were going on those deep missions north of Hanoi especially, we damned near used the entire 10,000 ft. You would see the end of the runway rushing up at you, but you kept the faith and pulled it off properly, and hopefully everything worked.

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