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Feet dry: a Douglas Skyraider on a "sandblower" mission over the desert

THE SPADGUYS SPEAK

Helm Roberts writes: "As an Able Dog driver of VA-175, and the Suez/Hungarian Revolution crisis of the fall of 1956...on CVB-42, the USS FDR...your story describes the mission we trained for better than anything I have read. The AD filled a gap in the nuclear weapons inventory until the jets could match our range with air to air refueling.

"I never thought about the mission as a one-way trip at the time, but the 3,000 mile round trip was right at the margins of the possible...if you didn't balance the fuel in those 300 gallon tanks on the flight to the target, when you made the drop, there was a good possibility that there would be problems at the top of the 'idiot' loop. When the weapon released during a 4.5g pull-up, there was a 2g jump due to the decreased weight and increased angle of attack....the AD bends at 7gs. If you didn't fly at the edge of engine detonation...1,400 rpm/Max BMEP...you couldn't get the maximum range and might run out of fuel before returning to the carrier.

"Thanks for telling the story of a forgotten era in naval history."

Thank you, Helm, and blue skies!

This folder came out of an article I wrote for Foundation magazine to answer the question: what would it be like to fly a prop-driven Douglas Skyraider carrying a nuclear bomb on the first day of World War III? By great good fortune, I struck up an email correspondence with a dozen "Spadguys." Over the course of four months, they answered my questions and tutored me in the arts of driving a World War II aircraft at an altitude of 50 feet, so as to sneak in beneath enemy radar, then to execute a high-G pullup and "loft" the bomb toward the target, meanwhile doubling back the way you'd come. "Crazy days," as one of them wrote.

At the end, I printed out the emails as a 100-page book for the editors to use for fact-checking. The emails were so fascinating that (with permission) I've posted them here for others to enjoy. Here they are:

• Carrying a Nuke to Sevastopol (the article as published)
• 'Crazy Days': the Spadguys' emails (10 files)
• Second thoughts: letters to the editor

These emails are copyright by the men who wrote them, and no use of them can be made without their permission.

Spad stuff available here or elsewhere:

• Byron Hukee's journal of his tour in Vietnam
• The Able Dogs Skyraider page
• Homepage of the Skyraider Association
• Spad Two goes missing in Laos

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