Navy's 'Whale' of a bomber stops by en route to retirement

NORFOLK

The EA-3B Skywarrior sat on the flight deck Tuesday morning, awaiting the chance to go airborne one last time, if only down to a waiting barge.

The plane, better known as the Whale for its size, once excelled at electronic warfare, intercepting radar and analyzing the enemy. It flew high and fast, powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney engines that B-52 bombers use.

It survived years over Vietnam, but weather and time are deadlier, if slower adversaries. After years on outside display at Rota Naval Station in Spain, the plane is bound for the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Ala.

"It looks good in the sun, at this distance," said Rich Kessmann, a retired Navy officer who served on Whale crews. He and several other Whalers were on hand for Tuesday's crane lift from the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship Wasp, which carried the plane to Norfolk.

The A-3 airframe debuted in the 1950s as a bomber, but most were used as electronics platforms and tankers. By the 1960s, they were the biggest, heaviest aircraft to routinely fly onto and off of aircraft carriers. Crews on the flight deck had to reconfigure the catapults every time the planes took off. This led the Navy to finally remove them from carrier use.

This particular Whale dates from the early 1960s and flew for three decades. Much of that time was spent with squadron VQ-1, based in Guam. It later served with VQ-2 in Rota, where it flew until the early 1990s, including missions during the first Gulf War.

Tom Brennan, a retired Navy commander who served as a naval flight officer and flew this particular plane twice, is spearheading the mission to save the plane.

The next stop is Norfolk Naval Air Station, where the plane will sit until Brennan and his fellow Whalers can figure out how to get it to Mobile.

Ideally, he said the plane would go by barge. If it goes by train or truck, the wings and tail will have to come off. In the state the plane is in, Brennan doesn't know how easily they'll go back on.

The A-3 Skywarrior Association is raising money to pay for the move, as well as rehabbing and repainting the plane after the years it spent outside.

This repair is important, said Dick McClellan, a retired senior chief petty officer. He flew in A-3s for 23 years and in this particular plane for four years over Vietnam in the mid-1960s, including some "unique missions" that he still doesn't think he can discuss.

McClellan said he hopes people will be able to use the plane to tell their children about the sacrifices the military made during the unpopular conflict in Vietnam.

"It's very, very dear to me," he said on the flight deck. "It chokes me up to see her."

Matthew Jones, (757) 446-2949, matthew.jones@pilotonline.com