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Photo courtesy of John R. Lewis
The radome on aircraft 64-0551 failed after a 1,500-
pound pickup. The program was suspended for a year
while a new, stronger radome was developed.
forces participating in a cross-training exercise
were resupplied. 96
Aircraft 64-0551 was deployed to LAS Ontario
for a Project 46 Phase III test from 8 August to 15
September. Over the previous two years, the test
effort had faced several delays, including one after
the failure of the aircraft’s nose radome during a
heavyweight recovery. The radome was redesigned,
strengthened, and installed on aircraft 64-
0551 for the 1989 test. The objective of Phase III
was to man-rate the Project 46 recovery system,
thus allowing live pickups under operational conditions.
Skip Davenport continued as the Project
46 aircraft commander and successfully picked
up a variety of packages over the course of the
test. With two-thirds of the test successfully completed,
a 1,500-pound heavyweight recovery was
attempted. During the initial stage of the recov -
ery, the sky anchor engaged the heavy lift line,
and the package came off the ground normally.
Moments later the sky anchor failed, and the
weight of the package stripped the line back
through the sky anchor. The package fell to the
hard surface of the Edwards AFB dry lake bed.
Investigation revealed that the sky anchor had
j-
Photo courtesy of author
Author (left) with Maj Skip Davenport, Edwards AFB
dry lake bed, the day prior to the sky anchor failure
that led to the cancellation of the program. Detachment
4 had painted the shark’s mouth on the radome for the
test. The radar had been removed in the event of another
radome failure.
failed internally, thus allowing the mechanism to
release the lift line. After the sky anchor failure,
the program was suspended, and no additional
Project 46 recoveries were attempted. The crew
returned to Hurlburt Field while the program’s
status was determined.
A thorough review of the Project 46 program
was conducted by Twenty-Third AF, USSOCOM,
and LAS Ontario test engineers during the fall of
1989. With an improved MH-53H Pave Low helicopter
capability and the programmed fielding of
the tilt-rotor JVX, USSOCOM decided to cancel
Project 46. Aircraft 64-0551 was eventually demodified
from the Project 46 configuration during a
scheduled PDM at LAS Ontario, and the capability
to extract four to six men, or up to 1,500 pounds of
equipment, passed into history. Project 46 marked
the last major effort by the Air Force to develop an
improved Fulton recovery capability. 97
Combat Talon II-designated aircraft 88-0195
and 88-1803 also were delivered to the Air Force
during 1989, thus bringing the number of delivered
C-130H aircraft to 18. As 1989 closed the
314