PilotPhotog

Looking back to the YF-22’s first flight and forward to today’s F-47 program, the Air Force’s pursuit of air superiority is a long and winding road:
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Explain this - wrong answers only:

Caption this:

Guess the aircraft with a twist: WRONG answers only. The wrongest answer gets a no-prize

First, it was a Navy attack plane. Until it wasn't. Then it was an Air Force bomber. Until it wasn't. Then it was a recon aircraft, weather jet, and even a flying testbed for laminar flow control studies. But the Douglas A3D/B-66 found success as the EB-66.

An airframe with many identities, the Douglas jet medium bomber today is mostly remembered as the Navy's Whale (the heaviest aircraft to operate off of a carrier - a record which I believe still stands) and as the EB-66.

In the EB-66 role, the USAF removed the bomb bay and replaced it with a crew compartment for ECM personnel or EWOs to operate in. Still retaining the "Destroyer" nickname, EB-66s became valuable assets in the Vietnam War.

They would either orbit from a distance, jamming radar emissions, flooding enemy scopes with noise, and even making voice comms between enemy ground controllers and pilots intelligible.

Jamming voice comms was huge, the Noth Vietnamese, like the Soviets at the time, use ground directed commands to their pilots, virtually everything was controlled from the ground in what is know as Ground Control Intercept or GCI.

Naturally, EB-66 aircraft and crews with highly classified info became top targets for the North Vietnamese, and when one was shot down, it kicked off the biggest rescue of the war (Bat 21)

I'm working on a video (and newsletter post) about this now mostly forgotten aircraft, and the more I learn about it, the more amazed I am. The picture at the top of this thread is a still from the video, thanks for reading and I'll post here when I have a solid release date. Now you know!

EB-66 Destroyer Fun Fact: Some EB-66s actually went back to “bombing”—sort of.

During bad weather over Vietnam, EB-66 crews could use their radar bombsight to act as pathfinders, telling accompanying strike aircraft exactly when to release their bombs when the targets below were hidden by clouds.

So the Destroyer went from bomber… to electronic warrior… and occasionally back to helping bombers find their targets. 🇺🇸 Now you know!

The YF-17 "Cobra" famously lost out to YF-16 in the USAF's LFW competition. The Navy, however saw potential in the design (which itself was an F-5 derivative) and made it a carrier worthy jet in the form of the F/A-18 Hornet. Then the Hornet became the Super Hornet and here we are. Basically, always be willing to pivot and adapt.