W.H.BECKETT ୆ K.P.RICE ୆ M.E.KING

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Trying to build a prototype

Trying to make a "home built" military aircraft seems at first to be totally ridiculous. However, as events subsequently showed, this was the only way to get certain characteristics which were highly desirable from a tactical standpoint, but which could not even be considered by the conventional establishment. Examples include the requirement for a 20ft wingspan in order to take-off and land on back roads; visibility oriented to flexible ground attack and air-to-air defense; strength (10"G") so that a pilot would not have to constrain his tactics; use of ground-type ordnance and communications which could provide exceptional logistic and tactical advantages; a seaplane capability for operating in areas like the Vietnam delta; and a bomb bay for a variety of tactically proven uses. The only way to get such capabilities was to build a prototype to demonstrate the tactical advantages we visualized.

It is worth noting that once our concept got into the hostile Navy "system," none of the designers gave more that lip service to most of the tactical advantages we were aiming at. Ryan, who came up with the most responsive design (and some innovative ideas of their own) unfortunately didn't even bid in the end. The rest were all constrained by the nature and documentary requirements of the "system" and the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). In the end we didn't get what we wanted. However, the idea of demonstrating a prototype was the only way it might have been done.

Our build-it project gave us access to a wide variety of new developments and associated technology. We also hoped to tap the expertise of prospective "user," pilots, mechanics, ordnance men, etc. to refine and improve our design as we proceeded with the building. The idea here was to get inputs from these "users" early-on, before the design was set in concrete by contracts and specifications. We got a lot of good ideas, both technical and operational.

We started the actual construction in K.P.'s garage. The construction was to be of fiberglass sandwich and we made a plaster mold of the fuselage which we covered with fiberglass. This would serve as a mock-up initially and we would add end grain balsa and another layer of fiberglass later to finish the sandwich structure. This naturally took up a large portion of K.P.'s garage, so the raw material: plaster, fiberglass, plywood, balsa, etc. was stored in my garage. I often wondered how a Navy Supply Officer would react, if he saw all this "Government Property" delivered to a private residence.

Fiberglass and other "composite" materials were new to aviation at that time and while K.P. already knew that he wanted a fiberglass and end grain balsa sandwich construction, he also checked out what the major companies were doing. It is interesting to note that back in '61 Boeing was already quite advanced in "stealth" technology using slab sided triangular airframe shapes and fiberglass to reduce radar return. A Lockheed subcontractor had developed some interesting three dimensional weave fiberglass that, properly cored and soaked in epoxy resin, made an effective truss cross section for a very light, stiff radome structure which they used on the EC-121 Constellation, the forerunner of AWACS. Piper had made some wings for the AT-6 out of fiberglass which were both lighter and stronger than the original aluminum. However, other than these three, while there might have been good ideas out there, industry was slow in applying them, probably due to the constraints of the "system." Now they are used almost universally to achieve otherwise unavailable characteristics in aircraft.

In addition to the new technology, experience was also informative. For example, once we got the fuselage shaped, we needed to provide things like seats, controls and similar fittings. To this end we went back to the big aircraft boneyard at China Lake. One of our first acquisitions by this method was the rudder pedals. Rudder pedals would seem to be a rather mundane subject without much variation, but our experience provided an interesting comparison between two old time favorites. We got our first set of pedals out of a Grumman F6F. It took about five minutes and we had a good set of adjustable pedals that were light and simple. We couldn't find another good F6F, so we took our second set of pedals from a Douglas AD. The AD pedals were at least twice as heavy, took up four times as much scarce space behind the instrument panel, and were at least ten times as complicated (and expensive). Having flown both airplanes, I can attest that there was no advantage from the additional weight and complexity of the AD pedals. On the other hand this did highlight a type of "gold plating" growth that we had to avoid at all costs.

When we looked into the possibility of using ground type ordnance we found that there were aviation type fuses that were perfectly compatible with both 81mm and 4.2in mortar rounds. Thus, if we wanted a lot of small "bombs," we could use mortar rounds to provide illumination, white phosphorus attack or screening, or high explosive. Our favorite, essentially "ideal" ground weapon for our airplane was the 106mm recoilless rifle. This weapon was a lot more accurate that the equivalent aerial weapon, the five inch rocket, and a single round only weighed 40lbs as opposed to about 100lbs for a rocket. The problem was that the 106 was a single shot weapon and we wanted more shots.

At this time I was also the Small Airfield for Tactical Support (SATS) project officer for a desert test at Twenty-Nine Palms. In this capacity I often visited Harvey Aluminum, the company that made the new matting for our runways and taxiways. Harvey also had an exceptional R&D organization which had developed a variety of interesting products from rocket implanted earth anchors, to advanced fuses and even the first aluminum beer cans. On one visit I happened to mention something about the desirability of an automatic recoilless rifle. They immediately showed me two working prototypes and introduced me to Dr. Musser who had patented the first recoilless rifles during WWII. This put the recoilless rifle back in the concept more strongly than ever. We even took one of the prototypes to Camp Pendleton where the Marines demonstrated it to a group of scientists from China Lake. It worked beautifully and was very impressive. Dr Musser indicated that with a modest change to the nozzle, the weapon could be made suitable for operations from a twin boom aircraft like the one we proposed.

Our project gave a look at another R&D development just coming to fruition at the time, low light level TV, (LLLTV). This provided a way to see in the dark. Four of us got to ride around the El Toro area one night in a Beechcraft to see how it worked. We could see roads, parked vehicles and buildings with the LLLTV that were otherwise invisible in the haze and smog. There was some blooming when headlights were encountered, but overall, the pilots that tried this were impressed. However, we noted that while it provided exceptional advantages at low speeds, we didn't think it would be much good above 140kts. It is an interesting commentary on the "system" that McNamara's DOD first put it on Air Force supersonic bombers. It wasn't until about ten years later that we got the equivalent infra red imaging capability on the OV-10D model.

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