Paul Burke
Registered User
I'd take a Prowler over a lawn dart any day. It's a very solid aircraft. Very well built. We had one take a crash landing with only one main mount extended and it was flying only a few days later. If it was a hornet it would've been in depot for 6 months. During workups and cruise, we had 1 F-18 and 4 S-3's craned off the ship. The Hornet got struck by a F-14 wingtip on its stbd vert stab, took about 9 inches off of it, the F-14 diverted to land. The S-3's were craned off for mainteance reasons mostly. 1 of them that was craned after cruise has extensive tail damage from an arresting gear cable that broke when a tomcat was landing. That incident killed a chief.
Performance wise, the prowler is a workhorse. And you will be hard pressed to find any aviator who would want to fly without them airborne.
Performance wise, the prowler is a workhorse. And you will be hard pressed to find any aviator who would want to fly without them airborne.