Aussie A-4G Histories and Documents

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Title	Size	Details

A-4G 870	2541 KB	The PDF shows in graphical format the history of RAN A4G 870. This Skyhawk survived a mid-air collision in 1975 but was lost due to engine failure on 23/01/1979. Fortunately SBLT C. Tomlinson survived his ejection into rugged bushland
A-4G 871	5059 KB	Another pictorial history of the use of RAN A4G 871 (second-hand USN A4) now converted to NZ6215 Kahu standard. Perhaps it will fly again in the USA
A-4G 872	3309 KB	Sadly ASLT Malcolm McCoy died in RAN A4G 872 when he collided with another Skyhawk whilst practising 'divisional bombing' (in loose formation) on 17/07/1975. The PDF shows a pictorial history of this aircraft - 872
A-4G 873	3914 KB	A story in graphics is told of the history of RAN A4G 873 which crashed after engine failure 05/06/1973. The pilot SBLT Tony Der Kinderen from VF 805 Squadron ejected over water safely. 873 was the first Skyhawk loss in the RAN
A-4G 874	5358 KB	RAN A4G 874 had a varied life, first with the USN with service in Vietnam and then a second life with the RAN Fleet Air Arm; and finally another life with upgrades with the RNZAF and the Kahu update. Maybe it will fly again in the USA
A-4G 875	1231 KB	RAN A4G 875 was lost after engine failure immediately after being catapulted from HMAS Melbourne 02/10/1980. LCDR Clive Blennerhassett ejected with minor injuries
A-4G 876	4084 KB	People to thank for photos: Australian Museum of Flight; Dave Masterson; Calum Gibson; Don Simms; Laurie Hillier and more - the list is long. Usually the story concentrates on the individual aircraft but often there will not be a lot of material for each one. Then aspects of the overall Skyhawk RAN to RNZAF (including previous USN) history are included. Any errors or omissions can be easily corrected - please advise
A-4G 877	5168 KB	Former RAN A4G 877 after becoming NZ6218 suffered a major accident during landing on a wet runway. The aircraft was repaired to fly again. Story of the aircraft in this PDF
TA-4G 878	3301 KB	On 28/04/1980 RAN TA4G 878 suffered an engine failure during the 'break downwind' into the circuit for landing at NAS Nowra. Leut Andy Sinclair ejected successfully, passing 500 feet, about 1NM south of runway 26.
TA-4G 879	3670 KB	The Story of TA-4G 879. The last page of the PDF references the original 724 line book page. Click on the icon in the lower right hand corner of this page to see the original photo of the page (much weathered). The image that will pop up is in Flash format. If you do not have a Flash player installed then the OS will ask to download this from the web. Many thanks to Australian Museum of Flight and Dave Masterson for this photo.
TA-4G 880	6240 KB	RAN TA4G 880 which became NZ6255 and still going strong has had an historic "last" flight for the RAN Fleet Air Arm role. Story in the PDF with video clips and graphics
TA-4G 881	5851 KB	RAN TA-4G side number 881 had a long life until just before the cessation of use by the RNZAF it crashed on 20/03/2001 with the pilot ejecting successfully over water west of Perth WA. This PDF has a glimpse of the rugged country around Nowra as well as some generic information about the 'leading edge slat' problem for an A-4 pilot from a USN safety magazine. The very last page of this PDF expresses hope for the remaining A-4Ks to have a flying future somewhere soon
A-4G 882	1438 KB	Former RAN Skyhawk A-4G 882 had a long service life until a fatal crash in 16/02/2001 at NAS Nowra while with the RNZAF as NZ6211. Previously this Skyhawk had been damaged in mid-air collision with NZ6210 during Kiwi Red practice doing the roll under break manoeuvre on 24/10/89, returned to service 17/11/90. Served with 2 Sqn RNZAF 2001. Crashed while conducting practice of barrel roll with NZ6213 hooked up at Nowra NSW. NZ6213 escaped. Tragically Sqn Leader Murray Neilson RNZAF was killed.
A-4G 883	4224 KB	The story of RAN A-4G 883 in pictures. Thanks again to usual suppliers of photos, John Bartels, Laurie Hillier, Don Simms and Calum Gibson and others (RAN and RNZAF official). If any further pictures or/and information can be supplied then that would be most welcome. The front page "Nowra News" page will be replaced by a better example (of the photo) some time in the future. (The AVI video file embedded - first page top left - needs DivX to run)
A-4G 884	5180 KB	Another long pictorial story about former RAN A4G 884 becoming NZ6213 - perhaps to fly again one day in the US of A
A-4G 885	5835 KB	The PDF shows the colourful history of RAN A-4G 885 before it went to "Davy Jones' Locker" on 21/10/1980. Thankfully SBLT David Baddams ejected at the end of the soft catapault shot, being rescued by helicopter minutes later with minor injuries
A-4G 886	5893 KB	RAN A4G 886 rolled off the flight deck on 24/09/1979. The last pages of this PDF demonstrate the rolling flight deck hazards
A-4G 887	3787 KB	A Pictorial history of A4G Skyhawk, complied by Lucifer. This pictorial history of 887 in the RAN with a swansong in the RNZAF could be compiled. Unfortunately he had no photos of 887 in RNZAF garb so the last 2 pages are of anonymous RNZAF A4s. The bird strike photos are of the actual former RAN 887 (NZ 6214) however. Thanks to Laurie Hillier, John Bartels and others for their excellent colour photos
A-4G 888	4500 KB	RAN A-4G 888 was usually referred to as "triple 8" until 23/05/1979 when it was lost over the side of HMAS Melbourne after the arrestor wire broke during an arrest. LCDR K. Finan USN ejected successfully as the Skyhawk went nose down off the deck
A-4G 889	6068 KB	RAN A4G 889 was lost off the catapult due to catapult malfunction on 08/11/1973. SBLT Barry Evans did a great job surviving being run over almost by the ship, surfacing after it passed by, to be then rescued quickly by the plane guard Wessex. A video embedded in page 10 shows the story of this event in brief

Title	Size	Details

878TA4Gejection.pdf	165 KB	The small PDF has some side on photos of the different paint schemes of RAN TA-4G 878 plus a photo of the intrepid pilot LEUT Andy Sinclair who ejected from this aircraft, 28/04/1980 actually climbing down the ladder from an earlier sortie in this same TA-4G
870ejection Info2pages.pdf	1080 KB	This particular PDF shows animations of an A4G inflight ejection sequence made from NATOPS drawings plus the PDF has a photo of the Helicopter Linebook entry about the retrieval of the engine. I'm not sure which Helicopter squadron had the honour. Dave Masterson provided the linebook photo taken at the Australian Museum of Flight
888-the-Loss-of.pdf	3813 KB	On 23/05/1979 Lcdr K. Finan USN ejected from RAN A4G 888 as it went over the side because the arrestor wire broke during pullout from a successful arrest. Like the other PDFs about A4G losses many thanks go to various providers of information such as Dave Masterson & from the Australian Museum of Flight and others.
875storyBHeject OffCat.pdf	1231 KB	Again an alert cameraman Rick Mechan RAN took a series of Instamatic photos of the loss of RAN A4G 875 after an engine failure just as the aircraft was catapaulted on 02/10/1980. Lcdr Clive Blennerhassett [CO of VF 805] ejected safely with minor injuries. There are two pages to this PDF - the first page has an animated sequence - the second page has a location chart.
886RollOffWMV.pdf	2442 KB	The PDF about the loss of 886 on 24/09/1979 from rolling off the deck into the sea is told here in the style of a squadron linebook page entry. Extra bits of video or animation were added to the mix. Find them. Video from Graham Winterflood of the rolling deck
885BaddamsCat FailEject.pdf	1967 KB	A series of still greyscale photos - most likely from an original Navy film - have been re-animated here. The stills came from the Nowra museum via Bob "Windy" Geale. Sblt Dave Baddams was wearing down the brakes, wheels of 885 attempting to come to a stop during this cold cat shot; he decided to eject just before the aircraft goes over the 'front'. Glad to see that he survived OK with minor injuries
889ColdCatEvans.pdf	2095 KB	An explanation of how a catapult works as well as other information about the circumstances of Sblt Barry Evans 'cold' (low powered) catapult into the sea from HMAS Melbourne on 08/11/1973 in RAN A-4G 889
TonyDK873ejec tLineBook05jun1973.pdf	1913 KB	As usual thanks for the photo of the relevant linebook page and thanks to the museum for all the bits of diary entries etc. The PDF has lots of popups/ movies that require Flash or Windows Media Player 9 to run the video. Just follow the "click" directions for a result.
A4sExSpanish Dollar1975.pdf	1515 KB	This PDF has been made from a slightly larger booklet in the Australian Museum of Flight (probably made by the RAAF?) showing the aircraft and scenes from a combined RAN, RAAF (Mirage III's) and RNZAF exercise at RAAF Williamtown in 1975. Thanks to Dave Masterson
RANskyhawk GunsightInfo.pdf	3125 KB	This PDF page has accumulated bits over time. Recently a video snippet of an A4K in an old fixed gunsight video snippet completed the information. Please click on the large graphic of a gunsight pilot view top right to see this video clip. Otherwise click the graphic face of Commodore N.E. Lee to see his comments (when he was a Commander DNAP) about this primitive way of delivering weapons. As the text says: this gunsight is WW2 reflector gunsight technology. The 'text popup' requires the Macromedia Flash technology downloadable from Macromedia if you don't have it. The video is .WMV format so should not be a problem.
MelbourneLexington NimitzDECKscale.pdf	893 KB	Shows such a comparison between HMAS Melbourne and an Essex class USN aircraft carrier (USS Lexington being one of these, specifically as it used to be the training carrier until the early 90s) and then the Nimitz class super carriers currently serving or being built for the US Navy. The current 'make do' training carrier for the USN is USS J.F.K. - in overall size it is in between the 2 USN carriers shown.
A4-TA4EjectInfo5.zip	2188 KB	Combined A4 & TA4 ejection and survival information from various sources, mostly NATOPS.
RANFAAbooklet Early1970s.pdf	4830 KB	Usually this booklet (with a colour cover not reproduced here to save on file size) was distributed at NAS Nowra Air Days, often held once a year or more. The last page (overhead view of Nowra airfield) is the only addition to the original booklet. I had thought that it was a missing feature (the photo has been taken from page 153 of the soft cover book "A Collection of Memories" published in 2000 by the Australian Naval Aviation Museum. Hope this is not a problem for anyone?
A Skyhawk Pilots Guide to the Sea Harrier 1981.zip	187 KB	A Skyhawk Pilots Guide to the Sea Harrier 1981.zip" written informally to other A4G pilots back in Australia while Lcdr David Ramsay was flying for 3 years in Sea Harriers in the UK
805in1979Skyhawks5.pdf	415 KB	Article on 805 Squadron A-4's from the "Navy News"
A4_870_Braidwood_ Crash_All.pdf	1412 KB	A seven page report about RAN A-4G 870's crash near Braidwood NSW. Also there is some additional detail from John McCormack an S2 Tracker 'Taccho' and good friend of Col Tomlinson. Errol Kavanagh was the CO of VF 805 and flight leader.
FinanUSNwirebreakeject+ picsNEW5extra.pdf	1090 Kb	The loss of A-4G Skyhawk 888 due to arrestor wire failure on landing. LCDR Kev Finan, USN was pilot. Most of the information if not from Navy News has come from Australian Museum of Flight
Australia's Museum of Flight A-4.pdf	138 KB	Details on the Australian Museum of Flight A-4B done up as a A-4G
A-4G _pages_ADF-Serials_03jul04.pdf	245 KB	ADF Serials (www.adf-serials.com ) info on the RAN A-4G's Visit their site for latest information.