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Article Excerpt
Little did Hughes Aircraft Company test pilot Bill Jessup and I realize the uproar we were causing at Naval Air Station (NAS) Miramar near San Diego, California. Jessup was practicing touch-and-go landings in the newest and most powerful Navy fighter in the fleet, the Grumman F-14A Tomcat. He was flying the fourth aircraft manufactured at the Grumman factory in Calverton, New York, an early pre-production model, using the call sign Bloodhound 204. The Tomcat had been delivered to our Hughes flight facility at NAS Point Mugu, 100 miles northwest of Miramar, for us to test and develop our company's AWG-9 radar and launch AIM-54A Phoenix missiles. Before Jessup and I were cleared to fly solo, however, Navy regulations required that we each obtain five hours in the F-14A and complete five landings with a Grumman instructor in the rear seat.
I was acting as a safety chase flying our company-leased Lockheed T-33. It was late January 1972; Jessup had taken off from Point Mugu and completed air work in the Tomcat offshore in the Pacific Missile Test Range (PMTC). He then chose to fly a navigation leg to Miramar and practice touch-and-go landings just like Howard Hughes did so many times in the past.
Only two weeks earlier, both of us had been at Miramar to fly a Navy F-4J Phantom practicing inflight refueling from an A-4 Skyhawk. The Navy used the probe-and-drogue system which was new for me since I'd been an Air Force pilot, and in-flight refueling was a Navy requirement before we could 'tank' with the Tomcat.
Sitting atop a broad, open mesa about fifteen miles northeast of San Diego where the weather provided excellent flying nearly year-round, Miramar's longest runway was located on the south side of the base and oriented in a northeast-southwest direction. This was the runway most often used and the one Jessup was making landing after landing. I flew a loose chase position watching for any symptoms of failure in the brand new Grumman jet.
Each time Jessup landed, I noticed a long, windowless concrete building that paralleled the runway just to the north. The building, probably a thousand feet long, had a sign painted on it with capital letters twenty feet high displaying the friendly greeting 'WELCOME TO FIGHTERTOWN, U.S.A.'
The large, well-equipped base was home for all the Pacific Fleet F-4 and F-8 fighter squadrons when they were not deployed aboard aircraft carriers at sea, and was best known as home of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, also called Top Gun. To a Navy fighter pilot, Top Gun was the ultimate flying assignment.
What had caused the commotion was the sight of our F-14A. The first Tomcat was not expected to arrive at Miramar for another six months. Tomcats would be assigned to VF-124, the Replacement Air Group (RAG) squadron that would train all West Coast pilots and Naval Flight Officers (NFOs). Little did we know that phones were ringing all over the base. Every sailor on the field heard that a Tomcat was in the landing pattern. Many were driving to the flight line to get a glimpse of the F-14A, which soon caused a traffic jam on base. The Tomcat was the newest fighter to come into the Navy inventory, but only a handful were built at that time and all of them, except ours, were still at the Grumman manufacturing plant in Long Island, New York.
Jessup decided to practice these touch-and-go landings on the spur of the moment, and much like Howard Hughes used to do, had not briefed me or anyone else back at Point Mugu prior to takeoff about his plans. Hughes flew multiple touch-and-go landings in every aircraft he built, bought, or borrowed because he believed it was extremely important that a pilot checking out in a new aircraft learn to takeoff and land safely. But Hughes took this practice to an extreme, sometimes flying close to forty touch-and-goes on one flight. Typically, Hughes did not inform his copilot, tower personnel or his mechanics of his intentions. He simply flew until low on fuel and then landed.
Meanwhile, the Commanding Officer of Miramar questioned his staff about the Tomcat. Where did it come from? Why was it here? What was it doing at Miramar? Who was flying it? His staff had no answers; they were likewise caught completely by surprise. In the past Howard Hughes liked nothing better than surprising people. He surprised newsmen when he made the first flight in his mammoth HK-1 Hercules flying boat in Long Beach Harbor. He again surprised engineers working on the Convair 880 program when he arrived unannounced and wanted to fly the new jetliner. In classic Howard Hughes tradition, Jessup was now surprising the Navy brass at Miramar.
Flying chase on the F-14A, I was transfixed by the appearance of the aircraft. It was a mean looking machine with a small fuselage and canopy, and large shoulder-mounted variable-geometry wings which could automatically sweep from 20 degrees...
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