Description

VAH-11 Checkertails Squadron Patch

Enjoy this VAH-11 Checkertails Squadron Patch that is beautifully embroidered.  You’ll be able to display or wear it with pride.

• 4.5 inch
• Embroidered/Sew On
• US Naval Aviator Owned Business
• Reproduction

VAH-11 / Cold War (pre-Vietnam)

VAH-11 continued to fly the AJ-1 and AJ-2 until reequipped with the A3D-2 Skywarrior in November 1957. With the replacement of the AJ-1 and AJ-2 with the new A3D, Naval Air Auxiliary Station Sanford was the focus of extensive military construction during the mid and late 1950s, all intended to upgrade the installation to full naval air station status as a Master Jet Base and resulting in its redesignation as Naval Air Station Sanford.[5] Remaining homeported at NAS Sanford throughout its existence as VAH-11, the squadron made seven Mediterranean deployments, five aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt and once each aboard the USS Independence and the USS Forrestal.

Given the size and complexity of the A3D as a carrier-based aircraft, mishaps plagued the VAH community during its early years Navy-wide. VAH-11 was not immune to this, and one fifteen-month period from March 1961 to June 1962 proved particularly costly:

On 21 March 1961, while operating from the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, a VAH-11 A3D-2, BuNo 138976, was lost at sea with all crewmembers. During a nuclear weapon loft maneuver demonstration abeam the carrier, the aircraft exceeded breakaway limits and the nose of the jet came down in a 70 degree dive. The dive flattened, but the aircraft struck the water in a nose high attitude.
On 7 May 1961, another VAH-11 A3D-2, BuNo 142245, sustained a ramp strike on its initial pass aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. Four more attempts to land were unsuccessful and the crew successfully bailed out just south of Souda Bay, Crete.
On 6 October 1961, while at Naval Air Station Sanford, A3D-2 BuNo 142637 was conducting training over the Lake George bombing target, part of the Navy Pinecastle Impact Range[6] in the Ocala National Forest. During a bomb run on the target, the crew executed an inert bomb release, rolled the aircraft in excess of 90 degrees and disappeared into the clouds. Per range observers, the aircraft was next seen in a steep dive followed by an uncontrolled crash into Lake George with a loss of the entire crew.
On 12 October 1961, only six days after the preceding mishap over Lake George, an A3D-2 assigned to VAH-11, BuNo 142648, collided in mid-air with another A3D-2, BuNo 142663, assigned to VAH-5 while both aircraft were on approach to landing at Naval Air Station Sanford. All eight crewmen, four in the VAH-5 aircraft and four in the VAH-11 aircraft, were killed.
On 25 June 1962, while VAH-11 was again embarked aboard USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, A3D-2 BuNo 138962 experienced a dual-engine flameout. All crew except the pilot bailed out. The bombardier/navigator and an observer from the Roosevelt’s ships company were rescued, but the pilot and 3rd crewmember were never recovered.[7] In September 1962, the Department of Defense instituted a new aircraft designation system, discarding the legacy USN / USMC / USCG designation system and effectively transitioning all branches of the U.S. armed forces to the USAF aircraft designation system. As a result, the A3D-2 was redesignated as the A-3B Skywarrior.

Between August 1962 and January 1965, VAH-11 was divided into two units: one with six Skywarriors performing all the normal duties of a heavy attack squadron deploying aboard Fleet aircraft carriers, and the other taking up an operational readiness posture from other heavy attack squadrons while they converted from A-3Bs to the North American A-5A or RA-5C Vigilante. In turn, VAH-11 transitioned to the RA-5C Vigilante in April 1966 and was redesignated Reconnaissance Attack Squadron Eleven (RVAH-11), also known as RECONATKRON ELEVEN, in July 1966.[8][9]