Sorry to hear about your father. Flight of the intruder has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid and I still watch it at least once a year still. Thank you for sharing

Sorry about your father. I several books were written with Jake Grafton and I always pictured your dad in my head. I worked on A-6's for about 12 years and VA-196 was the first squadron I deployed with on the USS Enterprise so the books and movie were always a favorite.

your dad was Brad Johnson?

@@utley Yes.

I was sorry to hear about your dad. "Flight of the Intruder" and "Always" are 2 of my favorite movies.

Yes. Missions were essentially the same but the aircraft were of course different. I also suspect that the Air Force and the Navy had different ways of doing things as they usually do. One thing about the Air Force - was that it used F-100's, F-105's and F-4's - which were designed as Fighters - whereas the Navy used A-6's - which were designed as Attack Aircraft. I would imagine that this fact would result in at least slightly different ways of doing things - though I do not know what those differences might have been. All the Aircraft used had two crew members - but - for the F-100 and F-105 - they did not originally have two crew positions - so they were modified. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_F-105_Thunderchief#Wild_Weasel I'm unsure of how much other modifications might have been made to these aircraft .

@@BobSmith-dk8nw The modification was more the electronic gear. The F-100F and F-105F were originally built as conversion trainers for the single-seaters; they predate the Wild Weasel program.

I believe Iron Hand was the first Anti Radiation missions conducted. USAF. Wild Weasle came later as task based variants were made for the F4G.

​@PolarizedMechs You're correct. The 100's and 104's were Iron hand. And they suffered horrible odds and loses. When the F4 came online it gave some unique benefits but the biggest was yhe ability to carry a large AR weapon load and E package.

@@BobSmith-dk8nw The Navy also used A-4 Skyhawks for the Iron Hand mission, as they were also capable of firing the AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile, they usually flew Iron Hand missions during the day, whilst A-6 Intruders flew them at night (they were also capable of carrying the AGM-87 Standard anti-radiation missile, the A-6s that is).

I saw an A6 sticking out of the hangar when I first got to hangar 122 and I thought... pregnant June bug? I grew to love the A6 of course. I think it looks dangerous now lol!

When you realize most planes can't go supersonic with bombs on them, and have trouble in bad weather, and can't carry so many bombs, you understand the Intruder was a cool plane.

LMAO awesome comment, you made my day ! Thank you for it.

"Let's settle this the old Navy way. First one to die, loses!"

I love that movie, but for more realistic Naval aviation films I love Top Gun and Flight of The Intruder, all those movies are just great fun all around.

@@dinorocker8647 what's realistic about top gun?

his stock dropped on that display

It's funny to think that the Superhornet replaced both the Tomcat and the Intruder but couldn't really do the main job of either. The '18 doesn't have the speed of the Tomcat or the long range reach. She also doesn't have the ordnance capacity of the Intruder or the same ability to loiter on station. I'd love to see Northrop Grumman get the chance to build new Intruders like the A6F, but with some new body panels to make her more harder to hit with MANPADs. New engines. New avionics and electronics. Lower cost than the mess that is the F35.

@@Clean97gti politics had everything to do with the A-6F and G not being built. Sadly, in todays integrated air defense systems, it would need more than just a few mods. It would need to be a totally new aircraft from the ground up. A 6th gen airframe to be precise. No more iron tadpole. I was in the last East Coast Intruder Squadron, VA-75, and went on their last two deployments. It was and still is my favorite airframe. I went on to work on EA-6Bs and all variants of F/A-18s. The Super Hornets were built to truly replace the Intruders and not really Tomcats. We needed something to tank the baby Hornets. That combined with the babies limited range and ordinance load pushed the Super Hornet being created. When the maintenance costs of the Tomcat grew to large, it was a no brainer to have Supers replace the Tomcats as well. Way cheaper than contracting for a new airframe. Considering the costs the F-35 grew to, it wasn’t a totally bad call to get us to the next airframe. The Super Hornet and Growler are way better than most people realize though. Still, it would have been awesome to see an Intruder 2 flying over Afghanistan and Iraq.

@@robertthomas1286 the A6F models were going to be mostly new anyways. I remember reading that the remaining A6E's were kind of at the end of their useful life having been upgraded a couple times to begin with. That's what the F model was going to do was incorporate a completely new avionics and electronics package along with the new F404 turbofans the Hornets used. So yes it was going to be new build aircraft. But that's what the Superhornet ended up being anyway, plus the extra hours because the Navy no longer had aircraft with adequate fuel capacity. The F14 could go farther or faster. The A6s could go farther or stay longer. The F model would have included a new hardpoint on each side for even more capacity. In terms of 6th gen, maybe. Even the F35 has external hardpoints. The understanding is that for lower level attack missions, stealth isn't that important because you can see them. That's a perfect role for the A6. She'd need a new stealthier dress with some radar absorbing makeup, but for CAS or even ground attack and anti-SAM missions, there still isn't much better.

@@Clean97gti no, the sad reality is that the environment has changed. A completely new design is going to be needed because the new requirements of the battlefield mean a completely different design philosophy. Stealth only works with certain shapes (meaning stealth aircraft are all going to look the same more or less), you'll need to stay at high altitudes or get easily shot down, you'll need an immense sensor suite because you'll be unable to use your eyes to send your ordinance down-range, you'll need a somewhat powerful computer to run everything, and you'll need damn good electronic warfare gear integrated too. ... and that's ignoring the lesson that people are constantly ignoring: you can't fight a semi-competent (or better) IADS from the air, you can only fight it _from the ground_ (or via artillery).

Do Fighter-Bomber pilots make History Movies or Movie History then?

@@FirstDagger both.

Intruder baaaaby!

I believe at the time of the Vietnam war, the only other aircraft with an equal or heavier payload capability was the B52! I love the A6.

EA-6B's were even louder/more bone-rattling, as they had "tuned up" versions of the same (F4) engines.

Doubt they were as loud as the F-4's J-79 turbofan engines, those things WERE REALLY LOUD, in fact they were the biggest and loudest jet engines at the time and damn, there's audio of Top Gun and Red Flag exercises where you can hear those engines howling away in the background, HOLY SHIT they sound like an f---in' banshee.

It's those older turbojets they used. Sad thing is the the A6F Intruder II was supposed to get an upgrade to the GE F404 turbofan engines the F/A-18's used. This would have made them quieter and given a boost in power and fuel economy. The all new avionics and radar systems would have been the real star of that show. Funny thing is even with the better engines, the Hornets still couldn't carry as much ordnance as the A6 could. The A6F was going to come with the updated wings they were fitting to older aircraft as-needed, and would have included two more hardpoints, one on each side. She could have carried even more if the Navy hadn't decided to go with the A12 debacle.

@@Clean97gti Good info, thanks. The A-12 was desperately needed, however, IMO. But being the "debacle" that it turned out to be, all that got canceled (some of it out of spite).

HHMMMMMMMMMMMMMHHHHMMMMMMM, Semper Fi brotha.

I love EA-6B more

I was in VA-128, Whitby Island, in 1968, and transferred to VA-52. Loved the A-6!

"Battle stations, BATTLE STATIONS!!!" "I love me a good funeral" 😂

In a way, a golden age of make something and make it work as best as possible. as strange as this may sound ,tech advancement in aircraft such as this gave the space program ideas and tech to make Apollo work. Again .., a golden age.. and a outstanding aircraft.

The fleet got pretty irritated with us software guys at the China Lake WSSA. They would ask for new text advisories, for instance, and we had to reply "No can do". The graphics were hard wired, we could only move where they were displayed.

I liked the movie, but I also read the book(s) and they were of course much better.

They compare it to TopGun and think all Naval Aviation movies are copies of it.

My favorite movie of all times

Yes , agreed 👍

isn't it in "The Intruders" (chornological sequel to "Flight Of The Intruder") ?! Sounds like a Flap LeBeau quote ;)

That is correct.

The aircraft were older generation. The main reason to retire was because of maintenance costs. The aircraft were expensive to maintain, and having a uniform fleet based on the less expensive to maintain F/A-18swas much less expensive. With that decision, the Navy abandoned the all-weather day/night attack role for a number of years. I was there at the end, so with allowance for memory glitches, pretty accurate.

@@inyobill Yes very true, lack of parts, older tech etc, but it can be said it still could do missions if the support by parts and such were available. :-) leaving new gen aircraft to take first line role. And not have multi role tasks that by design they were not best suited for. F 18 is fantastic , but it was not the end all..., be all. History may judge it as lacking when it is retired. Simply because it has so many hats to wear.

@@inyobill The same could be said for the B52, but yes, your point is valid. Thank you for it.

Which _Roosevelt:_ *_FDR_* CV-42 (Midway class) - or - *_TR_* CVN-71 (Nimitz class) ?

@@oubrioko CVN-71 Theodore Roosevelt. Nimitz class.

@@lckgilmo43 Ah, awesome. Your uncle served on a good ship, perhaps one of the most notable ships of the class. Cheers

Republic is outstanding too.

Nah fam. Boeing all the way.

If the a-6 wasn't leaking you knew there was a problem

Lockheed

a fellow new yorker

I feel lucky to have a VA-75 flight helmet worn by a B/N who took off from the Kitty Hawk during the VN War 😊

CW Lemoine and Gonky--an ex-F-18 pilot and ex-F-14 RIO--did a react video to Flight of the Intruder, and they thought it was one of the more accurate movies out there.

@PolarizedMechs Many Naval Avairators like the movie. Shame how yhry pretend to be authorities of what makes a good Navy movie