Yesterday's Futures II - The A-5 Vigilante

Some more retro futurism via the medium of forgotten aircraft. This time, a slightly more successful design than the Beechcraft Starship - the North American A-5 Vigilante, whose originally intended role was politicked out of existence but which nevertheless went on to become one of the heaviest aircraft ever to serve on aircraft carriers...

I was a kid in the 1970s (a grotty decade which only looks worse with every revelation about what its idols were actually up to at the time), and like many I liked to make plastic models. My preference was for ships over aircraft, but nonetheless one of the favourites in my collection was a quite obscure aircraft: a carrier-borne reconnaissance jet, the North American A-5 Vigilante, an Airfix kit which took pride of place in the little menagerie of warplanes suspended by threads from my ceiling.

Box artist unknown, possibly Roy Cross?

Part of the reason the Vigilante stood out was its size; this was a big aircraft, especially considering that it was carrier-borne. But I also loved the look of it for, despite its bulk, the A-5 was an elegant beast, shark grey and with the muscular sleekness of the best 1960s futurism, an icon of speed and power - even if, pace 2001: A Space Odyssey, that wasn't actually what the future turned out to look like.

An RA-5C on loan to NASA (1963), and looking particularly sleek.

The contract for a supersonic carrier based nuclear bomber was awarded to North American Aviation in 1955, and the aircraft first flew in August 1958, its design partly based on the cancelled XF-108 Rapier interceptor project. Technically advanced, the A-5 carried a crew of two, and was powered by the same engines as the rather smaller McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom II. It was intended to carry its nuclear munitions in a unique "linear" bomb bay between the engines, which would also hold two disposable fuel tanks which would be ejected rearwards along with the weapon during the attack run.

Unfortunately, this system gave considerable problems, and the Vigilante never carried a live weapon. But technical difficulties were far from the aircraft's only problem in fulfilling its originally specified role. By the time it was ready, inter-service squabbling had resulted in the US Navy retrenching its nuclear role to the operation of ballistic missile submarines, and abandoning its requirement for a carrier based nuclear bomber. It looked as though the Vigilante was not only in technical trouble, but had also lost its intended niche. Procurement was halted in 1963.

This pic, showing aircraft on the deck of USS Constellation (CV-64), gives some idea of the size
of the Vigilante in relation to the other aircraft carried on board.The RA-5Csare to the left,

flanking an E-1 Tracer with its distinctive radar dome. The other planes are Phantoms.

The Vigilante's major operational  problem - the unreliable linear bomb bay - turned out however to be an irrelevancy as it found its metier as a reconnaissance platform. Redesignated as the RA-5C, it was refitted with a fairing along the underside centreline (the so-called "canoe") holding side-looking radar, infrared scanners, camera packs and electronic countermeasures. The linear bomb bay was reduced to holding fuel cannisters only, though it still very occasionally [1] caused problems when the violence of the catapult launch caused the cans to eject onto the deck of the carrier. (With its extensive use of then cutting edge technology, the Vigilante remained a maintenance intensive plane throughout its career.)

Launching one of the big beasts from USS Independence (CV-62)

The Vigilante was used extensively in Vietnam from 1964 onwards, often in dangerous low level sorties, and 27 of the 156 built were lost - 18 in combat, 9 to accidents. Once the Vietnam War had finished in 1974, the Vigilante squadrons began to be run down, with smaller and less temperamental airplanes taking their place, and the final curtain went down on the type in late 1979.

 The end: retired RA-5Cs at a desert "boneyard" awaiting disposal.

This wasn't a particularly important aircraft historically, but it is evocative of a time when the design of fast jets (in particular at North American) was moving away from the clumsy fumblings of the immediate postwar years [2] into what seemed an era not only of infinite possibilities but of form and function combining to produce genuine beauty. A modern vehicle such as the Northrop B-2 Spirit may be more advanced, and look "futuristic", but it speaks of a different, more sinister future, a hunched troll that knows nothing of beauty, but just wants to kill you....

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."

O'Brien, in "1984", George Orwell

Notes
[1] Three recorded instances, one of which led to the loss of the aircraft.
[2] Just compare the Vigilante to the horrible F-105 Thunderchief, only three years older but stunningly ugly and thoroughly primitive looking in comparison.