Special Ops: Four Accounts of the Military's Elite Forces

by Orr Kelly

  The Hornet carries a formidable array of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. Each of these planes carries Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles on its wingtips, a Harpoon antishipping missile under the right wing, a Harm antiradar missile under the left wing, two Sparrow radar-guided missiles on each side of the fuselage, and a 20-mm cannon in the nose. (McDonnell Douglas Co.)

  Carrier pilots vie with each other for the chance to intercept potentially hostile planes. Here, a Hornet pulls up alongside a long-range Soviet Bear reconnaissance plane. (U.S. Navy Photo.)

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. THE BATTLE OF THE ADMIRALS

  The description of the Backfire bomber that caused so much concern to the American military is based on Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1988–1989, Jane’s Information Group Limited, Coulsdon, Surrey, U.K.

  The account of the roles played by Vice Adm. William Houser and Vice Adm. Kent Lee is based on interviews with the two officers, both of them now retired. The rivalry between the two men to shape the future of naval aviation was also described to me by others, especially Robert Thompson, who worked for Houser, and Rear Adm. Edward L. Feightner, who was involved in the early design studies of the F/A-18 and who is now retired.

  Much of the background information on the advocates of the small, lightweight, wrap around fighter is based on my work as Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Star during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

  Governor William H. Clements, Jr., of Texas, who was deputy defense secretary during much of the 1970s, gave me his account of his role in the development of the F/A-18 in an interview during one of his visits to Washington.

  The language of the congressional restriction on the use of funds for a new plane that caused the navy so much trouble is taken from the Conference Report, H.R. Rep. No. 93–1363, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session (1974), page 27.

  Throughout my research, I relied heavily on a series of General Accounting Office reports that monitored the early development of the F/A-18 and on several series of internal McDonnell Douglas publications that appeared under the names of “F/A-18 Status Report,” “The Hornet Nest” and “Team Talk.” Also helpful for an overview was Mike Spick, Modern Fighting Aircraft, FIA-18 Hornet (New York: Arco, 1984).

  2. WINGS OVER THE OCEAN

  This brief review of military and, especially, naval aviation relies on a number of books as well as on interviews with fliers who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

  Especially helpful for their accounts of the beginnings of aerial combat in World War I were Arch Whitehouse, Decisive Air Battles of the First World War, (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pierce, 1963) and Quentin Reynolds, They Fought for the Sky (New York: Rinehart & Co., 1957). Also useful was W. R. Taylor and Kenneth Munson, History of Aviation (New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1977). For a preview of aerial combat written early in the century, I found fascinating R. P. Hearne, Aerial Warfare (London: John Lane, 1909).

  For an understanding of aerial combat through the years, I relied heavily on Mike Spick, The Ace Factor: Air Combat & the Role of Situational Awareness (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1988).

  Much of my description of the early development of naval aviation, from Eugene Ely’s first landing and takeoff from a ship to the mid-1930s, is based on Lt. Harold Blaine Miller, Navy Wings (New York: Dodd, Mead&Co., 1937). Also helpful were Robert L. Lawson, ed., The History of U.S. Naval Air Power (New York: The Military Press, 1987); Capt. Edward L. Beach, U.S.N. Ret., The United States Navy (New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1986); Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York: Free Press, 1984); Anthony Preston, Aircraft Carriers (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1979), and Sandy Russell, ed., Naval Aviation 1911–1986: A Pictorial Study (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1986), along with an article, Barrett Tillman, “The Aircraft Carrier: A Brief History.” Soldier of Fortune, June, 1983.

  My accounts of the World War II battles that later influenced the thinking of those developing the F/A-18 were drawn from Stephen Howarth, The Fighting Ships of the Rising Sun: The Drama of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1895–1945 (New York: Atheneum, 1983); Rear Adm. Edwin T. Layton, U.S.N. Ret., Capt. Roger Pineau, U.S.N.R. Ret., and John Costello, “And I Was There: Pearl Harbor and Midway—Breaking the Secrets (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1985); Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 1981) and Gordon W. Prange, Miracle at Midway, Donald M. Goldstein and K. V. Dillon, ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1982.) Layton and Prange each saw the Pacific war from a different perspective and it is useful to read their books in tandem.

  The way in which the F6F Hellcat was adapted to serve as a strike-fighter was described to me by both Admiral Lee and Adm. Frederick H. Michaelis. Admiral Houser told me of his service as a squadron commander, using the F4U Corsair as a fighter and bomber in Korea. He also urged me to read Tom Blackburn, The Jolly Rogers: The Story of Tom Blackburn and Navy Fighting Squadron VF-17 (New York: Orion Books, 1989), in which Blackburn describes how the Corsair fighter was first jury-rigged as a bomber.

  For my description of the development of the American maritime strategy—and its rediscovery in the 1970s and 1980s—I relied on Michael A. Palmer, Origins of the Maritime Strategy: American Naval Strategy in the First Postwar Decade (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1988).

  3. “HOLY MOLY! WE ARE IN TROUBLE!”

  My account of the early development of the Northrop fighters and the fly-off between Northrop’s YF-17 and General Dynamics’s YF-16 is grounded in my experience covering those developments as Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Star and U.S. News & World Report magazine. This included several interviews with Thomas Jones over the years.

  For the navy’s reaction to the decision to “navalize” the air force choice for a new fighter, I relied on interviews with Thompson, Houser, Lee, and others involved in those events.

  Much of the background information on the choice of the McDonnell Douglas-Northrop team to build the new navy plane is contained in a thick book of legal documents compiled by Harvey J. Wilcox, who was then general counsel for the Naval Air Systems Command, and who has since become deputy general counsel of the navy. Kent Lee was kind enough to loan me his copy of the book.

  An interview with Wilcox and Charles J. McManus, then counsel for the F/A-18 program, was invaluable in helping to recall this period and put it into perspective.

  The reaction of Northrop and McDonnell Douglas to their joint production of the new plane was described to me by Thomas Burger, Northrop’s program manager for the F/A-18, and by John Capellupo, R. D. Dighton, and Donald Snyder, all of them involved in the project for McDonnell Douglas for many years.

  The testimony of Joseph Gavin, of Grumman, and George Spangenberg before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee on 17 September 1975 was taken from a transcript of that hearing.

  Governor Clements told me of his choice of the name Hornet for the new plane and also described his relationship to Houser and Lee.

  G. W. Lenox, whom I had known when he was program manager for the F/A-18 during the development phase, recalled that difficult period during an interview in San Diego, where he now lives, and in telephone conversations.

  Paul Hollandsworth, who plays a bigger role in chapter six, met with me at Oceana Naval Air Station where, as a civilian, he works for a navy contractor.

  I interviewed Rep. William V. Chappell, Jr., (D-Fla.) about the F/A-18 before his recent death. Although one of the most outspoken critics of the plane for many years, he became a booster of the Hornet after seeing it perform in the fleet.

  Admiral Feightner, who was involved in the early studies that led to the F/A-18, explained the rule of thumb known as the “fuel fraction” that is used to determine how much fuel a plane should carry.

  Both Michaelis and Will Willoughby told me of Willoughby’s influence on the F/A-18 program in separate interviews, and, in fact, whenever
I visited aircraft or radar or engine factories, Willoughby’s name was always mentioned with something approaching awe.

  R. D. (“Bob”) Dighton, chief operations analyst for McDonnell Aircraft Co., who spent more than ten years working on the F/A-18, provided a wealth of background on the development of the plane, including the emphasis on reliability and maintainability, during a lengthy interview in St. Louis. This was supplemented by R. D. Dighton, McDonnell Aircraft Co., “Designing the Hornet for Improved R&M,” AIAA 19th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 12–15 January 1981; and by Donald Malvern, executive vice president, and John Capellupo, chief program engineer, McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Co. “New Look in Assurance Technology—The Hornet.” AIAA 14th Annual Meeting and Technical Display, Washington, D.C. 7–9 February 1978.

  Admiral Thomas Hayward, the former chief of naval operations who now lives in Hawaii, taped a very useful response to my written questions about his experiences when the F/A-18 was in the formative stages.

  4. ONE PLANE, ONE MAN

  Admiral Lee told me of his conviction—shared by few in the navy—that it would be possible to develop a plane that would be capable of both air-to-air combat and attacks on surface targets. It was he who stressed the key role of the programmable radar.

  Most of my information on the development of the programmable radar came from three officials of Hughes Aircraft Radar Systems Group in Los Angeles. They are John L. Conklin, manager of the advanced programs staff, Robert L. Salisbury, assistant manager, and Cecil K. Cumpton, manager of the system design laboratory, all in the F/A-18 program division.

  Members of the F/A-18 team at McDonnell Douglas told me of their concern about the placement of the gun right on top of the radar, and Mike Tkach told me of his worry that he might shoot himself down while testing the gun for the first time in flight.

  Lenox told me of his close relationship with Vice Adm. Forrest S. Petersen, and Petersen expanded on that account in a taped interview sent to me from his retirement home in South Carolina.

  Much of my account of the development of the “glass cockpit” came from several interviews with Eugene C. Adam, who developed the concept and is now a senior fellow at McDonnell Douglas. Both Robert Thompson and Lenox described how they, within the navy, became advocates of the new cockpit.

  My understanding of how the cockpit design aids the pilot was helped immeasurably by the time I spent in simulators at Cecil Field under the tutelage of Lt. Casey Albert, and by my flight in the F/A-18 with Lt. Victor Steinman at Lemoore.

  Much of my information about how the computers work to control the plane—and, generally, about the development of the F/A-18—came from a series of reports presented at technical engineering meetings and published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and by the National Air and Space Administration (NASA). The McDonnell Douglas library provided many of these to me in microfiche form. Particularly helpful were the following:

  The Hornet’s flight control system was described in H. E. Harshburger, B. Glaser and J. R. Hammel, McDonnell Aircraft Co. “Backup Modes for the F/A-18 Digital Flight Control System,” paper presented at 6th Digital Avionics Systems Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, 3–6 December 1984. This paper described the elaborate testing done to minimize the possibility of catastrophic software errors.

  The plane’s avionics are described in R. C. Drummond and J. L. Looper, McDonnell Aircraft Co. “Advanced F/A-18 Avionics,” presented at the conference on Advanced Concepts for Avionics/Weapon System Design, Development and Integration of the NATO Advisory Group for Aerospace Research & Development, Ottawa, Canada, 18–22 April 1983.

  The computers and the development of software for the Hornet are described in T. V. McTigue, branch chief, McDonnell Aircraft Co. “F/A-18 Software Development—a Case Study,” at a conference on Software for Avionics by the Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development of NATO at Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, in January 1983, and in J. A. Bosch and P. Briggs, General Electric Co. “Software Development for Fly-by-wire Flight Control Systems,” presented at AIAA Guidance and Control Conference, Palo Alto, California, 7–9 August 1978.

  The importance of providing the pilot new clues to what his aircraft is doing is emphasized in Lt. Col. J. M. Loh and A. H. Lusty, Jr. “Display of Energy Maneuverability Performance Information for Fighter Aircraft,” at the AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Conference, Anaheim, California, 5–9 August 1974.

  Lt. Tom Chapin’s brush with death was described to me in an interview aboard the Coral Sea by Chapin, his squadron commander, Comdr. J. T. Morris, and another member of VFA-132, Lt. Comdr. Richard O’Hanlon.

  5. “EXCESS ENERGY” TO FLY AND FIGHT

  The background in this chapter on General Electric’s development of the F-404 engine for the F/A-18 is based primarily on a series of interviews conducted at the company’s Lynn, Massachusetts, jet engine plant.

  Those interviewed were Burton A. Riemer, general manager of the advanced turbo fans department, who was program manager for the engine selected to power the Hornet; Frank E. Pickering, vice president and general manager of the aircraft engineering division; George Rapp, now retired, who was involved in work on the F-404 engine and its predecessors for more than fifteen years; William Rodenbaugh, manager of product planning for the small aircraft engine division; and Frederick A. Larson, F-404 aircraft programs manager. Rodenbaugh and Larson were particularly helpful in providing the basic description, contained in this chapter, of how a jet engine works.

  Again, several papers presented at technical conferences aided in my understanding of the development of the F/A-18’s engine.

  The difficulty of designing the engine inlet to avoid stalls is described in N. F. Amin, Northrop, and D. J. Hollweger, McDonnell Douglas, “F/A-18 Inlet/Engine Compatibility Flight Test Results,” presented at the AIAA, SAE and ASME Joint Propulsion Conference, Colorado Springs, 27–29 July 1981. My interview with Rapp was enhanced by George Rapp, “The F-404 Development Program. A New Approach,” presented at the AIAA/SAE/ASME 18th Joint Propulsion Conference, Cleveland, Ohio, 21–23 June 1982.

  At McDonnell Douglas, Paul M. Doane described the development of the almost miraculous engine monitoring system that records engine problems beginning five seconds before the problem occurs. This interview was supplemented by P. M. Doane, McDonnell Aircraft, and W. R. Kinley, General Electric, “F/A-18 Inflight Engine Condition Monitoring System,” presented at the AIAA, SAE and ASME Joint Propulsion Conference, Seattle, Washington, 27–29 June 1983.

  A good overview of the entire propulsion system is provided by B. R. Williams, McDonnell Douglas, and C. J. Wendel, General Electric, “F/A-18/F-404 Propulsion System Integration,” presented at AIAA/SAE/ ASME 20th Joint Propulsion Conference, Cincinnati, Ohio, 11–13 June 1984.

  Master Chief Don Leap, Comdr. Larry Crane, and AMS-1 Larry A. McCullough, all involved in maintenance of Hornets at VFA-125, the training squadron at Lemoore, told me of their favorable impressions of the F-404 engine.

  The engine failure and crash that occurred on 8 September 1980 were described to me by Riemer and, in an earlier interview, by Jack Krings, at the time of the accident the chief McDonnell Douglas test pilot and later a Pentagon official in charge of testing new weapons.

  John F. Lehman, Jr., describes his string-pulling effort to be named secretary of the navy in his Command of the Seas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988). He also devotes a chapter to the F/A-18, focusing on his effort to push down the price and to force McDonnell Douglas to replace the plane lost in England.

  J. C. Waldner, general manager of McDonnell Douglas’s F/A-18 program at that time, told me of the decision to give the navy a new plane.

  Vice Adm. Robert F. (“Dutch”) Schoultz, who was deputy chief of naval operations for air warfare at the time, described to me the reaction from G.E. when Lehman suddenly decided to establish Pratt & Whitney as a second source for the F-404 engine.

  G.E. ‘s winning of the co
ntract to provide all F-404 engines during 1990 was announced in Pentagon and General Electric press releases on 18 August 1989.

  The engine failure and loss of a plane on 4 June 1987 is described in an accident report made available to me by the office of the navy judge advocate general.

  Adm. Wesley L. McDonald, who also served as deputy CNO for air warfare, described his differing reactions to engine and airframe problems during an interview.

  6. WHEN WEIRD THINGS HAPPEN

  The many bottlenecks preventing a rapid increase in aircraft production are described in Col. Joe G. Cabuk, Jr., Capt. Thomas J. Duncan, Lt. Col. Irving L. Hoffman and Lt. Col. David V. Nowlin, “Identification of Bottlenecks and Capacity Constraints in F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 Aircraft Production,” a research report submitted to the faculty of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, April 1983.

  The decision to equip the F/A-18 with the Sparrow missile and, in the process, complicate design of the main landing gear, was described to me by Robert Thompson, cited above.

  Details of the accident that took the life of Captain Kleemann were provided by the report of the official navy accident investigation.

  Marine Lt. Col. (later Col.) Peter B. Field described the day he learned of the Hornet’s roll rate problem during an interview at Patuxent, where he was then stationed. Technical details of the roll rate problem and a description of the way it was dealt with are contained in E. R. Shields, McDonnell Aircraft Co. director, F/A-18 Test and Evaluation, “F/A-18 Flight Test Program Overview,” a paper delivered at the IAAA, SETP, SFTE, SAE, ITEA and IEEE 1st Flight Testing Conference, Las Vegas, 11–13 November 1981.

  The extraordinary memo in which navy undersecretary R. James Woolsey invited the secretary of defense to kill the F/A-18 program in 1977 was obtained and published by Armed Forces Journal International, in an article by its editor, Benjamin F. Schemmer, in March 1978.I discussed this memo both with Woolsey and with Russell Murray II, the assistant secretary of defense whose four-page counter-memo supporting the Hornet was accepted by defense secretary Harold Brown.