THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409210452
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DENNIS JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Jeffrey Czerewko chose the ungainly A-6 Intruder as the plane he wanted to fly, but got his second choice instead - the sleek F/A-18 Hornet. Then an officer he knew made some calls and Czerewko landed at A-6 school after all.
But no sooner did he arrive last year at Oceana Naval Air Station than word came the Intruder would fall victim to military cuts - maybe 1999, he heard, then 1998. Today, the young Navy lieutenant finds himself in the last A-6 class Oceana will ever have, trained to fly a plane that will leave service in two years.
``It was a great thing to finally get an A-6. I knew they flew an ugly airplane, but they had a tough mission,'' said Czerewko, 26, a pilot. ``When word of the cuts came, I was really bummed out at first. Then my wife pointed out what an honor it is to be the last to fly them.''
Czerewko and the 17 other members of Oceana's last A-6 class are awaiting assignment to one of the eight Intruder squadrons remaining, less than half what the Navy once had. Their teachers, meantime, are closing the doors Thursday on a school that teaches lessons the Navy no longer finds necessary.
Through this school - the Green Pawns and Thunderbolts of Attack Squadron 42 - has passed about three-fourths of the people who ever operated or worked on the venerable A-6, one of Oceana's mainstays for 30 years.
Those still staying in the service hope to find a use for their skills working with the planes that survive - the Hornet, the F-14 Tomcat, the S-3 Viking and the EA-6B Prowler.
Still, even as they acknowledge the Intruder is an old airplane, they are skeptical the other aircraft can do the job. The Intruder was built from the bottom up to hit ground targets with bombs. Bombing is a shared role, even an afterthought, on the other planes.
``The A-6 is a better aircraft now than it ever was,'' says Cmdr. J.P. Gigliotti, a pilot and executive officer of VA-42 who was 3 years old when the first Intruder rolled out of the factory. ``It's old and it's maintenance-intensive, but we've got that down to a science now.''
With only months left before it goes the way of the F-4U Corsair - the plane flown by a Green Pawn pilot named Alan B. Shepard back in the 1940s - Gigliotti would like to see the Intruder get some public recognition.
``Go into a model store or a hobby shop and you can't find much on the A-6,'' Gigliotti said.
If he had his way, he'd take all the Intruders being mothballed and put them on display at Navy bases and schools, ``to remind them we were the silent partners in Vietnam, that we played a major role in Desert Storm.''
With its lumpy cockpit, perpendicular wings and rhino-style tube for refueling, the A-6 has never achieved the recognition of today's sleek fighter planes or even the Intruder's mammoth predecessors like the B-17 Flying Fortress.
With only two crew members, and flying in all weather off the decks of far-reaching carriers, the smaller A-6 carries the same payload as the B-17.
What Gigliotti really spends his time on these days is not the plane but his people - finding new assignments in a shrinking Navy for some of the 300 aviators and ground crew members still left in the squadron. That's half the 600 it once had.
Lt. Czerewko wants the first A-6 job available. He'd fly the plane as long as he can, then switch to that Hornet assignment he came so close to getting. ``Maybe I can go in and teach them a thing or two about bombing,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI/Staff
A-6 Intruders once filled the flight line at Oceana Naval Air
Station, but now only a few remain. The last plane used for training
new A-6 crews, part of Attack Squadron 42, will be flown to a
storage yard in the Arizona desert on Monday.
by CNB