Atlantic when his air group commander
tapped him for the mission.
Spicer’s instruction was, ‘Rules are, there
are no rules. I want you to screw with the
Russians, because they’re going to be
watching you real hard, and so is the navy.
You make it work.’ In short order, Spicer
and then Lt Col Drax Williams, VMA-542’s
CO, had orders to report to the USS Nassau
(LHA 4). Upon arriving, Spicer and his XO,
Maj Gen (ret’d) Joe Anderson, found a
deck crew unfamiliar with the peculiarities
of working with ixed-wing V/STOL aircraft.
In Spicer’s retelling, he and Anderson (who
established AV-8A/LHA tactics, techniques
and procedures as a test pilot at Patuxent
River) requested a meeting with the
ship’s air boss to discuss the changes that
needed to be made.
Spicer says, ‘We went and told the navy,
‘this is the way your light deck is going
to work. We’re going to use the inherent
mobility of this aircraft to park itself, so
your blue-shirt crew is not going to have
as much to do as they do on a big-deck.
We will never shut an airplane down on
the port side of the foul-deck line. We will
never have a foul-deck. We will be able
to launch and recover an aircraft at any
moment in time’.’Right: During
VMA-231’s 1976
cruise aboard
the USS Franklin
D. Roosevelt,
‘Ace of Spades’
AV-8As took part
in conventional
naval aviation
missions such
as the intercept
and escort of
Soviet long-range
bombers, such as
this ‘Bear’.
US NavyGLORY DAYS // AV-8A FROM THE COCKPIT
72 December 2018 December 2018 ////^ http://www.combataircraft.netwww.combataircraft.net