Grumman EA-6

Grumman EA-6B Prowler
A US Marine Corps EA-6B “Prowler”
Type:	EloKa - fighter aircraft
Design country:	United States
Manufacturer:	Grumman Aerospace Corporation
First flight:	May 25, 1968
Commissioning:	July 1971
Production time:	1966 to 1991
Number of pieces:	170

The Grumman EA-6B Prowler was a carrier-based combat aircraft for electronic warfare made by Northrop Grumman . It was a modification of the A-6 "Intruder" . After being decommissioned by the US Navy in 2015 , Prowlers were most recently only in the service of the United States Marine Corps , where they were deployed by Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point until March 2019 .

history

Origins

The development of the EA-6 goes back to the mid-1960s when the US Marine Corps was looking for a successor to the EF-10B "Skyknight" . In order to save costs and time, the decision was made, as with other EloKa models before, to select and convert an existing combat aircraft instead of a completely new development. The basic design was the A-6 Intruder and against the F-4 “Phantom II”, which was favored by many officers . The reason for this was that the A-6 had a higher capacity to accommodate the required electronics, so that it also had a lower development risk and the poorer flight performance compared to the F-4 only played a subordinate role in the intended range of applications.

EA-6A Electric Intruder, 1978

The first converted EA-6A "Electric Intruder" completed its maiden flight on April 26, 1963, equipped with the AN / ALQ-86 - ECM equipment . Operational readiness was achieved in 1971. After a total of 28 EA-6A machines had been manufactured ( two prototypes, 15 new builds and 11 conversions from A-6A), these were used by three squadrons of the Marine Corps over Vietnam . Most of the machines were decommissioned in the 1970s, the last followed on October 1, 1993 in Key West, the EA-6A, also known as the Electric Intruder, was essentially a temporary solution until the more advanced EA-6B became available.

Development and introduction

The development of the much more powerful EA-6B began in 1966, when, after the Marine Corps, the US Navy was also looking for a new model as an ECM carrier. Previously, the EKA-3B "Skywarrior" over Vietnam had proven hopelessly out of date. The US Navy drew on the experience with the EA-6A and began to adapt the pattern to their needs. For this, the fuselage had to be lengthened to accommodate a larger cockpit for a crew of four, and an antenna cover was installed on the tip of the vertical stabilizer. The model, now referred to as Prowler, first flew on May 25, 1968 and, after a brief successful trial, was put into service in July 1971. Up to 1991 a total of 170 EA-6B series machines had been produced. The first user was the VAQ-129 school relay from 1970, the first VAQ-132 relay from 1971 and the last until 2019 the VMAQ-2.

Combat value increases

Due to its extensive ECM equipment and due to the age of the machines (produced until 1991), the EA-6B is one of the most maintenance-intensive aircraft in the arsenal of the Navy or Marine Corps and has experienced numerous increases in combat value. Among other things, the EXCAP upgrade took place at the beginning of 1973, followed by the ICAP upgrade in 1976, which in turn led to the ICAP II upgrade of 1980. The latter is probably the most important upgrade, as it enables the use of the AGM-45 Shrike and the AGM-88 HARM rocket. Although the Prowler was designed as an EloKa aircraft, it is also able to attack land targets (primarily radar systems and air defense positions). In addition, to a limited extent it can also fulfill SIGINT missions .

Calls

An EA-6B Prowler from Electronic Attack Squadron One Three Five (VAQ-135) takes off from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68)

Since the EF-111 Raven was retired in 1995, the EA-6B was the only remaining EloKa aircraft in the US armed forces, until the successor model EA-18G Growler was put into service in 2009 . The EA-6B has flown in almost all American combat operations since 1972 and is often requested to assist the US Air Force. While it was used primarily to disrupt and suppress enemy air defenses in the Vietnam, Gulf and Balkan Wars , its range of uses in the Afghan war was expanded to include booby-traps. To do this, their ECM equipment is used to block remote detonators.

By the time the Growlers began to arrive, around 125 Prowlers were in active service, divided into 20 squadrons. Twelve were assigned to the Navy, four to the Marine Corps, another four were joint Navy-Air Force "Expeditionary" squadrons. These were units that the Air Force and Navy could have used jointly, as the USAF had not had its own ECM aircraft since the failure of the EB-52 project.

The last Navy squadron belonged to the Bush carrier squadron until November 2014 . After their return home, the EA-6B was officially decommissioned on June 27, 2015 at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island after 44 years of service with the USN. The USMC retired in March 2019.

Incidents

While no Prowler was ever lost in battle, by 2007 over 40 machines were destroyed in various accidents:

• On May 26, 1981, a US Marine Corps EA-6B crashed on the flight deck of the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) . In the subsequent fire, 14 crew members were killed and another 45 injured. The crash, subsequent fire and explosions destroyed or damaged eleven other aircraft.

• → Main article : Cavalese cable car accident (1998)
  On February 3, 1998, an EA-6B Prowler cut the suspension cable of the Cermis Railway south of Cavalese in Italy while flying low at over 800 km / h . The gondola attached to it fell about 80 meters. All 20 inmates died. The four-person aircraft was damaged, but was able to return to the Aviano Air Base . The pilot had fallen below the minimum altitude of 600 meters; in the accident this was actually only 110 meters.

• On March 11, 2013, an EA-6B Prowler crashed in the Coeur D'Alene National Forest in Shoshone County . The machine was on a training flight when it crashed with three crew members from the Whidbey Island base .

So far, a total of 51 Prowler crew members have died in accidents.

construction

The gold-coated cockpit hoods of the EA-6B Prowler are easy to see

The EA-6B Prowler is powered by two turbojet engines and is able to reach high subsonic speeds. In order to reduce the workload for the crew and at the same time be able to expand the range of operations, it was decided to convert the EA-6B to a four-person crew (three operators for the EloKa systems) compared to the original model. For this, the fuselage had to be stretched 1.36 meters. It was also necessary to reinforce the cell in order to be able to land again on the aircraft carrier deck with heavy loads. The tank capacity is 8705 liters, two additional tanks with a capacity of 5680 liters each can be attached externally.

Apart from the elongated fuselage and the four-seater design, the antenna dome at the top of the vertical stabilizer is one of the most striking design features. Parts of the EloKa systems AN / ALQ-99 and USQ-113 are housed there. The gold-coated cockpit hoods are also striking. In contrast to many other combat aircraft, such as the F-16 , in which the coating is intended to reduce the RCS value , the Prowler uses this measure to protect the crew from emissions from the ECM equipment.

Military use

 United States

• US Marine Corps : 48 EA-6B
• US Navy : 132 EA-6B

Technical specifications

EA-6B Prowler with jamming equipment installed under the wings

Parameter	EA-6B data
length	18.24 m
span	16.15 m 7.72 m (folded)
height	4.95 m
Wing area	49.13 m²
Empty mass	14,588 kg
Maximum take-off mass	29,484 kg
Top speed	982 km / h (at sea level)
Marching speed	774 km / h (at sea level)
Maximum rate of climb	65 m / s
Service ceiling	12,268 m
Range	3,861 km
Engine	two Pratt & Whitney J52-P408A jet engines with 46 kN thrust each

Payload (armament)

Ordnance up to 8,164 kg at five external load stations under the two wings and the fuselage

Air-to-ground guided missiles

• 4 × LAU-118 star rails for each 1 × Texas Instruments AGM-45A / B "Shrike" - self-targeting anti-radar missile
• 4 × LAU-118 star rails for each 1 × Texas Instruments AGM-88A / B "HARM" - self-targeting anti-radar missile

External container

• 5 × drop-off additional tanks for 1,100 liters (300 US gallons) of kerosene
• 5 × AN / ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System (TJS), EKF jamming container

EloKa equipment

• AN / ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System (TJS)
• USQ-113 Communications Jamming System (CJS)

gallery

• 

  Two EA-6B Prowlers during Operation Northern Watch

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  Prowlers from VAQ-139 over Iraq

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  EA-6B after taking off from Bagram Air Field

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  In-flight refueling of a Prowler

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  EA-6B Prowler from the "Scorpion" squadron (VQA-132)

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  EA-6B over Bosnia-Herzegovina , 1995

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  US Navy Prowler over the Green Mountains

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  Two Prowlers aboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)

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  Carrier landing of a Prowler

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  EA-6B during a Red Flag exercise over Alaska

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  Prowler of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70)

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  Flight test of an EA-6B for the new JP-5 fuel

See also

List of aircraft types

literature

• David Donald (Ed.): Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler. In: Warplanes of the Fleet. AIRtime. 2004, ISBN 1-880588-81-1 . (English)
• Kurt H. Miska: Grumman A-6A / E Intruder. EA-6A. EA6B Prowler (Aircraft in Profile number 252). In: Aircraft in Profile. Volume 14, Profile Publications Ltd., Windsor 1974, pp. 137-160, ISBN 0-85383-023-1 . (English)

Web links

Commons : EA-6 Prowler  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ US Marine Corps retires final Prowlers, March 12, 2019
2. ↑ Beth Stevenson: USN Prowler embarks on final flight . In: Flightglobal . June 30, 2015.
3. ↑ 3 dead in Prowler crash near Spokane . In: Navy Times . 11th March 2013.