286

UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995

1971-Continued

located at major pilot training bases. Public announce-

ment of the new single training command was made

on 21 July and became effective on 1 August.

29 June Light gull gray, Federal Standard Color No.

36440, applied to carrier aircraft was replaced with

glossy light gull gray Federal Standard Color No.

16440. This change was directed by MIL-C-18263F (AS)

of this date.

30 June During June in Vietnam, the realignment of

carriers continued as Midway departed Yankee Station

on 5 June, relieved by Kitty Hawk, and Oriskany com-

menced strike operations on 16 June. A total of 14

two-carrier days and 16 single-carrier days during the

month resulted in a monthly strike sortie count of

2,431. The Navy's strike sortie count for Fiscal Year

1971 thus came to 32,230 sorties, 172 under the annual

ceiling. June strike operations were under the influ-

ence of the southwest monsoons with attendant

clouds and rain.

7 July The last active duty A-I Skyraider, an NA-IE,

was retired. The aircraft, which had been assigned to

the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Md., and

was used in many test programs there, including slow

speed and ordnance release, was turned over to the

Confederate Air Force, Harlingen, Texas for museum

display.

13 July Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard

issued a new directive defining policy for acquisition

of major defense systems. Basically, Mr. Packard

sought to return authority to the military departments,

subject to approval by the Secretary of Defense, at key

points in the development acquisition process. Among

the various points of the policy were increased

emphasis upon the project manager (called program

manager in the DOD directive), reiteration of the

importance of maintaining a strong technology base,

and the definition of the entire development-acquisi-

tion process as three distinct phases: (1) program initi-

ation, (2) full-scale development, and (3)

production/deployment. The new directive empha-

sized the importance of making accurate cost predic-

tions and realistic schedule forecasts and of relating

the military benefits anticipated from a new technolo-

gy to the cost of the technology. To reduce the magni-

tude of risk, prototyping was to be part of the

advanced development effort; operational suitability of

a system was to be tested and evaluated before it was

committed to large scale production-thus the popular

description of the policy as "fly before buy."

24 July CVSGR-80 began ASW operations from

Ticonderoga. It was the first time in naval history

that the Naval Air Reserve had demonstrated the

capability for immediate employment of fleet-size

wings and groups, fully manned, properly equipped,

and operationally ready to perform all phases of carrier

operations.

26 July The Apollo 15 spacecraft was launched from

the Kennedy Space Center for a lunar mission. On 30

July the lunar module Falcon commanded by Colonel

David R. Scott, USAF, with Lieutenant Colonel James

B. Irwin, USAF, a Naval Academy graduate, class of

1951, separated from the command ship, Endeavor,

with Major Alfred M. Worden, USAF, and landed on

the moon in the Hadley-Apennine area. The crew

accumulated 66 hours, 55 minutes on the moon's sur-

face before they departed on 2 August. Five days later,

Okinawa, primary recovery ship for Task Force 130,

accomplished the recovery of the Apollo 15 crew after

splashdown in the Pacific. The mission was the first of

three moon flights geared directly to scientific investi-

gation and achieved far more than all the previous

lunar missions combined.

28 July HC-7 was awarded the Presidential Unit

Citation, the second Navy helicopter squadron to

receive the citation for duty in Vietnam. The other

helo squadron to win the award was HA(L)-3.

Operating from ships at sea on Yankee Station, HC-7

SAR detachments were credited with rescuing 76 U.S.

aviators from Vietnam waters. During the early stages

of the conflict, the squadron had made several over-

land rescues in NVN under intense enemy fire.

30 July In Vietnam, with Oriskany, Midway and

Enterprise serving intermittently on station, a total of

22 two-carrier days and nine single-carrier days result-

ed in a strike sortie count of 2,001. Strike operations

during the month of July were disrupted when the car-

riers on station evaded three different typhoons-

Harriet, Kim and Jean. A slight increase in SVN strike

sorties occurred during the month. These were mainly

visual strikes against enemy troop positions and in

support of U.S. helicopter operations.

30 July The Navy accepted the first operational

BQM-34E Firebee II aerial jet target. The Firebee II

had been developed by Ryan Aeronautical Company

under contract to the Naval Air Systems Command and

was designed to maneuver at greater speeds and alti-

tudes than the standard Firebee target previously in

use. Jet-powered, the remote-controlled target system

was rated at Mach 1.5, offering subsonic and super-

sonic mission capabilities.