“When we finally left the airplane, we were doing less than 100 knots at about 3,000 feet. I grayed out. I didn’t see anything, but maybe my eyes were simply closed. I did hear the bang of the ballistics in my parachute. I felt the shock of the chute deploying and regained vision or opened my eyes. I’m not sure which to this day. I looked up at the chute and said, ‘OK, I made it!’”

By the time Hepp reached the water, a SEPTAR rescue boat was nearly on top of him. He was picked up and taken ashore soaking wet but largely uninjured.

“When they impacted the water at Pax, there was a mile separation between the first bomb and the last one. Strike went back to their film room to see how they originally cleared the airplane with this load, but they could never find anything.”

Extensive safety training and quick reactions saved Patterson and Hepp. Hepp resumed his successful career thereafter and recounted the incident repeatedly in following years to emphasize the importance of proper safety procedures and training.

 

G-Jump!

Vice Adm. Jeffrey Wieringa, USN-Ret., spent more than three decades as a naval aviator, serving as a fleet aviator, a test pilot, and later as commander, Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, and assistant commander for Research and Engineering, Naval Air Systems Command, among other command assignments.

Today, he’s vice president of engineering, global services & support at the Boeing Company, but in February 1989, Wieringa was serving as a test pilot and ordnance systems department head in the Strike Directorate at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.

Grumman’s venerable A-6 Intruder – an airplane Wieringa had flown on tours aboard USS Ranger (CV 61) with VA-145 and USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) with VA-165 – was in the late stages of its 34-year career, and a program to re-wing fleet A-6Es experiencing wing cracks was underway. Boeing was selected to build and develop a composite wing replacement for the Intruder.

“There were two test pilots hired by Boeing,” Wieringa recalled. “They did the principal flying while I got to do some as the government flight rep for the A-6 re-wing program.”

One of the tests being conducted was a salvo release of five 2,000-pound Mk. 84 bombs. Boeing was evaluating the weapons separation properties of the composite wing versus those of a conventional metal wing.

“The test point with the A-6 composite wing was a 60-degree dive at 550 knots with a salvo release of five Mk. 84 bombs. Boeing did the test. The center weapon separated cleanly and went straight ahead. The inboard pylon weapon broached slightly and the outboard ones departed. They started ‘coning’ – rotating in a wobbly fashion.

“We looked at each other and wondered what had happened. Then we rolled over on a knife edge to try and see what the impact of the bombs looked like. It looked nasty, because there was a big separation. That answered the question if there was any difference of the bomb separation between the composite wing and the metal wing. No, no difference.”

“When they impacted the water at Pax, there was a mile separation between the first bomb and the last one,” Wieringa continued. “Strike went back to their film room to see how they originally cleared the airplane with this load, but they could never find anything.”

In the early years of A-6 operations during the Vietnam War, the Navy “cleared” weapons for use on the Intruder in three ways, Wieringa explained.

“One was at Pax, filming the test flights. Another was at China Lake, and the third way was in combat. Because of combat needs, if an airplane came back from a mission releasing weapons and nothing bad happened, they just said, ‘it’s cleared.’”

Unable to find footage or data of a salvo release of Mk. 84s from a metal-winged Intruder, Strike sent Wieringa and bombardier-navigator Lt. Ladd Wheeler up to do a salvo release with the same load on a standard A-6E.