transitioning from the UK’s formal training
structure to the Marine Corps’ ‘hot potato’
approach — did nothing to reduce the
risk of losses. Re ecting on this set-up,
Stromberg told CA, ‘The risk we were
taking was [the] guys out of the helicopter
community that had no jet training,
running them through jet transition,
then putting them into an operating ‘gun
squadron’ — not a training squadron — to
transition them to Harriers. That was just
an inappropriate risk for the time. AfterVMAT-203 stood up and became a formal
training squadron and got all the standard
operating procedures in place, it was a
di erent deal.’
The introduction of the two-seat TAV-8A
in 1976 helped to mitigate the risks in
training, but the AV-8A loss rate remained
high. ‘We didn’t burden [the boneyard at]
Davis-Monthan with a lot of old airplanes,’
recalls Anderson.
In moving through the AV-8A syllabus,
students progressed from conventionalof timber],’ Stromberg recalls. ‘We would
sit in a folding chair in the back of the
ready room and practice moving the
throttle and nozzles around.’
Joe Anderson was another of the early
US-trained AV-8A pilots. After nishing a
tour ying F-4s in Vietnam, he received
orders to recruiting duty in Detroit.
Wanting to stay in a ying billet and
because he ‘joined the Marine Corps to
get the hell out of Detroit’, Anderson put
in for any available ying slots. In short
order, he found himself in North Carolina
learning to y the Harrier. ‘When I went
through, there was no two-seater, there
were no simulators, no NATOPS. It was
pretty exciting.’
Though the AV-8A went on to develop a
reputation for a high rate of fatal mishaps,
the type saw almost three years of
operational service before a eet pilot was
killed. Stromberg partially attributes this
to the expansion of the AV-8A pilot pool
to include less experienced aviators and
those from rotary-wing backgrounds. Of
course, cherry-picking test pilots and high-
hour ghter pilots was an unsustainable
approach to manning the squadrons,
but the second contributing factor —Conventional landings
were not anything that
anybody looked forward to
Maj Gen (ret’d) Joe AndersonTop: A VMA-231
‘Ace of Spades’
pilot straps in
for a mission,
assisted by his
plane captain.
USMC
Above right:
Marine Harriers
carried bolt-on
refueling probes
for ferry fl ights,
but could not
use them in
combat due to
the restrictions
they placed on
maneuvering.
USMCGLORY DAYS // AV-8A FROM THE COCKPIT
64 November 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net