Grumman A-6 Intruder

In the F-18As that became the Cs and the various lots as they progressed, we improved upon them and retrofitted them as we went backwards.

If I go back to the history of the A6 Intruder, this was a 25-year-old aircraft that I flew in combat in Desert Storm, where my wingman was shot down and killed, and my squadron mates and roommate were shot down and held prisoner of war.

In that aircraft, we did not have the radar warning gear to tell us when missiles were coming up.

So what we ended up doing was buying Fuzzbuster radars at the time, which was a brand that could monitor continuous wave radars.

Had a kinda diverse active duty career.

Spent some time as a, uh, Intruder pilot, and then went to the test community for a little bit where I was dual qualified in the F-18 and the A-6, and then moved on from there to, uh, being a strike ops officer in the air wing.

And then after that, uh, 22-year career in the reserves, where I flew Hornets with VFA-201 out of Fort Worth, Texas.

Like you said, I was the last commanding officer of that squadron.

So you go through Navy pilot training.

Sure.

You end up getting A-6 Intruders-

Mm-hmm

I would agree with you in terms of the pole position of the MQ-25 and how important that's going to be, especially in the context of F-AXX and that airplane materializing, because the U.S. Navy does need a longer-legged combat aircraft operating from its decks.

Again, big decks were about big airplanes with big range at the end of the day, whether it was the F-14 or the A-6 Intruder.

Okay, let's talk a little bit about collaborative combat aircraft and the new cheaper mass modular aircraft approach.

The chief has discussed the MQ-9 is really the MVP of Epic Fury, but he himself, even in our conversation with him that aired on Monday, discussed, hey, we want to get to another generation of aircraft.

Yeah, so the Terrain Following Radar, TFR, The F-111 was a pioneer in that technology, I should say.

There were some other aircraft, like the A-6 Intruder had a manual capability to do some TFR, Um, but it wasn't automatic, like in the F-111.

And, uh, the A6 was, is purely manual.

Um, and of course I've never flown the A6, but I know people who did.

and fly 1,000 nautical miles, drop a couple bombs, and then come back.

That is something that the Navy has not had, especially in a survivable way, since really the Vietnam era with the A-6 intruder.

Obviously, those continued operating for decades afterwards, but at pretty severe risk of getting shot down, at severe risk in Vietnam of getting shot down with even SA-2s and SA-6s.

But that environment is very different today.