The pictures of the rockets remind me of one of my more memorable flights as a test pilot in the Strike Ordnance branch at Patuxent River. One day the Ordnance Chief said he needed a favor from me. He had a bunch of 2.75" rockets that were reaching the end of their shelf life. If he did not expend them in the next week he would need to do a lot of extra paperwork to return them to the depot for destruction. So he asked: "Please, Lt. Eide, would you mind if we loaded up a a few rockets on an A-7 and asked you to expend them for us?" Needles to say I grudgingly agreed - no attack pilot ever turns down the chance to fire rockets.

At the preflight the next day I noted that his "few rockets" was four 19-shot pods for a total of 76 rockets. This was more than I had fired in the previous 3 years. So I launched over the Chesapeake Bay and spend the next hour firing rockets into an abandoned ship near Crisfield, MD which was our live ordnance target. I got lots of good hits; Hannibal target had dozens of more holes in it when I was done.

I had a great time. And all the fishing boats around Hannibal target seemed to enjoy the impromptu firepower demonstration.

Mike