The Strange Nuclear Attack Aircraft Coated with Gold

Engineered by the visionaries behind the P-51 Mustang, the North American A-5 Vigilante was America’s answer to the call for a supersonic nuclear bomber to dominate the skies during the Cold War.
Epitomizing technological extravagance with its titanium-armored General Electric J79 turbojet engines, pioneering digital flight computer, and gold-plated engine bays, the Vigilante was a monumental gamble of raw speed and atomic devastation packed into a single 15-ton powerhouse of a warplane.
Blasting off carrier decks with a thunderous 17,900 pounds of thrust per engine, this nuclear deterrence aircraft rewrote the playbook on speed and strength. Measuring a striking 76-foot nose to tail with a 53-foot wingspan, it carved through the heavens at a blistering 1,400 miles per hour.
Equipped with advanced fly-by-wire controls, a bomb-navigation system integrated into the pilot’s HUD, and innovative features like adjustable engine intakes, the A-5 aimed to revolutionize Cold War aviation and show the world that thanks to America’s ubiquitous Carrier fleets, no target on Earth was beyond its cataclysmic reach.
Yet, its lavish gold plating and pioneering avionics also marked it as a potential financial sinkhole. Worse still, a radical shift in military strategy in the ’60s put the Vigilante’s very survival in jeopardy. Like the P-51 Mustang before it, the A-5 faced a critical crossroads: it either showed its worth or faced oblivion…

[@jayhershey7525]

The RA5 was my favorite bird while I worked on the flight deck crew during the Vietnam War. She was just so sleek and beautiful!

[@Primus54]

The Vigilante, conceived in the mid-‘50s, is to this day one of the most strikingly beautiful jet aircraft ever to fly. Born in ‘54, I was very lucky to live under a downwind of what was then Port Columbus Airport where every Vigilante made flew its first flight. Until FAA changes, there were sonic booms regularly heard over Columbus. I also recall a couple of night test flights of the reconnaissance version flying over the city with its bright white strobe light flashing during photography.

[@TK199999]

The A-5 would go on to influence design of the MiG-25, F-14 and F-15.

[@geeknproud321]

It was the first to use a lot of tech that is common nowadays. Safe to say it influenced an entire generation of aircraft.

[@Wised1000]

And every other fighter since.

[@ekesamuel8795]

Gold plated engine bays... That's where Gordon Murray and the F1 comes in.

[@brucelamberton8819]

GREAT looking aircraft.

[@shenmisheshou7002]

While in the Marines, my F-4 squadron deployed aboard the USS Forestall, and this was the first time I had seen the A5 in person. When I was bored (which was a lot), I would go up on the island and watch the deck ops, and seeing the RA-5C operating off the cats and coming in on the slope was always a treat. While many find that F-4 to be beautiful, my own take on the Phantom was that it was one of the most menacing looking military jets ever to fly but not a plane I would call beautiful. The RA-5C though, was indeed a beautiful airplane. It was sleekly elegant when viewed from any angle, and graceful in flight.

[@cab6273]

The Vigilante first flew just 12 years after the end of WW2. Simply amazing

[@pixelnazgul]

Yes, what males can do when women (europe) leaves them alone.

[@J-RAD_notAnNpc]

"super savage" has got to be the most 80s thing we ever named one of our aircraft 😂

[@davidgraham4807]

I’m gonna say something…I think the video is well done. It is not an AI voice and the intricate details of the aircraft’s development is well discussed. I’m not privy to all the technical details, but the video captures my attention. Thanks

[@TheBagOfHolding]

It is an ai voice. 6:43 equipped

[@tommybrown9534]

​@@TheBagOfHoldinggood catch

[@Idahoguy10157]

B-58 Hustler was similar. High speed. High altitude. Nuclear weapon delivery

[@brucelamberton8819]

But can't compare to the "Vig" for beauty.

[@captjinxmarine9832]

a-5 always amazed me during Nam. She was so sleek and she made the f-4 look like dumbo.

[@gort8203]

OMG, the hyperbole overload.

[@ronjon7942]

Eek, yeah

[@J-RAD_notAnNpc]

That is one badass looking jet Edit: I'm not an aviation expert but I just realized my little brother had a model of this jet when we were kids. Our kids still play with it to this day. Pretty cool

[@GaryChurch-hi8kb]

With a twin tail instead of a single it becomes a big F-15.

[@BigAmp]

Very good looking machine maybe pushing the technological boundaries of her day just a bit too hard.

[@ccrider00]

Was a great plane, should of kept it around much longer, watched it fly at pt. Magu annual air shows mid 60's along with tigers (Blue Angels used it back then ) a-4 sky hawk, corsairs, and later phantoms, f-18 hornets!

[@billgund4532]

I can't help but wonder if the A5 had low altitude "penetration" abilities, it would've stayed around a bit longer.

[@gamingrus623]

Footage from the 1950s and 60s

[@KRW628]

"Equip ped"? "VEEgilante"?

[@TheBagOfHolding]

Ai voice

[@TheBagOfHolding]

The voice is artificial intelligence

[@KnOnHeavensDoor]

It has a fighter look to it . Beautiful jet .

[@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe]

Tizzard was the p51 mostly.

[@Make-Asylums-Great-Again]

It established a world altitude record of 91,450.8 feet (27,874.2 m) in an A3J Vigilante carrying a 1,000-kilogram payload, beating the previous record by over 4 miles (6.4 km). This new record held for more than 13 years

[@l3ulo]

F15+F111

[@dicknubbler6574]

Absolute A.I. garbage. Im so tired of these low effort channels poping up and only taking away from real creators.

[@ccrider00]

Sorry you dont like it so much mr. picky --- you're royal standards are just way over everyone's heads apparently, forge on! 🥴😖🤠💥👊

[@user-ih8fw7bu5p]

❤😂🎉😢😮😅

[@edcew8236]

Really inane writing and garbled facts. The Vigilante could actually be launched while the carrier was in port. You've got 64 subscribers? I'm not signing up to be #65.

[@Screenplayer2k]

Well Ed, you old curmudgeon, I have to say that sounds like good news for the other 64. PLS ADVS US YR OWN GENEROUS WELL RESEARCHED INFORMATIVE UTUBES RE. OBSCURE COLD WAR INITIATIVES SO WE CAN AGAIN THINK HIGHLY OF YOU. REGARDS, GUY - (AMERICAN BY CHOICE) And PROGRESSIVE - VOTING FOR ELIZABETH WARREN and KINSINGER in Nov.

[@dougball328]

Did you not listen to the video? The A model had zero wind across deck capability.

[@paulnejtek6588]

​@@Screenplayer2kno, he's right. You don't need your own channel to see a bad channel like this. If the other 64 (apparently 800 now) wanna be misinformed, well, ok

[@paulnejtek6588]

@@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe he's a trole, baht pruvokuhtour for being right? Look, first of all, as an MIT-educated engineer of .. aww, who the hell am i kidding? I ain't even graduated college yet.

[@paulnejtek6588]

@@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe "Yes, we'll market this song to young, impressionable and insecure teenage girls. Cuz all you gotta do is say "oh, baby, I love you" and "girl, I need you in my world." And now the token rap verse,... That doesn't make any sense, but it gets a small percentage of the urban music market. Whoa, shake that ass baby, baby. My rhymes are gettin' lazy, lazy.

[@pixelnazgul]

One of my most favorite. Mig-25 copied it. Maybe it's not useful in war, but it's useful in all other situations.

[@curiousgeorge5992]

Looks like almost a carbon copy of canada's avro arrow

[@scottsuttan2123]

hell ya a real strike aircraft unlike that shitty f14 mind you if the vigilante had a better weapons bay ....don't know what they were smoking

[@Mishn0]

They could have fixed the weapons delivery in time, but, the Polaris was better than the Vigi ever could be. So why waste the money?

[@scottsuttan2123]

@@Mishn0better how...to this day aircraft remain the number one

[@Mishn0]

@@scottsuttan2123 Aircraft are number three out of three in the United State's strategic nuclear triad. Unless you mean something else. The Vigilante was bought to give the Navy strategic nuclear capability so they could be important, like the Air Force. Before the Vigi could be fully debugged, the Navy got Polaris and didn't need the Vigi's nuclear mission in order to be a big boy, so they quit working on its nuclear delivery problems. That made it a solely recon aircraft (which it always had been as a secondary mission). And to answer your question, Polaris was longer ranged, harder to intercept and more accurate than the Vigi could ever have been. Not only that, but the SSBNs were harder to track and more difficult to kill than a CV or CVN. But, the Vigilante was prettier than Polaris.

[@stimpyfeelinit]

AI voice is so annoying

[@eileennavarrete9459]

It was brought to our attention 50 years ago putting our emblem where the pilot sits, easy target. 😂 Back to stupid huh. All this money spent on something we blow up.

[@timcameron9023]

taking a nuclear dump

[@karmpuscookie]

Not fly by wire.