F
Field Ethos
Guest
By John Kleespies
On August 16, 1956, a bright red F6F-5K Hellcat warmed its 18-cylinder engine on Naval Air Station Point Mugu’s runway. Now rigged as a remote-controlled target drone, the WWII fighter was already aligned for its final, southwest heading to a Navy anti-aircraft missile test over the Pacific.
The Hellcat’s Double Wasp powered up, and it accelerated under radio control, rising into the heavens while initiating a climbing, port-side turn.
The problem was that the remote pilot—now frantically checking the connections on his controls—was trying to steer the 5-ton drone out to sea, rather than southeast … towards Los Angeles.
Thus began 56 minutes of airborne mayhem.
The Navy rapidly swallowed its pride and summoned the Air Force to scramble two F-89 Scorpion fighter jets to shoot down the drone before it could plough into the nation’s second largest metropolis.
The Scorpion was the Air Force’s state-of-the-art fighter/interceptor with its Hughes E-5 air-to-air fire control system. The E-5 teamed an AN/APG-40 radar and AN/APA-84 computer to perform “automatic lead-computing” on 104 unguided rockets loaded into the Scorpion’s wingtips. When everything aligned to perfection, the computer itself triggered shotgun-like rocket salvos to wipe out any aircraft within 500 yards of its nose.
In mere minutes, the jets intercepted the drone 30,000 feet above the spot where modern-day Dodger Stadium currently resides. There, they found the Hellcat trapped in a perpetual left-hand turn caused by the engine’s torque. Without a pilot at the control surfaces, the tightness of the turn continuously varied from a slight bank to a hard circle.
Scorpions Strike
Air Force F-89 Scorpion fighter jets.
Not wanting to rain flaming shrapnel on LA, the Scorpions held fire and orbited the old prop plane, which was flying far slower than the jets’ cruising speed of 465 mph.
After a 15-minute loiter, the Hellcat turned northwest towards the orchard town of Santa Paula, giving the pilots their first opportunity at a shot over sparsely populated land.
The lead pilot armed his E-5 fire control system, lined up on the Hellcat—along with his wingman who trailed behind to launch a backup salvo—and brought his Scorpion in for a perfect strafing run that resulted in… nothing.
Neither E-5 triggered a single shot due to an unexplained “system fault.” Possibly, the 24-bit AN/APA-84 required extra processing time due to the Hellcat’s small cross-section, continuous turn, and 100 mph+ speed deficit: the fast-movers simply whizzed past before a firing solution could be calculated.
Score one for the Hellcat, which suddenly pulled a sharp turn back towards Los Angeles.
Lacking other options, the pilots decided to fire their rockets manually … except the Pentagon had declared the Hughes E-5 system so epic, they’d removed the Scorpion’s gunsight, leaving the pilots with no means of aiming.
They tried, nonetheless.
The lead pilot killed his E-5 and manually fired 42 rockets, only to watch their smoke trails fly nowhere near the drone.
Score two for the Hellcat.
The smoke of his wingman’s rockets came closer but also fell short.
Make that three.
Below all of this, rockets smashed into the San Gabriel Mountains, erupting numerous brush fires. A utility truck exploded only moments after its two workers stepped out for lunch. Another set of rockets fell on an Indian Oil Company field and ignited its storage tanks. One wildfire burned to the edge of the Burmite Powder Company—an explosives plant.
Meanwhile, up in the sky, the drone graciously swung past Los Angeles and set its bearing towards the Mojave Desert. Recognizing another opportunity to fire over unpopulated land, the Scorpions unleashed a second salvo of 32 rockets apiece … missing once again.
That’s five for the Hellcat.
The Battle of Palmdale
U.S. Navy F6F-5K Hellcat drone aircraft.
As the ridges of the San Gabriels disappeared beneath the Air Force pilots, their view flattened to the expanse of the Mojave. The jets lined up for one last strafing run and launched the remainder of their 30 rockets, apiece … unknowingly raining ordinance upon the aerospace city of Palmdale, ironically where the F-39 Scorpion was designed and built.
On Palmdale Boulevard, the lives of a mother and son were spared only by the thickness of their engine block when a rocket exploded off the front bumper of their station wagon. Shrapnel from other rockets struck two homes, narrowly missing occupants in both residences. Three more fires raged through town.
In fact, between Santa Paula and Palmdale, it took over 300 firefighters to extinguish the numerous blazes. Later, the Palmdale Sheriff detonated several unexploded rockets, and another 13 were discovered in the San Gabriels—accounting for only a fraction of the 208 rockets fired.
Miraculously, no serious injuries were recorded.
As for the Hellcat?
It ran out of fuel, clipped some power lines, and crashed harmlessly in a field, ending what locals begrudgingly named “The Battle of Palmdale.”
Final score:
- Hellcat: 7
- Air Force: 0
- Navy: -1
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